Abraham Piper is the Web Content Editor at Desiring God. He also blogs at 22 Words.

We've made a Facebook group again this year for those of you who are coming to our national conference or considering it.

We hope this virtual connection with others will help you get to know folks who will be here, so that when you meet in person this September your time at the conference will be even richer. (If you're unfamiliar with Facebook, it requires registration, but it's simple and free.)

We also hope that the videos we're releasing each week will encourage you and help you anticipate what we'll be hearing at the conference. Here are 4 more interview clips for you from some of the speakers.

Dan Taylor - How Stories and Faith Relate

Paul Tripp - Does God Care About Every Word We Speak?

Sinclair Ferguson - Acceptable Speech

Bob Kauflin - The Importance of Singing Truth

Learn more about this conference:

• John Piper's invitation
• Video Trailer
• Speakers
• Registration

If you're a blogger or otherwise interested in how we can spread the gospel and honor Christ online, I recommend considering a trip to Las Vegas this fall for GodBlogCon. Here are 5 reasons I think this could be beneficial for you:

1. The other attendees.

There are only a few events that gather Christian bloggers together in a real room rather than gathering at each other's websites. This physical facetime is invaluable for interacting at a truly personal level. Last year, fellowshipping with new acquaintances and meeting friends who I'd only interacted with online was the highlight of the conference for me.

2. The speakers.

The folks presenting at this conference will help us think deeply about how we use new media to honor Jesus in everything from how we do church to how we interact with Hollywood.

3. It's unique.

I know of no other conference specifically for Christians bloggers. If blogging is important—and I think it is—then events like GodBlogCon serve a valuable role in keeping us encouraged and on task.

(Of course, I'd be happy for my ignorance to be pointed out to me. If you know of other events like this one, let me know.)

4. It's still small.

As blogging becomes more mainstream, events like this will become more commonplace. This will have its advantages, of course, but for now, GodBlogCon is still the kind of conference where you can actually meet most the attendees and maybe even glean some wisdom from one of the speakers over a rack of ribs at a smoky casino a block off the Strip.

Which leads me to the fifth reason to consider coming to GodBlogCon...

5. It's in Vegas.

OK, I know that for almost everyone reading this, GodBlogCon being in Vegas is probably a reason to not come, but let me have a shot at giving it a positive spin for you.

The practical advantage of having the conference there is that it can be in conjunction with BlogWorld Expo, an "industry-wide tradeshow, conference, and media event dedicated to promoting the dynamic industry of blogging and new media." Registration to GodblogCon includes access to the tradeshow.

On a deeper level, the value in meeting in Vegas is because it is undesirable. The Christians who come to GodBlogCon could easily hide in their hotels and conference meeting-rooms, stuffing their uncharitable feelings toward Sin City. Or we could recognize that here we are, people who love Jesus, at the heart of a place where Jesus is ignored, if not worse.

What an influence we could have if we saw this as an opportunity to love Christ and those who need him! Along the Strip is every kind of sinner. Let's not forget that we Christians follow a man who would go out of his way to love and save these kinds of people—just like he did for you and me.

I'm excited for this conference—thinking, talking, eating, learning—and now, after writing this post, I don't even mind that it's in Vegas anymore.

This is a guest post from a friend of ours who is a missionary doctor working with Muslims. It is a part of his guest series, "Day-to-day Observations from Asia."

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On Shoob Bara'At, the local Muslims in our country go to the graveyards to pray for the dead, mostly family and friends. I asked my friend, "Well, could you pray for a non-Muslim on that night also? How about Jews, Christians, and Hindus?"

He thought for awhile, and then replied, "Well, I guess I could pray for a Christian or a Jew, since we worship the same God, but I don't think I could pray for a Hindu, since they pray to different gods."

He offered to pray for any dead relatives of mine that needed prayer, but I respectfully declined. 

As we were walking about, observing the rituals (which were surprisingly festive, considering the circumstances), we ran into a Muslim gravedigger who was about to start on a job.

When local Muslims bury the dead, they do not preserve the body in any way, but just wrap it in a simple white sheet, and put it in the ground. No headstone, just a pile of earth. And in a hot and moist climate such as this one, bodies disintegrate rapidly.

Since space is at such a huge premium in the mind-bogglingly crowded alleys of our fair city, they obviously have to bury on top of a place where someone else was buried before. So I asked the gravedigger how long he would wait, before he dug a fresh grave on a site where someone was buried previously.

He was a remarkably cheerful chap, given the soberness of his profession, and he happily replied, "Ten years, Doctor-Sahib. I have every space memorized in these graveyards [that's at least a thousand graves], and I know where I can bury someone. If I wait ten years, then there will be no bones or anything when I start digging anew."

I am not sure in which part of my brain I will file away that little factoid, but I am sure to not forget it.

Our national conference this year will deal with words and the different ways we use them to glorify God (or not).

Each week we will be posting several video clips from interviews that we did with the speakers. We hope that they will be helpful to you in and of themselves as well as give you a taste of what you'll hear if you come to this event.

Bob Kauflin - Why Does God Want Us to Sing?

Paul Tripp - What Is the War of Words?

Dan Taylor - The Significance of Stories

Sinclair Ferguson - How Will We Be Judged for Our Words?

Learn more about this conference:

• John Piper's invitation
• Video Trailer
• Speakers
• Registration

This is a guest post from a friend of ours who is a missionary doctor working with Muslims. It is a part of his guest series, "Day-to-day Observations from Asia."

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The other day, I stopped by the house of one of my Muslim friends. He informed me that his 19-year-old nephew was in the hospital and he asked me to come and look him over.

No problem. I’m a Physician. I get this a lot.

The nephew had gotten pretty banged up when he fell from a three-story building, hitting a few things on the way down. Most of the injuries were not alarming and already taken care of—scrapes, cuts, bruises. He had also broken his heel, which will probably take a couple of months in a cast to heal up.

But the main thing was a broken jawbone. The x-ray was impressive, with several breaks. The answer seemed obvious to me: he needed an operation to get his jaw wired shut.

Enter the negotiations.

As it turns out, the accident happened eight days ago. The family had already been told to get his jaw wired shut, but they were refusing to have the operation because they couldn't afford it.

In this country, you pay for your medical care with cash up front or else the doctor won't do it. Makes sense, otherwise nobody would get paid. So the family and the surgeon had been negotiating for eight days while the patient survived on sugar water in an IV drip.

Well, that's no good.

As I looked him over, he just seemed a little odd. He couldn't speak because of his injury, but he followed commands fine. Even so, he was not interacting normally. He didn’t look at me or his parents or his uncle; he mostly stared off into space. He didn’t even look at the pretty nurse who stopped by…. Now that is odd in a teenage boy. 

The next 30 minutes were taken up in an animated discussion of operations and costs and second opinions and so on. I finally left because it was time for me to get on to my next appointment.

I saw my friend the next day in his office and I mentioned that his nephew seemed a little odd. I asked whether his brain might have gotten hurt in the accident? My friend replied, "No, that is the way he has been since he was 12 years old, let me tell you a story..."

But then a customer came in and my friend discontinued the conversation about his nephew.

When I finally got him alone for a bit he told me that his nephew—when he was 12 years old—had been in the countryside, and had walked into a field to empty his bladder. He unknowingly voided on a Djinn, a Muslim spirit being. (They are different than angels, usually viewed as bad, but sometimes neutral or even good.) Therefore the Djinn had cursed him.

The curse was thus: once or twice a month, for 2 or 3 days at a time, the boy would stop functioning. He would just sit and stare straight ahead without speaking. He could eat and drink during these times, but otherwise would just sit for hours and stare.

Various doctors they had consulted had not helped, but the boy's mother (my friend’s sister) had a special Koranic prayer book she would chant a prayer from, and then blow them (literally) over her son. This usually worked.

In between the spells he seemed normal, finishing high school and now doing computer-based cloth design.

My secular friend asked me: "Do you believe in Djinn?"

I love this job. We talked awhile.

The next day, my friend asked me to see his nephew in his home.  (They had refused to have the operation, and the patient had been transferred home, complete with a massive round-the-head bandage to supposedly hold his jawbone in place while it healed.) He asked me if I could help with the spells.

But when we arrived, there was a crowd in the house, and my non-religious friend did not want me to talk about the ailment at that time.

Based on what Jesus said about the expelled evil spirit who wanders about and then returns to the house to find it empty and moves back in with seven of his friends, I was not sure that an exorcism would do any good yet. It seemed that this young man had a pretty empty house. Filling it with righteousness would be a first step, so that when the Djinn eventually gets expelled, it can't come back in.

After tea, we talked and prayed for healing, and I left them a copy of Psalm 1, and Psalm 42/43 (Hope in God!). I suggested that the boy meditate on this for awhile. I also recommended that the patriarch of the family approve of it before they started reading.

He said OK, with only a brief scanning. They were all gathered around reading aloud when I left.

So anyway, that's what I've done during my lunchtimes the last couple days. How about you?

You can now listen to John Piper's 2nd message at Resolved.

You can also read the manuscript he based this message on.

You can now listen to John Piper's first message at Resolved.

He spoke about hell, beginning with 5 things we need to believe about it:

1. It is eternal
2. It involves the suffering of those who are there.
3. It is conscious suffering.
4. God inflicts this suffering.
5. It is righteous.

Then he explained how hell is an echo of God's glory. And finally he made clear that no one can be saved simply by not wanting to go to hell.

There's no manuscript for this message, but you can read the sermon series that this message was based on. It includes much of the same content, including most of the quotes he used.

Registration is open for this Fall's conference. Read John Piper's invitation or watch the trailer:

Thanks to Jim for bringing this applicable clipping into work:

You can now listen to the Wheaton Alumni Symposium. The panel was Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and John Piper. They discussed changes in Evangelicalism over the last 40 years (the length of time since they all graduated from college).

It begins with a 10-minute intro from each; then there's some discussion among themselves; and it closes with some questions from the audience.

Watch John Piper talk about the new building we plan to move into this summer.

Read more about this project.

If you read even one blog regularly, RSS is for you. It will save you time, I promise.

Some of you may be wondering, "Doesn't everyone use RSS?" The answer is no; less than 6% of internet users take advantage of this extraordinarily helpful technology.

I've read lots of posts on what RSS is and how to use it, but they're limited in their helpfulness. There are just too many options out there to fully explain any one of them in a post that tackles RSS as a whole. So I am going to use the majority of this article to help non-RSS-users get started on Google Reader.

If you follow these instructions, you will be subscribed to your favorite sites and already saving time by the end of this article.

What Is RSS and Why Is It Worthwhile?

The acronym RSS stands for a couple things. The most helpful as far as a clear explanation of what it's for is "Real Simple Syndication."

RSS is a technology that allows you to subscribe to any website that has one of these in the address bar. You can then track every site you're subscribed to without having to go to each individual site.

If you're like me there are a couple websites that you love to read. Without RSS, I would be looking at these sites regularly to see if there were new material. Depending on how often I checked, I wouldn't see anything new most times I visited.

With RSS, I never again have to go to a site that has no new material. I subscribe to the sites I enjoy and am updated every time they post.

(This is especially helpful for keeping track of those bloggers who we want to read but who only post every 3 months.)

Why I'm Focusing on Google Reader

If you're not a current RSS-user and would like to be, my hope is that by the end of this article you'd have everything you need to begin. In order to do that, I need to pick one feedreader to show you how to use. ("Feedreaders" are the programs that people use to collect and manage their RSS subscriptions.)

I've chosen to use Google Reader for 3 reasons:

• It's free and available to everyone no matter what computer or browser you use.
• It is by far the most popular feedreader that's out there right now. On both the blogs I write for, Google subscribers are between 35-40% of the readership. The next most popular feedreader only claims about 5% of readers.
• It's really easy to use, so let's get started.

Setting Up Google Reader

Adding a Subscription in Google Reader

1. Select "Add Subscription" from the left column.
2. Type in the address of a blog you want to subscribe to and click "Add."

Adding a Subscription from Elsewhere Online

1. When you are visiting a site that you want to subscribe to, click on the orange icon in the address bar or on a link provided on the site.

You will either see a page like this:

Or like this:

2. On either page, select Google as the reader you want to subscribe with.
3. On the first page, you will need to click "Subscribe Now."
4. On either page, choose "Add to Google Reader."

Reading and Managing your Subscriptions

Reading Options

You now have a few of your favorite blogs listed in the left column of your Google reader page. The best way to go through your feeds is up to you. Here are some options.

• Home, at the top of the left column, is where you can see new, unread posts listed with just a few lines of content.
• All Items, just below "Home," is where you can see new, unread posts listed with all their content.
• Selecting an individual feed from the list in the left column allows you to see new posts as well as scroll down through older ones.

Scanning Options

In the upper right corner you will see tabs for "Expanded view" and "List view." These allow you to decide whether you see all content as you scroll through your feeds or just titles and the first few words.

Marking as Read

You will mark a post as read when you click on it. Scrolling through posts will also mark them as read, although you can turn this feature off in settings if you want to. Finally, if you want to mark all your new posts as read at once, you can do so at the top of the "All Items" page.

Unsubscribing

When you change your mind about being subscribed to a blog, you can unsubscribe by going to the settings in the upper right corner.

You're All Set!

As you poke around in Google Reader, I'm sure you'll find more nifty ways to improve your RSSing. But for now, you should have what you need to go blog wild.

(Of course, we'd love it if you subscribed to Desiring God.)

Happy reading!

(I originally published this article at my wife's blog. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments there, and I'll try to help.)

When we work as unto the Lord we serve others even more excellently than if serving them were our main goal. Working as unto the Lord does not mean serving God instead of other people.

Paul tells slaves to obey their masters—and not just to obey, but to obey in everything. It sounds absurd, but he explains:

Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men…. You are serving the Lord Christ.

So slaves should obey their masters completely (at least completely enough that Paul didn’t feel a need to qualify). Apparently complete obedience to their masters is a key part of how they really serve Jesus, not their masters.

They serve Jesus by working even better than they already are for a person they’re not actually, in the end, even working for.

This command to slaves comes after a list of specific examples of other ways to live “as for the Lord and not for men”:

• Wives, submit to your husbands.
• Husbands, love your wives.
• Children, obey your parents.
• Fathers, don’t provoke your kids.

Obeying the parts of that list that apply to us is what it looks like for us to live for God and not for other people. But who is being immediately influenced and served by this obedience to God?

Other people.

• When wives submit to their husbands for the Lord who benefits? Husbands.
• When husbands love their wives for the Lord who benefits? Wives.
• When children obey their parents for the Lord who benefits? Parents.
• When fathers encourage their kids for the Lord who benefits? Kids.
• When slaves obey their masters for the Lord who benefits? Masters.

Do these beneficiaries deserve our submission, love, obedience, encouragement, or work? Not always.

But we’re not doing it for them. We do it for the Lord.

We serve God by serving others. We love him by loving others.

We are not standing in the middle of two masters with each calling our name. We do not have to turn our backs on one to follow the other.

No, God stands on the far side of the other people in our lives. We can only reach out to him if we reach out to them. We live for them to live for him.

They’ll receive blessing and we’ll receive Jesus.

Visit the new website for the ESV Study Bible and learn more about this exciting new edition of the best old book.

John Piper:

The ESV is a dream come true for me. The rightful heir to a great line of historic translations, it provides the continuity and modern accuracy I longed for. Now the scope and theological faithfulness of the ESV Study Bible study notes is breathtaking. Oh how precious is the written Word of God.

Mark Driscoll:

The ESV Study Bible is the most important resource that has been given to the emerging generation of Bible students and teachers. The ESV Study Bible is the best. Period.

Joni Eareckson Tada:

The definitive clarity and beauty of the ESV Study Bible is extraordinary. In a world where words are distorted to mean anything, it is wonderful to have complete confidence in the reliability and truth of the Bible—so clearly and persuasively demonstrated by this world-class team of Bible scholars and teachers. For everyone who wants to understand God’s word in a deeper way, the ESV Study Bible is an outstanding resource. I will be an avid user!

Randy Alcorn:

Wow! Concise, lucid, enlightening—the ESV Study Bible is an amazing resource. With its textual fidelity, doctrinal substance, and artistic beauty, the ESV Study Bible will be an immense help to all who hunger for God-breathed Scripture. I wholeheartedly recommend this exceptional resource.

C. J. Mahaney:

I can’t imagine a greater gift to the body of Christ than the ESV Study Bible. It is a potent combination indeed: the reliability and readability of the ESV translation, supplemented by the best of modern and faithful scholarship, packaged in an accessible and attractive format. A Christian could make no wiser investment for himself, a pastor could recommend no better resource for his congregation.

I often justify my anger by telling myself that I’m not like the person I’m angry at. If someone gives me the finger for no good reason while I’m driving, I instantly feel like I have a right to be mad, because I would never treat anyone that way.

I feel justified in my frustration at that rude driver, because I don’t flip people off when they tick me off. So I must be a better person, right? And if I’m a better person, I can rightly judge that driver for his wrongdoing, can’t I?

Of course, I know I sin in some ways, but I don’t sin the same as that driver. So when it comes to his sins, I have every right to be critical of him. We’re different.

But Jesus disagrees.

In the story of him saving the adulteress from being stoned, he didn’t say, “Let him who has never committed adultery be the first to throw a stone at her.”

If he had, she would’ve been quickly pounded by numerous self-justified stones, because surely most of the crowd hadn’t sinned like this woman had.

But no, Jesus doesn’t seem to rank sins like we do. He says, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

He seems to have two categories in this story: perfect and not perfect. So what Jesus really suggests is, if you are in the latter category, what in the world do you think you’re doing judging other people who are also imperfect just like you?

The fact that I’m imperfect in a different way—that I don’t sin the same as the guy who gave me the old highway salute—is totally irrelevant to Jesus. As long as I’m any kind of sinner, no matter how benign my faults might seem, I am still just that—a sinner, the same as an adulteress or a gesticulatively angry driver.

There is only one place I belong, and it’s not standing with stones in my fists, threatening someone else in the “not perfect” category. No, the only place I belong is crouching in hope at the feet of Jesus with the adulteress, and hopefully, with that other guy on the interstate, too.

Listen to John Piper's first message at the New Word Alive Conference in Wales. Adrian Warnock posts notes.

Update: The second message is now available, too.

In this article I want to convince as many pastors as possible to sit down and start a blog today. If I can’t convince them, then I want to convince churchgoers to hound their pastor until he does.

OK, all that’s overstatement, perhaps. You can still be a good pastor and not blog.

However, here’s why I think it would be good for you and your congregation if you did.

Pastors should blog…

1. …to write.

If you’re a pastor, you probably already know the value writing has for thinking. Through writing, you delve into new ideas and new insights. If you strive to write well, you will at the same time be striving to think well.

Then when you share new ideas and new insights, readers can come along with you wherever your good writing and good thinking bring you.

There is no better way to simply and quickly share your writing than by maintaining a blog. And if you’re serious about your blog, it will help you not only in your thinking, but in your discipline as well, as people begin to regularly expect quality insight from you.

2. …to teach.

Most pastors I’ve run into love to talk. Many of them laugh at themselves about how long-winded they’re sometimes tempted to be.

Enter Blog.

Here is where a pastor has an outlet for whatever he didn’t get to say on Sunday. Your blog is where you can pass on that perfect analogy you only just thought of; that hilarious yet meaningful story you couldn’t connect to your text no matter how hard you tried; that last point you skipped over even though you needed it to complete your 8-point acrostic sermon that almost spelled HUMILITY.

And more than just a catch-all for sermon spill-over, a blog is a perfect place for those 30-second nuggets of truth that come in your devotions or while you’re reading the newspaper. You may never write a full-fledged article about these brief insights or preach a whole sermon, but via your blog, your people can still learn from them just like you did.

3. …to recommend.

With every counseling session or after-service conversation, a pastor is recommending something. Sometimes it’s a book or a charity. Maybe it’s a bed-and-breakfast for that couple he can tell really needs to get away. And sometimes it’s simply Jesus.

With a blog, you can recommend something to hundreds of people instead of just a few. Some recommendations may be specific to certain people, but that seems like it would be rare. It’s more likely to be the case that if one man asks you whether you know of any good help for a pornography addiction, then dozens of other men out there also need to know, but aren’t asking.

Blog it.

Recommendation, however, is more than pointing people to helpful things. It’s a tone of voice, an overall aura that good blogs cultivate.

Blogs are not generally good places to be didactic. Rather, they’re ideal for suggesting and commending. I’ve learned, after I write, to go back and cut those lines that sound like commands or even overbearing suggestions, no matter how right they may be. Because if it’s true for my audience, it’s true for me, so why not word it in such a way that I’m the weak one, rather than them?

People want to know that their pastor knows he is an ordinary, imperfect human being. They want to know that you’re recommending things that have helped you in your own weakness. If you say, “When I struggled with weight-loss, I did such-and-such,” it will come across very differently than if you say, “Do such-and-such if you’re over-weight…”

If you use your blog to encourage people through suggesting and commending everything from local restaurants to Jesus Christ, it will complement the biblical authority that you rightly assume when you stand behind the pulpit.

4. …to interact.

There are a lot of ways for a pastor to keep his finger on the pulse of his people. A blog is by no means necessary in this regard. However, it does add a helpful new way to stay abreast of people’s opinions and questions.

Who knows what sermon series might arise after a pastor hears some surprising feedback about one of his 30-second-nuggets-of-truth?

5. …to develop an eye for what is meaningful.

For good or ill, most committed bloggers live with the constant question in their mind: Is this bloggable? This could become a neurosis, but I’ll put a positive spin on it: It nurtures a habit of looking for insight and wisdom and value in every situation, no matter how mundane.

If you live life looking for what is worthwhile in every little thing, you will see more of what God has to teach you. And the more he teaches you, the more you can teach others. As you begin to be inspired and to collect ideas, you will find that the new things you’ve seen and learned enrich far more of your life than just your blog.

6. …to be known.

This is where I see the greatest advantage for blogging pastors.

Your people hear you teach a lot; it’s probably the main way that most of them know you. You preach on Sundays, teach on Wednesdays, give messages at weddings, funerals, youth events, retreats, etc.

This is good—it’s your job. But it’s not all you are. Not that you need to be told this, but you are far more than your ideas. Ideas are a crucial part of your identity, but still just a part.

You’re a husband and a father. You’re some people’s friend and other people’s enemy. Maybe you love the Nittany Lions. Maybe you hate fruity salad. Maybe you struggle to pray. Maybe listening to the kids’ choir last weekend was—to your surprise—the most moving worship experience you’ve ever had.

These are the things that make you the man that leads your church. They’re the windows into your personality that perhaps stay shuttered when you’re teaching the Bible. Sometimes your people need to look in—not all the way in, and not into every room—but your people need some access to you as a person. A blog is one way to help them.

You can’t be everybody’s friend, and keeping a blog is not a way of pretending that you can. It’s simply a way for your people to know you as a human being, even if you can’t know them back. This is valuable, not because you’re so extraordinary, but because leadership is more than the words you say. If you practice the kind of holiness that your people expect of you, then your life itself opened before them is good leadership—even when you fail.

Conclusion

For most of you, anything you post online will only be a small piece in the grand scheme of your pastoral leadership. But if you can maintain a blog that is both compelling and personal, it can be an important small piece.

It will give you access to your people’s minds and hearts in a unique way by giving them a chance to know you as a well-rounded person. You will no longer be only a preacher and a teacher, but also a guy who had a hard time putting together a swing-set for his kids last weekend. People will open up for you as you open up like this for them. Letting people catch an honest glimpse of your life will add authenticity to your teaching and depth to your ministry,

* * *

To help you take the next step:

• Video: Blogs in Plain English
• Better Blog-Writing
• Get started at Wordpress
• Get started at Blogger

If this article has at all piqued your interest in blogging and you’ll be attending Together for the Gospel in a couple weeks, why not join us at the Band of Bloggers meeting? Non-bloggers who are interested in starting to blog are welcome.

They’ve extended registration a couple days, so there’s still time to sign up.

There were three kinds of people present when Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Two were real, and one was only in Jesus' imagination.

The two real groups:

1. “The whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen” (Luke 19:37).
2. “Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples’” (Luke 19:39).

Disciples and Pharisees—all part of Jesus’ welcome party, but with very different goals. The disciples could not help but rejoice (some of them ignorantly) at Israel’s imminent salvation. The Pharisees were there to shut these happy people up. And, failing at that, to at least add to their list of grievances against Christ. (When you are motivated by anger, isn’t it fulfilling to find one more thing to be self-righteously indignant about?)

Then there was a third group of people—not actually present, but entirely possible.

When the Pharisees, trying to stifle the jubilation they were jealous of, tell Jesus to quiet his fans, he says that even if he did, the joy would still resound from the gravel they’re standing on.

This third group of people is in Jesus’ imagination—they are only hypothetical. They’re stones, after all—hard, dead, useless except to walk on, and ignored by all but Jesus.

But there’s something unique about Jesus’ imagination, isn’t there? Unlike you or me, he can speak and make his ideas real. He can hypothesize singing stones (a rock band, perhaps?) and then make them come to be with just a word.

The joy that reverberated through Jerusalem with each Hosanna that morning was enough, apparently, to keep Jesus from raising the stones to praise him. But soon many of those voices turned from commending to condemning and began to call out “Crucify him!”

And as Jesus promised, when those voices of praise were silenced, people like you and me began to be raised from our stony stiffness and death. We were enlivened to join in the joy that must be expressed, the joy that is spreading from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth and continues to turn hard hearts into a cobbled choir of praise and life.