The video from the Friday night message John Piper gave at Mars Hill Church last month is now available. You can download it or watch it right here in your browser:

As mentioned a couple weeks ago, the Sunday morning message he gave at Mars Hill—"Be Killing Sin or Sin Will Be Killing You"—is also available. In fact, I'll just embed it here too:

There. Thanks so much to Mars Hill Church and The Resurgence for processing and making all this media accessible!

The BBC reported recently, concerning the recent revelations of more sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, "It is like a tsunami." Elke Huemmeler said “About 120 cases had come to light so far in Munich, about 100 of them at a boarding school run by monks.”

Hans Küng, long-time Roman Catholic critic of his own church (whose right to teach theology the church rescinded), has posted a challenge to the Pope. In it he says, “In Germany 86 percent of Roman Catholics charge the church's leadership with insufficient willingness to come to grips with the problem.”

Then he asks and answers these four questions:

1st Question: Why does the pope continue to assert that what he calls "holy" celibacy is a "precious gift", thus ignoring the biblical teaching that explicitly permits and even encourages marriage for all office holders in the Church?

2nd Question: Is it true, as Archbishop Zollitsch insists, that "all the experts" agree that abuse of minors by clergymen and the celibacy rule have nothing to do with each other?

3rd Question: Instead of merely asking pardon of the victims of abuse, should not the bishops at last admit their own share of blame?

4th Question: Is it not time for Pope Benedict XVI himself to acknowledge his share of responsibility, instead of whining about a campaign against his person? No other person in the Church has had to deal with so many cases of abuse crossing his desk.

He concludes quoting Bishop Tebartz van Elst of Limburg, “Conversion and repentance begin when guilt is openly admitted, when contrition is expressed in deeds and manifested as such, when responsibility is taken, and the chance for a new beginning is seized upon.”

HT: Carl Trueman

In chapter 7 of Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper challenges us to live in a way that proves that Jesus—not money or possessions—is our treasure. He argues that Jesus calls us to a wartime lifestyle and a hazardous liberality (like in Mark 12:42-44). Consequently, one of the core values of Desiring God is Radical Generosity.

Desiring God seeks to partner with ministries that share this value, ministries like Come&Live!. Come&Live! exists to live simply and give generously. Their mission is “to establish the kingdom of God within a community of musicians.” They give away all of their music to display radical generosity. Fans are encouraged to share and copy their music.

There are several ways you can partner with Come&Live! to help them accomplish their mission:

• Become a prayer partner that will lift them up regularly.
• Join them for FastFriday.
• Purchase music and shirts at their online store.
• Give to the general needs of Come&Live! and help them produce more music.

Today is David Livingstone’s birthday. He was born March 19, 1813. He gave his life to serve Christ in the exploration of Africa for the sake of the access of the gospel.

On December 4, 1857, he spoke the sentence that has made the greatest impact on me. It is one of the clearest applications I have seen of Jesus’ words in Mark 10:29-30. Jesus said,

Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

Here is what Livingstone said to the Cambridge students about his “leaving” the benefits of England:

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. . . . Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.

(Cited in Samuel Zwemer, "The Glory of the Impossible" in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, Ralph Winter and Stephen Hawthorne, eds. [Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1981], p. 259. Emphasis added.)

Read this very brief article in the China Daily (China's official English language newspaper). It's the testimony of a university student who converted to Christianity.

Now if you've been following China for any length of time you might be picking your jaw up off the floor. Get this: 

• The official and highly controlled newspaper of the Communist government is featuring a story of a religious conversion of an exceptionally bright university student who found meaninglessness in existence apart from God. 
• He was given a Bible by a colleague, and the reader is not led to believe this is a bad thing. 
• He converted to Christ after reading it and now is experiencing fulfillment. 
• And he's now happily attending an unregistered church (i.e house church).  

Whoa.

We know the church is unregistered because yesterday the China Daily ran an article on house churches that are thriving in Beijing and featured that church. In fact, this particular unregistered church has actually been allowed to purchase property for a church building. 

This doesn't discount the fact that persecution still occurs in China. But we need to let this news soak in. This little article is huge. God is doing something incredible in that great nation.

Keep praying.

A Song for Molly and Abraham
On Seeing Baby A and Baby B

We cried,
“How long, O Lord, how long
   will we be made to wait, and swallow jagged shards
      of that unchristened chalice
         of whose warm wine we never took a taste
            and all we drank was emptiness unplanned?”

And he replied,
“Until you learn the song
   that only sorrow sings, of how my soul regards
      your ev’ry wound, and malice
         has no place in my design, but all is paced
            to come with double blessings in my hand.”

Don’t limit your understanding of God’s absolute sovereignty to five points in a mnemonic device (TULIP). Do start there, or at least cover that terrain in due course, but know that there is so much more to the full biblical worldview sometimes called Calvinism.

In the introductory essay that I referred to yesterday, J. I. Packer says, “it would not be correct to simply equate Calvinism with the ‘five points.’” He continues, (paragraphing added)

Calvinism is something much broader than the “five points” indicate.

Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world’s Maker and King.

Calvinism is the consistent endeavour to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of His will.

Calvinism is a theocentric way of thinking about all life under the direction and control of God’s own Word.

Calvinism, in other words, is the theology of the Bible viewed from the perspective of the Bible—the God-centred outlook which sees the Creator as the source, and means, and end, of everything that is, both in nature and in grace.

Calvinism is thus theism (belief in God as the ground of all things), religion (dependence on God as the giver of all things), and evangelicalism (trust in God through Christ for all things), all in their purest and most highly developed form.

And Calvinism is a unified philosophy of history which sees the whole diversity of processes and events that take place in God’s world as no more, and no less, than the outworking of His great preordained plan for His creatures and His church.

The five points assert no more than that God is sovereign in saving the individual, but Calvinism, as such, is concerned with the much broader assertion that He is sovereign everywhere.

Read Packer's full essay.

In his introductory essay to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, J. I. Packer writes that Calvinism and Arminianism are “two coherent interpretations of the biblical gospel, which stand in evident opposition to each other. The difference between them is not primarily one of emphasis, but of content.”

Packer continues, (paragraphing added)

One proclaims a God who saves; the other speaks of a God who enables man to save himself.

One view presents the three great acts of the Holy Trinity for the recovering of lost mankind—election by the Father, redemption by the Son, calling by the Spirit—as directed towards the same persons, and as securing their salvation infallibly.

The other view gives each act a different reference (the objects of redemption being all mankind, of calling, those who hear the gospel, and of election, those hearers who respond), and denies that any man’s salvation is secured by any of them.

The two theologies thus conceive the plan of salvation in quite different terms.

One makes salvation depend on the work of God, the other on a work of man; one regards faith as part of God’s gift of salvation, the other as man’s own contribution to salvation; one gives all the glory of saving believers to God, the other divides the praise between God, who, so to speak, built the machinery of salvation, and man, who by believing operated it.

Plainly these differences are important, and the permanent value of the “five points,” as a summary of Calvinism, is that they make clear the points at which, and the extent to which, these two conceptions are at variance.

Psalm 58 is an imprecatory psalm. David asks God to tear out the fangs of his enemies, blunt their arrows, melt them like a snail in the sun.

We sometimes stumble at these psalms because Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27).

Can humble, obedient, loving Christians ever pray Psalm 58 and mean it the way the psalmist did?

Yes. Here is one possible scenario.

The wicked in view “deal out violence on the earth” (v. 2). They have resisted every remedial effort. They are entrenched and unwilling to listen—like cobras who stop their ears lest they be charmed into meekness (vv. 4-5).

So day after day their violence destroys the poor and the weak. Now there are two groups to be loved: the slaughterers and the about-to-be-slaughtered.

You see them coming to your town with their machetes. They have hacked hundreds of women and children to pieces in previous towns. They are terrifying to watch. What do you pray?

Of course you desire that they lay down their machetes, repent, and become your brothers. You have prayed that many times. You may have risked your life to offer that. But now fierce violence is in their eyes and they are about to chop the hands and legs off the children, and disembowel the women.

How does love for the women and children pray? It may well pray ,

Knock the fangs out of their mouths, O Lord (v. 6). May they disburse like water running away (v. 7a). May their machetes be dull and never find their mark (v. 7b). May the rising sun melt them like a snail, too slow to do its deadly work (v.8a). May they arrive at the house of the innocent like a stillborn child (v. 8b). O God, save the poor from the violence of the wrong.

And what if God answers? What if, by some amazing intervention, instead of dismembered babies, the violent themselves lie fallen in the street?

What will the righteous do? They will rejoice (v. 10). The red blood of those who slaughtered the innocent will be like the sunrise on a day of deliverance. The righteous will bask in its warmth (v. 10b).

And, if they have eyes to see, the world will say, “Surely there is a God who judges on earth” (v. 11). The innocent have been well loved.

When it says the righteous rejoice at the destruction of the enemy (v. 10a), it does not say what else they may feel. There may be sorrow as well—human beings in the image of God had destroyed and been destroyed—both horrible. It is possible to rejoice and weep over the same event.

It is easy to dehumanize those who are different than us, especially those who are different in ways that make us feel uncomfortable. Our artist friends at Revolutionary Media of Portland, OR have made a provocative book to remind us about the personhood of the homeless.

It's called Dear World, and they are offering it as a free download from now until April 11th as part of a greater call to action.

What is Dear World?

Full of stories, examples, thoughts, inspirations, and challenges of how the body of Christ can begin to live as Jesus lived, and reach out to those in our very own communities, Dear World contains excerpts of letters written by the street community to the world. Readers will meet Miranda—a former meth addict who has found healing and restoration. They will meet Jeremiah, a young man who, like many Americans, misjudged the economic stability and lost it all. Their stories are paired with their portraits, and readers are given an eye-opening view of what life is really like on the street—and how we can help people stay off it.

What is the call to action?

1. Download - Download Dear World and tell your world about it. Retweet the link, or place it in your Facebook status.
2. Do Something - After you read Dear World, do something to help the homeless. The ideas are endless. Whether you take a homeless person to lunch and hear their story, write your senator, or volunteer at a soup kitchen, the goal is the same. Get out of your comfort zone to help someone else.
3. Document your story with words and or photos, then email it to info@TheRevMediaProject.com. We will post all the stories that come in to encourage and inspire others to affect this issue.
4. Discover - Revolutionary Media is offering prizes to 3 of the stories received. These three stories must encompass the heart of reaching out as Jesus' hands and feet. The 3 prizes include: a hard-bound copy of Dear World [valued at $65], a softcover of Dear World [valued at $45], and two Dear World posters [valued at $20].

According to the New York Times “The Tea Party leaders . . . deliberately avoid discussion of issues like . . . abortion. . . . [They] argue that the country can ill afford the discussion about social issues when it is passing on enormous debts to future generations.”

Let me see if I understand this term “ill afford”.

Is this it? Enormous debt will hurt our children and grandchildren. Therefore don’t talk about the lawfulness of whether they can be killed.

Something like that?

We are rejoicing this week in the Lord’s provision for our Creole resource project for Haiti.  Many of you have responded and we have met our goal of raising $20,000 to fully fund this publication. Thank you for your partnership!

Read about our work to create and print a translation of the For Your Joy booklet for Haiti.

Many of our partners are currently engaged in humanitarian and church-strengthening work in the country after the devastating earthquake. They have come to us asking for a translated resource to help them bring the gospel together with their work in relief and development for the region. So far 57,000 have been requested.

If you or your organization are active in Haiti, please let us know if you’d like to request bulk copies.

Pray for the wounded and those who have lost family members. Pray for the many Christians and ministries currently working there. Meeting the deep spiritual, social, and physical needs of Haiti will require transformation of hearts, churches, and communities. Ours and theirs.

Some books are for tasting regularly, not reading through once. One such book is Wise Counsel: John Newton's Letters to John Ryland Jr. edited by Grant Gordon (Banner of Truth, 2009). Newton was the former slave-trader turned pastor, and the author of “Amazing Grace”. The flavor of his ministry is such that frequent tastes are better than rare gulps.

I hope that he and you and I shall all so live, as to be missed a little when we are gone. But the Lord standeth not in need of sinful man. And he sometimes takes away his most faithful and honoured ministers in the midst of their usefulness, perhaps [for this reason] among others, that he may show us he can do without them. . . . Blessed is the servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing, with his loins girded up, and his lamp burning. (p. 280)

Last year DG International Outreach initiated a project that involves providing a small theological library for 16,000 French-speaking pastors in Africa.

We partnered with Éditions Clé and SIM to translate the book Battling Unbelief into French so it could become part of this set.

The translation work is complete and the funding is halfway.

Please pray for and consider supporting SIM so that African pastors who lack sound biblical resources can grow in their understanding of the truth and be equipped to teach their congregations.

Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead—if you can call it that—continues to move me, months after I read it. I have waited to comment on it since I knew it would be around for decades (centuries?). I wanted to let it ripen in my memory.

Rev. John Ames is dying. The book is a kind of last testament he would like his young son to read when he is twenty-five, long after his father is dead. His voice is still with me.

So I went back to gather a few treasures. Gilead is not a "must read.” There are no “must reads” but the Bible. None.

So how do you choose what to read before you die and give an account to Jesus? I do it largely by what is awakened in me when I read samples. I hope these help. Some of the treasures.

He’d walk fifteen miles across open country in the dead of winter to settle a point of interpretation. We’d have to thaw him out before he could tell us what it was he had on his mind. (p. 16)

Existence seems to me now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined. (p. 53)

You two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water. (p. 63)

In my present situation, now that I am about to leave this world, I realize there is nothing more astonishing than a human face. (p. 66)

Each morning I’m like Adam waking up in Eden, amazed at the cleverness of my hands and at the brilliance pouring into my mind through my eyes—old hands, old eyes, old mind, a very diminished Adam altogether, and still it is just remarkable. What of me will I still have? Well, this old body has been a pretty good companion. Like Balaam’s ass, it’s seen the angel I haven’t seen yet, and it’s lying down in the path. (pp. 66-67)

I have always liked the phrase “nursing a grudge,” because many people are tender of their resentments, as of the thing nearest their hearts. (p. 117)

Presumably the world exists for God’s enjoyment, not in any simple sense, of course, but as you enjoy the being of a child even when he is every way a thorn in your heart. (pp. 124-125)

At my time of life, I refuse to be angry. It was kindly meant. And it had to be done sooner or later. It’s true that if I have to spend my twilight stranded with somebody or other, I’d prefer Karl Barth to Jack Benny. (p. 128)

Boughton says he has more ideas about heaven every day. He said, “Mainly I just think about the splendors of the world and multiply by two. I’d multiply by ten or twelve if I had the energy. But two is much more than sufficient for my purposes.” So he is just sitting there multiplying the feel of the wind by two, multiplying the smell of the grass by two. (p. 147)

Adulthood is a wonderful thing, and brief. (p. 166)

But the fact is, I have never found another way to be as honest with myself as I can be by consulting with these miseries of mine, these accusers and rebukers, God bless them all. So long as they do not kill me outright. I do hope to die with a quiet heart. I know that may not be realistic. (p. 179)

And she kissed me on the top of the head, which, for her, was downright flamboyant. (p. 186)

We human beings do real harm. History could make a stone weep. (p. 190)

He could knock me down the stairs and I would have worked out the theology for forgiving him before I reached the bottom. But if he harmed you in the slightest way, I’m afraid theology would fail me. (p. 190)

It is true that we all do live in the ruins of the lives of other generations. (p. 198)

My heart was very heavy. There was Boughton sitting in his Morris chair staring at nothing. Glory told me the only words he had said all day were “Jesus never had to be old!” (p. 236)

It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health. (p. 238)

It was truly a dreadful thing he was doing, leaving his father to die without him. It was the kind of thing only his father would forgive him for. (p. 240)

There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient. (p. 243)

“He will wipe the tears from all faces.” It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required. (p. 246)

This whole town does look like whatever hope becomes after it begins to weary a little, then weary a little more. But hope deferred is still hope. I love this town. I think sometimes of going into the ground here as a last wild gesture of love—I too will smolder away the time until the great and general incandescence. (pp. 246-247)

This July Baker Books will be releasing Jesus: The Only Way to God, a short paperback by John Piper on the need for people to hear and believe the name of Jesus in order to be saved.

You can buy one (or more) from us in advance at the special price of just $4.99 each. Just call 888.346.4700 on a weekday between 8 and 5pm Central Time. We'll ship your order in July, immediately after they come in.

Here's the blurb:

If the evangelical church at large was ever too confrontational in its evangelism, those days are gone. In our shrinking, pluralistic world, the belief that Jesus is the only way of salvation is increasingly called arrogant and even hateful. In the face of this criticism, many shrink back from affirming the global necessity of knowing and believing in Jesus.

In Jesus: The Only Way to God, John Piper offers a timely plea for the evangelical church to consider what is at stake in surrendering the unique, universal place of Jesus in salvation.

Suspected Islamist militants stormed an office of a U.S.-based, Christian aid agency [World Vision] in Pakistan on Wednesday, killing six Pakistani aid workers after singling them out and then blowing up the building. (Read full article from Reuters)

From the World Vision website:

Please pray for World Vision's staff members in Pakistan, and the friends and loved ones of those who were attacked. Pray for God's protection on our workers there, and pray that our relief and development efforts in this country can continue soon.

On September 13, 1980, Charles Malik gave an address called “The Two Tasks” at the opening of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. He was the Lebanese Ambassador to the United States. The message was so seminal that in 2006 (his centenary) it was republished with a collection of essays built around it. What strikes us as he stands to speak is the personal dimension and the public scope of his Christian commitment.

I speak to you as a Christian. Jesus Christ is my Lord and God and Savior and Song day and night. I can live without food, without drink, without sleep, without air, but I cannot live without Jesus. Without him I would have perished long ago. Without him and his church reconciling men to God, the world would have perished long ago. I live in and on the Bible for long hours every day. The Bible is the source of every good thought and impulse I have. In the Bible God himself, the Creator of everything from nothing, speaks to me and to the world directly, about himself, about ourselves, and about his will for the course of events and for the consummation of history. And believe me, not a day passes without my crying from the bottom of my heart, ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’

Charles Malik (1906-1987), Lebanon's ambassador to the USA (1945-55), President of the UN General Assembly (1958-59), professor of philosophy at the American University of Beirut (1962-76). Quoted from “The Two Tasks” in The Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar: Redeeming the Soul, Redeeming the Mind, eds. William Lane Craig and Paul M. Gould (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2007), p. 55.

D. A. Carson's new book Scandalous just arrived in our mailbox from Crossway. As you can see in the image above, the title is written in woodgrain letters spattered with blood, illustrating the scandal (and the subtitle): The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus.

This relatively little book has five chapters, each one eyeing the scandal through a particular passage of Scripture:

1. The Ironies of the Cross: Matthew 27:27-51a
2. The Center of the Whole Bible: Romans 3:21-26
3. The Strange Triumph of a Slaughtered Lamb: Revelation 12
4. A Miracle Full of Surprises: John 11:1-53
5. Doubting the Resurrection of Jesus: John 20:24-31

If you're looking for some reading to help prepare your heart and mind for Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday next month, this looks like a great choice.

Check out Crossway's Scandalous page for more, such as browsing the entire book online or downloading a sample.

Mars Hill Church has posted the Sunday morning sermon John Piper gave there last week: "Be Killing Sin or Sin Will Be Killing You."

Today's Ask Pastor John answers a question closely related to Piper's post this morning: What happens to infants who die?

Watch his answer, or read the transcript below. (You can also download the video or download the audio).

For more on this subject, see our article "What happens to infants who die?"

The following is an edited transcript.

What happens to infants who die?

I think they're all saved. In other words, I don't buy the principle that says that children born into "covenant families" are secure, and children born into "non-covenant families" aren't. I don't go there.

My reason for thinking they're all saved is because of the principle in Romans 1 where Paul argues that all people know God, and they are "without excuse" because they do not honor him or glorify him as God.

His argument is that they are without excuse because they know things, as though accountability in the presence of God at the Last Judgment will be based, at least partly, on whether they had access to necessary knowledge.

And God says they've all got access to knowledge, because they can look at the things he has made and see his power and deity. But they suppress that knowledge instead of submitting to it, therefore they're all condemned.

So I ask the question: OK, is the principle being raised there that, if you don't have access to the knowledge that causes you to be held accountable, therefore you will not be accountable? And I think that's the case.

I think babies and imbeciles—that is, those with profound mental disabilities—don't have access to the knowledge that they will be called to account for. Therefore, somehow in some way, God, through Christ, covers these people.

So that, in a nutshell, is why I think all children who die in infancy are elect and will be, through Jesus Christ, saved in ways that I may not know how, as God honors this principle of accountability.

Scott Simon interviewed the Jesuit priest James Martin on NPR Saturday morning, March 6. Martin just published The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (Harper One, 2010). The last question Simon asked was this: “If there is a God, why do little children suffer?”

Martin answered, “That is the hardest question, and I think the answer is, we don’t know.” To his credit, Martin did go on to say that, for the Christian, Christ has entered into our suffering and gives consolation. He also asks wisely, “Can we believe in a God whose ways we don’t understand?” He answers Yes.

I am glad that Martin pointed to Christ’s sufferings. And I am glad he affirmed that we can believe in a God whose ways may be inscrutable to us. But the Bible does not want us to say “We don’t know,” when the overarching Why questions are asked about suffering and death.

It is true, we may not know for sure why any particular child suffers in this particular way. But the Bible wants us to speak what it says about death and suffering.

Why do little children suffer and die? We ask it with the awareness that it is happening this very moment by the hundreds, and we ask it through tears of personal experience and empathy. Here is one biblical answer: “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—” (Romans 5:12).

Death came into the world through sin.

That is the fundamental biblical answer for where all suffering and death came from. Or to use the words of Romans 8:20, “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope.”

In other words, because of sin, God subjected the entire creation to the futility of mortality with all its suffering and death. The whole creation groans under the judgment.

If the interviewer says, “That seems a bit harsh, to bring the whole creation under the judgment of suffering and death, including little children, because of one man’s sin?” we answer,

“That is how outrageous sin against an infinitely wise and good and holy God is. We don’t measure the outrage of our suffering by how insignificant we think sin is; we measure the outrage of sin by the scope of suffering.

The really amazing thing is that you and I, as sinners, are sitting here talking, when we deserve to be in hell. God is remarkably patient. And he gave his Son to die in our place so that everyone who believes may escape from this judgment and have eternal life.”

Easter can be confusing. People in bunny suits, rabbits made out of chocolate, and people hiding eggs all over their backyard. Just a mess.
 
To bring some clarity, we grouped a few products together that will deepen the way you think about it.

The set includes:

• What Jesus Demands from the World (Hardcover Book)
• Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die (Softcover Book)
  
• History's Most Spectacular Sin (Outreach Booklet)
  
• Light and Heat (MP3 Audio CD)
  

All for just $20.

If you want more books and booklets to give away, check out our Easter Outreach Special. We're selling cases of Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die and History’s Most Spectacular Sin at big discounts.

I just read Numbers 7 on my annual way through the Bible. I read every word. It is one of the longest, most repetitive chapters in the Bible.

From verse 12 to verse 83 Moses describes the offerings that each of the twelve tribes of Israel brought to the tabernacle when it was first dedicated to the Lord.

But here’s the amazing thing. There are 93 words in the description of what each tribe brought as an offering. And all 93 words are repeated verbatim for each of the 12 tribes. Twelve times he says exactly the same thing. Twelve times! Exactly the same 93-word description for each tribe’s offering!

Why?

Gordon Wenham answers: “It seems likely that a theological purpose underlies his wordiness.”

The purpose he says is “to emphasize as strongly as possible that every tribe had an equal stake in the worship of God, and that each was fully committed to the support of the tabernacle and its priesthood.” (Numbers, p. 93)

Yes. But let the method of emphasis sink in. Moses could have used Wenham’s words and saved time, space, and tedium. He could have said, “Every tribe has an equal stake in worship and all are to be fully committed to the tabernacle.” That’s 18 words. But he used 12 x 93 = 1,116 words.

Here are some lessons:

• There are times when you look into every child’s eyes and say the same important thing. You don’t say the precious thing to one and then sweep over the others: “That applies to all of you.”
• These tribes are not equal. Some are larger. Some have sordid legacies. But everyone heard every word of God’s plan for their approach to God. Every one. Every word. Identical.
• Efficiency is not always the highest value. Slow, long, repetitions are sometimes the best way to make an impact.
• Patience in reading God’s word may be a test of the frenzy of our pace and our demanding attitude toward the Bible that it be the way we want, not the way God made it.

Is it time to start planning your children's ministries for Summer 2010? It's hard to believe, but summer will soon be here! And with summer comes a variety of children’s programs.

Children Desiring God offers four titles for use with elementary-age children, all of which are evangelistic in nature.

The Call of God—An Evangelistic Study for Children on the Work of God in Redemption. God is calling people to be a part of his family. This curriculum explores how God overcame the sin problem through the sinless life and death of Jesus on the cross, and thus enables people to respond to the call of God with faith. These lessons are also available in Spanish.

Things Hidden—An Evangelistic Study for Children on Kingdom Parables. Using kingdom parables, the goal of this curriculum is to awaken spiritual interest in children, so they might seek after the hidden treasure of God and find their satisfaction in him.

God Always Wins—An Evangelistic Study for Children on the Greatness of God in Salvation. These lessons show God as the great Victor who triumphs over all enemies, including Satan, death, and sin. He is great and mighty, and worthy of our worship!

Wisdom Calls Aloud—An Evangelistic Study for Children on the Wisdom and Fear of the Lord. This study uses wisdom literature to teach the difference between foolishness and wisdom, and shows children the need for a true heart change to fight against their foolish and sinful nature.

Visit our website to view sample lessons in English or in Spanish or to learn more about our Backyard Bible Club and Vacation Bible School resources.

If you want to know what it takes to host a Backyard Bible Club, Bethlehem's website lists the basics.