Featured Posts
The Fight for Life: Why We Keep Standing
Preparing for the Future in the Age of Facebook
Lecrae on Hope When Life Is Hard
Life isn’t easy, but God gives us truth to stand on.
In this video, Lecrae talks about the biblical promise he turns to the most:
The biblical promise that I turn to most is that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called by him (Romans 8:28). I have to lean on the reality that even if it doesn’t look good to me, or feel good to me, God is ultimately being glorified. And in the end, even if it’s not until I am in heaven, it will work out to my benefit. Even if I don’t realize it until heaven, it will work out for my benefit.
I lean on that because life is difficult. Life is hard. It’s complicated. It’s not peachy keen, as a lot of people would like to ma…
What Is Bi-Vocational Ministry?
Bi-vocational ministry is a strategic and challenging call. Danny Ovalle, a bi-vocational pastor in New England, recently joined us to talk about the rationale and practice of serving as a pastor while supporting his family with an additional job.
The central passage about compensation for ministers, or lack of compensation, is found in 1 Corinthians 9:1–18. This apostolic precedent, along with particular contexts and practical concerns, forms the foundation for why bi-vocational ministry could be a wise option.
In this ministry-angled episode of Theology Refresh, Danny talks about what it’s like to live and work among his people at the First Church of Christ, a congregation that began in …
Love to the Uttermost (Free eBook for Holy Week)
Today we launch a new devotional eBook, Love to the Uttermost: Devotional Readings for Holy Week. Beginning Palm Sunday (March 24) through Easter Sunday (March 31), we invite you to join us in focusing on the self-giving love of our Savior.
Comprised of eight excerpts (plus one prologue reading) selected from John Piper’s extensive writing and preaching ministry, this new devotional was compiled and shaped for use in personal devotions or family and group settings.
As Pastor John explains, this one term — uttermost — is loaded with significance. When used of Jesus’s willing death for his friends, it means he endured unimaginable degrees of suffering to do so (John 13:1, NAS).
To love t…
A New Poem: If You’re Alive, It’s Not Too Late
Too Late
At concourse G, gate seventeen,
My sweat and panting pleas
That obstacles were unforeseen
May have been fantasies
For all they cared of where I’d been.
The door was locked within.
“I waited at another gate,”
I pled. They said, “Too late.”
I wait, and weary, fall—hurled back
Through sluggish centuries—
Asleep. The roof of my poor shack
Unrhythmic’ly taps. These
Drops of rain suddenly unite
In weeks of raging night.
I linger, doubting. Then flail straight
To Noah’s ark. Too late.
Again I dream. Esau. I scratch
My hairy arms and smell
The wildness in my clothes, and snatch
At ev’ry hollow shell
Of happiness—in vain—and gr…
One Thing You Lack
Hey you, rich young ruler…
Maybe you’re old for pro football, but you’re young to the rest of the world. And rich. You’ve negotiated salary-cap-friendly deals with your team, but that still has you at a guaranteed $33 million over the next five seasons.
And as much as anyone in this generation, you have ruled the NFL — three Super Bowl rings, twice Super Bowl MVP, twice league MVP, eight Pro Bowls, and five Super Bowl appearances in ten seasons. You hold the record for most touchdown passes in a single regular season, have the highest career playoff win total in NFL history, and are the first quarterback to lead a team to ten division titles. The Associated Press even named you Male Athlet…
New Sermon: “How to Give the Bible Functional Authority in Your Speech and Writing”
Does your speaking and writing have authority?
It does if you are tapping into the authority of the Bible.
John Piper recently addressed the students and apprentices at Bethlehem College and Seminary with a simple and earnest plea: write and teach as reliable spokesmen. He encourages Christian thinkers to scrutinize their thoughts by apostolic authority and to articulate them with precision.
Stream or download the message, “How to Give the Bible Functional Authority in Your Speech and Writing.”
Finding Your Pleasure in God’s Pleasure
A few years ago, I became so disillusioned with how the word faith gets misused today that I wanted to propose we simply drop the word altogether, and perhaps use trust instead. But as I’ve aged, I’ve realized more and more just how wrong I was.
In reading Charles Spurgeon, one thing I’m constantly challenged by is his great, unembarrassed emphasis on faith. He even wrote a book called Chequebook of the Bank of Faith which is a devotional work based on the promises of God, and very worth the read.
For Spurgeon, faith lies at the very heart of the Christian life, and is not just something that we exercise at the beginning of our walk in order to become a Christian. For him, it is the very r…
A Sweet Legacy I Savor—Bible Memory
As I look back over 32 years of pastoral ministry at Bethlehem one of the sweet legacies I savor is the solid place Bible memorization has in the church. I am not the only, or even the main reason for this. David and Sally Michael hold that place under God’s good providence. But I have loved it, nurtured it, and tried to model it.
Because I believe in it with all my heart.
At the core of this commitment is what we call the Fighter Verse program. This is a church-wide encouragement for young and old to memorize together each week a portion of Scripture. The verses are planned out for five years. Then we start over.
They’re called “fighter verses” because the one offensive weapon in our spi…
How Do I Help My Friends Stay Satisfied in God?
Pastor John recently tweeted, “Christian relationships have this as their goal: to help each other stay satisfied in God.” To learn more about how this gets worked out in practice, we asked him. In part, he said this:
It comes down to whether we taste and see that the Lord is good. I have said this to the church and I have said to pastors, and I have said to my wife. What I want from you, Noël, what I want from my staff, is for them to be happy in Jesus. The greatest ministry you can have to me is for you to enjoy Christ. And so I think when we turn that around and say, “Now how can I be the greatest blessing to the people around me?” The answer is: Get up in the morning. Go to the Word…
Seven Things to Pray for Your Children
[Download a print-version of “7 Things to Pray for My Children”]
Some years back a good friend shared with me seven Scripture texts that he and his wife prayed for their two daughters from the time they were infants. The girls are now grown. And it’s beautiful to see how God has (and still is) answering the faithful, specific prayers of faith-filled parents in the lives of these young, godly women.
I have frequently used these prayers when praying for my children too. And I commend them to you (see below).
But, of course, prayers are not magic spells. It’s not a matter of just saying the right things and our children will be blessed with success.
Some parents earnestly pray and their chi…
