I am on writing leave. I hope you will pray for me. The first book I'm working on is one on marriage. This includes chapters on raising children. Here is a section I was working on yesterday:

The most fundamental task of a mother and father is to show God to the children. Children know their parents before they know God. This is a huge responsibility and should cause every parent to be desperate for God-like transformation. The children will have years of exposure to what the universe is like before they know there is a universe. They will experience the kind of authority there is in the universe and the kind of justice there is in the universe and the kind of love there is in …

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The first consequence of Adam’s and Eve’s sin mentioned in Genesis 3:7 is that “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.”

Suddenly they are self-conscious about their bodies. Before their rebellion against God, there was no shame. “The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25). Now there is shame. Why?...

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If a twelve-year-old makes A’s in school and generally makes wise choices, how would you help her apply this verse to herself?

Never be wise in your own sight. (Romans 12:16)

You might say:

1. It means that you gladly admit that all true wisdom is from God. It is his, and not finally ours.
2. It means that you recognize that any sense of superiority comes from comparing yourself only with your inferiors. But the most important person to compare yourself with is God, and he is infinitely wiser than you. Not only that, there are a lot of people in the world wiser than you.
3. It means that you feel humbled by the fact that you are a sinner deserving of God’s wrath, and t…

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There are saving works that God will only do through small churches and ordinary people, not through large churches and more sophisticated people.

The Lord said to Gideon, "The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, 'My own hand has saved me.’” (Judges 7:2)

Beware of missing your appointed fruit by envying bigger trees.

Hidden treasures, that’s what my boys and I were looking for back in the days when we made our Christmas shopping rounds—first to Savers and Salvation Army Thrift Shops, then to the liquidation store nearby, then if we still hadn’t found all the gifts we wanted to give, we upgraded to Target.

A hidden treasure was what Talitha wanted last week when she and I went shopping for a very special dress to wear on Saturday for her date to the Father-Daughter High Tea at Bethlehem. She found the perfect dress for $9.99 minus the 40% seniors discount (I’m eligible).

That’s our kind of shopping.

The Apostle Paul said, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest wo…

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Sometimes I'm asked how I explain the disproportion between the size of the universe and the smallness of man created as the crown of God’s creation. The tension is felt in Psalm 8:3-5.

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

My answer is that the magnitude of the universe is not meant to correlate with the image, but with the Original. The heavens are not designed to declare the glory of man. “The heavens declare the gl…

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If in your morning devotions you open God’s word to the book of Judges and find that the strings of your inner instrument are not in tune, it is not blasphemy to excuse yourself for a few moments from the King’s library and turn to a paragraph from one of his unflinchingly faithful, broken-hearted, happy servants. Should we find it surprising that the King should appoint some of his closest friends to be especially good at tuning the strings of our soul so that we may play His music when he puts the bow of his Word on our soul?

At least for me, this is how it is from time to time. And I am thankful for Satan’s folly in throwing Samuel Rutherford into prison in Aberdeen for seventeen months…

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In March, I went to visit Kenya. I kissed my husband goodbye and left him at home. Or so I thought. But when I got to Kenya, I found him all over the place.

At Moffatt Bible College in Kijabe, for example, the librarian gave me a tour. One set of double doors opened to the textbook closet. Most students can’t afford to buy books for their classes, so here they can check out the required texts for the term. In the center of the center shelf was a stack of The Supremacy of God in Preaching.

Later that week, at a workshop in Old Kijabe Town, Peter heard that I was John Piper’s wife. He turned his smile on me and said, “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exist…

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One of the reasons pursuing a passion for Christ (or if you prefer the old word, “zeal” for Christ) is so important is the good effects it has on others.

This is not the decisive reason for wanting passion. Passion is not like that. It is not utilitarian. Passion for Christ exists because Christ is magnificent, not because passion is useful. If the only reason you try to have passion is to help others have passion, your so-called passion will become manipulative and will prove in the end to be hypocrisy.

Nevertheless, if you have it, and if it is really a passion for Christ, then it will have a God-designed effect on others. This is part of why passion is so good. It is an honor to…

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Every Christian should want to be a “fountain of life” for others. How does that happen?

Here is a group of passages that answer this question. The answer is in the order.

Psalm 36:9, For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.

Proverbs 16:22, Understanding is a fountain of life to one who has it, But the discipline of fools is folly.

Proverbs 14:27, The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, That one may avoid the snares of death.

Proverbs 10:11, The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, But the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

Proverbs 13:14, The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, To turn aside from the snares of

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