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National Conference 2013: Celebrating the Work of C.S. Lewis
The Fight for Life: Why We Keep Standing
Nothing Stands Against Christ
What about those hungry fellows who promised not to eat till they ambushed Paul?
We read about them in Acts 23:12, “When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.” It didn’t work. Why? Because a string of unlikely events happened.
- A boy over heard the plot.
- The boy was the son of Paul’s sister.
- The boy had the courage to go to the Roman centurion guarding Paul.
- The centurion took him seriously and brought him to the Tribune.
- The Tribune believed him and prepared “two hundred soldiers, with seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen” to take Paul to safet…
Why Desiring God Exists
Desiring God, like all fallen, finite human ministries and people, sees “in a mirror dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). We do not claim to be perfect in what we know. And we do not claim to know all that can be known. Nor do we claim to see what we know more clearly than others may see it.
But we do say with Paul, “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13). Though we do not know everything there is to know, and though we do not know anything perfectly, yet we do know many things truly and confidently, because of God’s revelation and his Spirit...
Read the rest of t…
Apostolic Practice in a Globalized World: Rick Love Responds to Piper
Dear John,
Thanks again for posting my first response to your thoughts about "A Common Word" on your website and for further engaging with me about these crucial issues! Here is my second response to your article, "How Shall We Love Our Muslim Neighbor?"
My goal (or “end game”) is the same as yours, John—to communicate the good news about the person and work of Jesus through word and deed to Muslims. Thus, I believe that both of us agree on apostolic doctrine—the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
I agree with you on apostolic doctrine, but I am also concerned (as I am sure you must be as well) for apostolic practice. I believe that it was Paul’s apostolic practice to…
Believing-the-Bible Book List
Last weekend was John Piper’s “Why We Believe the Bible” seminar for The Bethlehem Institute. Several in attendance asked that we make a few booklists available that Pastor Piper referred to during the seminar.
There are 3 categories:
- The formation of the canon
- The reliability of the New Testament
- Refuting the claims of some recent critics
We disagree with some of these scholars on other points of doctrine, however their work on the Bible makes us profoundly thankful for them.
The Canon of the New Testament
- Bruce, F. F. The Canon of Scripture
- Geisler, Norman and William Nix. A General Introduction to the Bible. Chicago: Moody, 1986.
- Harris, R. Laird. Inspirat…
Listening to God Through Other People
When I am most affected by being forgiven, it is often by my wife’s forgiveness of me, or by my parents’ forgiveness in the past, or even the simple way that my 3-year-old forbears this impatient father without a thought. In fact, I am consistently more moved by all of these than I am by how I’ve been forgiven by God through Jesus.
This doesn’t make sense, of course. After all, whatever my family has forgiven me for, God has forgiven me for too. And he knows the enormity of these sins far more accurately than they do. He has also forgiven me for the sins my family has no idea about—that even I have little idea about sometimes.
Usually, my wife and son and parents are as forgiving as…
The Tragedy of Langston Hughes and a Warning I Will Heed
It’s Black History Month. The biggest book in my entire library is The Norton Anthology: African American Literature. It has 2,665 pages. Flop it open to the middle (like Psalms in the Bible) and you land on Langston Hughes—1902-1967.
In 1926, he wrote what became a manifesto for black artists of the time, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.”
We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. . . . We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.
One of his best known and earliest poems is “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,”...
Read the whole article.
Sometimes He Kills Us to Save Us
Last November I blogged on my son Karsten Piper's poetry. I celebrated some of his awards and ended by saying "Perhaps we will post a few more of Karsten’s poems in the coming months."
Well, now that the winter issue of Rock and Sling: A Journal of Literature, Art, and Faith has appeared I am able to post one of the best poems I have ever read on a Biblical text.
I promise you it is not what you expect.
It’s called “Luke 18.25” and it won the Virginia Brendemuehl Poetry Contest from Rock and Sling.
Luke 18.25
by Karsten PiperHe spread his blanket on the sand,
kneeled and arranged his bowls and tools:
hook, mallet, clamp, chisel, rasp, razor. …
What Makes The Humble Happy?
The humble are happy when they see other people boasting in the Lord.
“My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad” (Psalm 34:2).
The humble are happy when other people magnify the Lord with thanksgiving.
“I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. . . . When the humble see it they will be glad” (Psalm 69:30, 32).
Why are the humble happy when others boast in the Lord and magnify the Lord with thanksgiving?
Because humility is most fundamentally a trembling love for the majesty of God and secondarily a trembling sense of our sin and smallness and dependence.
The h…
Abraham Lincoln's Path to Divine Providence
Abraham Lincoln, who was born on this day 199 years ago, remained skeptical, and at times even cynical, about religion into his forties. So the most striking thing about Marvin Olasky’s recent article about Lincoln in World Magazine is to see how personal and national suffering drew Lincoln into the reality of God, rather than pushing him away.
In 1862, when Lincoln was 53 years old, his 11-year-old son Willie died. Lincoln’s wife “tried to deal with her grief by searching out New Age mediums.” Lincoln turned to Phineas Gurley, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington. Several long talks led to what Gurley described as “a conversion to Christ.” Lincoln confided th…
Livingstone on "A Common Word"
A couple weeks ago, we posted John Piper's thoughts on the Yale response to "A Common Word." A few days later, we posted some thoughts from Rick Love, one of the signatories of Yale's Christian response. Then last week, in the Q&A session of our pastors conference, we got a chance to hear from Greg Livingstone who also signed it.
You can listen to his answer or read the following (mildly edited) transcript:
Greg, can you address your signing of the Yale response to "A Common Word"? And maybe for those of us who are unfamiliar with it, you could give us a little background.
Greg Livingstone: Very quickly, 138 big names in Islam made an initiative calle…
