Sometimes spiritual truth is best communicated through the imagination, and I think this explains why the book of Revelation includes war tales of red dragons and multi-headed beasts — those nasty creatures are a great way to embody evil and rebellious nations.

But the non-fiction imagination comes in many different forms, and one form is the metaphor. Jesus, we are told, is “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29), a metaphorical truth meaning at the same time Jesus is and is not a lamb. Metaphors lead us to embrace a thing (Christ crucified) in terms of some, but not all, of the characteristics of another thing (a lamb).

Metaphors carry meaning, and we need them, writes pastor and author Doug Wil…

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There are books you should read at your desk hunched over and ready to wrestle with rarified ideas. Then there are books that you should read the way you stop by a shaded stream. The trust level is high. The expectation for refreshment is keen. Jon Bloom, the President of Desiring God, has written a book like that. I encourage you to get a copy.

Here is the way Jon describes his aim: “The purpose of this little book is to imaginatively reflect on the real experiences of real people in the Bible in order to help you grasp and live what it means to ‘trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ with all our heart, and . . . not lean on our own understanding.’ Its goal is to help you believe in Jesus while living in a v…

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1. God is the greatest Reality in the universe.
   And pastors swim in that sea with ever-replenished joy.

   I am the Lᴏʀᴅ, and there is no other, besides me there is no God. (Isaiah 45:5)

   Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33–36)

2. Jesus is the greatest Savior, Master, and Friend that ever was or will be.
   And pastors contemplate and commend him every day.

   Greater love has no on…

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Successful Christian living is very much about steadiness and consistency, about firm resolve and steadfast endurance. There’s more to the Christian life, but these remain certain marks of God’s Spirit at work. And yet we feel the circumstances of life trying to swing us from despair to delight. When circumstances grow dark and we take our eyes off the Savior, we lose our balance and swing toward despair. When life seems to be going well and we take our eyes off Christ, we swing towards blissful God-forgetfulness certain to end in sorrow.

Contemplating this swinging, wobbly, fallen but redeemed heart is what led the Puritans to talk about a joy in the all-satisfying Christ as the unchangin…

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These were four themes featured in this week’s lineup of Ask Pastor John podcast episodes. What follows are excerpts from each episode (click on the hyperlinked titles to listen).

When Jehovah’s Witnesses Knock at Your Door (Episode 78):

If they come to the door, I say as gently and graciously as I can, “I know Jehovah’s Witness theology well enough to know that we have deep differences. I know that you believe Jesus is the highest created being, a created angel (Michael), and you do not believe that he is God, or of one essence with Jehovah. You think he is an angel, I believe he is co-eternal with Jehovah God, and therefore I think your religion is a serious dishonoring of the Lord …

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Jesus… marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” (Luke 7:9)

Jesus, the “founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), once marveled at the great faith he found in a man. And it’s the only instance recorded in the Gospels when Jesus responded that way. Who was this man? A rabbi? No. A disciple? Nope. A Roman soldier.

Jesus had walked down from the brow of the low mountain outside of Capernaum, his adopted home (Matthew 4:13). He had just delivered what would become the most famous sermon in history.

When Jesus entered the town, he was met by a group of Jewish elders. They had an urgent request. Would J…

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Jesus is king. He is the ascended, seated, reigning Lord over everything. Now what does this mean for how we think? How does his preeminence affect our intellectual pursuits?

Last fall Mark Noll and John Piper converged to discuss this topic. In an event hosted by Bethlehem College and Seminary and the MacLaurin Institute, Noll and Piper, authors of Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind and Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God respectively, each presented a lecture and interacted with questions related to the mind and Christian scholarship.

Noll’s lecture, starting at the 1:30 mark, examined two questions: first, why is the person and work of Christ the framework for the…

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Last week I had the chance to sit down with some of the team at Desiring God to talk about how Christians should interact with sports. During the conversation we briefly touched on how easily sports can become an idol, whether it’s as an athlete or fan or a parent of an athlete. Overall, though, we explored how Christians can be involved in sports and the goodness of sports in culture as an expression of God’s creativity and the gifts he’s given people.

One Facebook commenter responded to the podcast with a perspective that many people share — sports seems “like a whole other religion.” He went on to describe the amount of excitement and money people pour into sports and how that ought to b…

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He was the kind of adolescent who would keep secret reading material stashed under his mattress. Long after he was supposed to be fast asleep, the teenage Joel Beeke would lay in bed with the light still on, pouring over the pages. He had stumbled across his father’s forbidden collection, and long before most youths are exposed to the adult world, Beeke was getting acclimated.

By Beeke’s own admission, he was raised in a hyper-Calvinist home, and his wandering heart found a haven for indulgence. It was the Puritans.

These old English pastors and theologians, from the second half of the 16th century and the entirety of the 17th century, informed his mind, wooed his heart, and began guiding …

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Picture your bathroom. Now picture your toilet. Now, you know that space behind the toilet, the disgusting place where nobody goes? The place that, if you should happen to drop your toothbrush, it means that you’ll just have to buy a new one? Okay, that place is like your heart. Or at least the sinful parts of your heart. All kinds of junk lives back there: lying, back-biting, lust, pride, bitterness, anxiety, envy.

Sanctification is our effort by God’s grace to clean behind the toilet, to remove the muck and the mire that still inhabit the dark recesses of our hearts. But sanctification can go wrong in all kinds of ways. Legalism is attempting to clean behind the toilet without any disinfe…

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