Gospel preaching is a serious endeavor. And the mantle of preaching isn't to be worn flippantly.

Because God is God, and the Bible is his word, the heralding and exposition of that word is central to the corporate life of his redeemed people. In his message at the inaugural Together for the Gospel Conference, John Piper explains why.

God did not ordain the cross of Christ or create the lake of fire³ in order to communicate the insignificance of belittling his glory. The death of the Son of God and the damnation of unrepentant human beings are the loudest shouts under heaven that God is infinitely holy, and sin is infinitely offensive, and wrath is infinitely just, and grace is infinitely pr…

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With this week’s Together for the Gospel conference (T4G) gathering at the basketball arena in Louisville, it seemed like hoops was the right direction to take the promo.

But, come on, it’s Opening Week in Major League Baseball, and there are nine speakers giving nine plenary addresses. Nine. Nine innings. Nine men on the field. The list of nine speakers is almost a lineup card, is it not?

Which got some of us at the DG offices thinking, Forget the conference, if this were a baseball lineup card, would it make sense to bat the players in this order? And what positions would they play in the field?

So, first, here’s the order for this week, and second, some of our commentary on the line…

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Year after year, as Christians walk through the Passion week with Jesus, our hearts are knit to him. He is our greatest hero, at the climax of his greatest feat. As we relive the story with him, we pull for him, and against his enemies.

We feel varying levels of disdain for Judas who betrays him, Peter who denies him, the chief priests who despise him, Herod who mocks him, the people who call for his crucifixion, Pilate who appeases the mob and washes his hands, and Barabbas who is guilty but gets to go free.

But wait. Barabbas — the guilty who goes free? Barabbas — the sinner released to new life while the death he deserves is paid by an Innocent Substitute?

Take careful note of wher…

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Update 4/24: My Future at Desiring God.

Bethlehem Baptist is one step closer to commissioning John Piper from the local church pastorate to greater involvement with Bethlehem College and Seminary and to a wider ministry nationally and internationally through Desiring God.

The Bethlehem elders are announcing to the congregation their candidate for Associate Pastor for Preaching and Vision and, God willing, John Piper's eventual successor as the church's senior pastor.

Jason Meyer, 36-year-old Assistant Professor of New Testament for Bethlehem College and Seminary, is the elders' recommendation for congregational consideration and vote at a special May 20 all-church meeting. Meyer …

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An essential mark of a solid seminary experience is continually being stunned by how everything relates to Jesus. When we look long enough, press hard enough, and feel deeply enough, we discover again and again that it all comes back around to him.

The whole universe is about Jesus. The whole Bible is about Jesus. Our whole lives are designed to be about Jesus. And, for the love of God, any seminary experience worth a dime should be all about Jesus as well. Any institution, course of study, class, professor, or text that teaches aspiring pastors any differently — explicitly or implicitly — is throwing them under the ministerial bus.

My Worst Experience in Seminary

I remember it all too…

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"Today is one of the best days of my seminary life." So wrote John Piper in his journal on Wednesday, March 24, 1971, during his final semester at Fuller Seminary.

On that Monday, March 22, "Dr. Schaper called me and asked me to speak in chapel today," he explained. "I agreed to and went straight to God, and all I did from that phone call until chapel this morning (except go to 2 classes) was pray, think, and write for the sermon I gave."

The team at Desiring God just recently came across this 40-year-old recording, and we now have made it available as the oldest Piper message on the site. This is one of the very first messages Pastor John preached. He graciously gave us permission to po…

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Psalm 40:6–8,

In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
  Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
  I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”

For many of us, Psalm 40:6–8 is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma — as Winston Churchill once said of Russia.

Verses 1–10 are David’s song of thanks to God for rescuing him from dire straights. Verses 6–8 then raise the issue of what should David do in response to God’s life-saving rescue. Slaughter another sheep? Sacrifice a bull or goat? Is that re…

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They're calling it "LinSanity" in New York, and it hit fever pitch tonight after Lin's game winning 3-pointer with less than a second to play in the Knicks win. He finished with 27 points and a career-high 11 assists.

But despite the "LinSanity" he seems to have his head on straight.

The Knicks overnight phenom Jeremy Lin quotes from a section of John Piper's book Don't Waste Your Life in an online testimony recorded last June:

God created us to live with a single passion to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life.

Lin then adds the following commentary about his coming to treasure Jesus more than basketball success:

When Paul wrote in Philippians…

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Learn a lesson from Jerry Seinfeld. Daily Bible intake is about soul survival.

Very Much into Just Surviving

When his wildly successful sitcom ended, Seinfeld went on a nationwide stand-up comedy tour called “I’m Telling You for the Last Time.” The routine was recorded for compact disc (remember those?) at New York’s Broadhurst Theater in August of 1998. At the end is a question-and-answer segment, where a zealous fan shouts, “Do you have favorite Seinfeld episode?”

Seinfeld answers,

I get this question quite often. I don’t really have a favorite; they’re all kind of my babies. I did the best I could with each one. [Audience applauds.]

You know, comedy is kind of a survival industry…

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John Piper is on writing leave until the first week of March — and he could use your help!

Future Grace (part of "the Piper Trilogy" along with Desiring God and The Pleasures of God), was published in 1995 and is quickly going on twenty years. So this month Pastor John is preparing a revised version for release this Fall, in time for our Desiring God National Conference on sanctification (called "Acting the Miracle: God's Work and Ours in the Mystery of Sanctification").

Here's how you could help...

If you've read Future Grace, we're eager to hear your general and/or specific questions about the book. We're also eager to hear if you have any specific recommendations for revision.…

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