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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Far too many of us who (rightly) renounce the so-called "prosperity gospel" (wrongly) coddle our own little version of it as we focus on our families.

Richard Pratt:

In recent decades, Christian television has spread what many call the “prosperity gospel” — the misguided belief that if we have enough faith, God will heal our diseases and provide us with great financial blessings. Of course, most people reading this article scoff at the thought that faith can yield such benefits. But don’t laugh too hard. 

We have our own prosperity gospel for our families. We simply replace having enough faith with having enough obedience. We believe that we can lift our families out of their broken…

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We’re all too prone to take God’s grace for granted. Perhaps especially as we perceive ourselves to be climbing the ladder of formal theological training.

At the heart of the danger of seminary is coming to treat lightly the grace of God. But a healthy experience of seminary will do precisely the opposite.

The Centrality of Grace

Grace is no peripheral thing in Christianity. God’s astoundingly lavish favor toward us terribly undeserving sinners, because of Jesus, is at the very center. Lose our taste for grace and we have no good business calling ourselves Christians, much less putting ourselves forward as leaders in the church.

But here’s the catch: We can’t just make ourselves sta…

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Seminary is dangerous. Yes, the fragrance is to life for many. But for others — far too many others — the aroma is to death.

Names changed to protect the guilty, Don Carson tells the story of an “Ernest Christian” in the introduction to his infamous Exegetical Fallacies. Ernest was converted as a senior in high school, grew in leaps and bounds through a campus ministry while in college, sensed a call to full-time ministry, was affirmed by his local congregation, and “headed off to seminary with all the earnestness of a new recruit.”

But at seminary, the story followed a path all too familiar to many of us.

After Ernest has been six months in seminary, the picture is very different. Ern…

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Behold, the star that they had seen when it rose
went before them until it came to rest
over the place where the child was. (Matthew 2:9)

The star moved. Really?

This is already the second time in this short section that Matthew’s making sure he has our attention. “Behold” is his effort to make sure we’re tracking with him.

First it was verse 1: “Behold, magi from the east came to Jerusalem . . . .” We’re supposed to be surprised that pagan astrologers came to see baby Jesus. (For more on the magi, see “We Three Kings of Orient Aren’t”)

But Matthew would have us be just as shocked with verse 9: “Behold, the star . . . came to rest over the place where the child was.” Behold, the star m…

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Behold, magi from the east came to Jerusalem . . . (Matthew 2:1)

Matthew says "behold" to make sure he has our attention. He knows how prone we are to fall asleep while we're reading.

"Wake up. Make sure you're listening. This is huge. Don't miss it. It's not what you'd expect..."

But what's so shocking about magi coming to Jesus? We might be so used to this annual Christmas story that we're not surprised, like Matthew wants us to be, that magi came to Jesus. Don't they come every Christmas?

We should we be surprised. Because magi is an ancient word referring to pagan astrologers. And since they dabble in the dark arts, we eventually got our English word magic from such …

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A danger lurks in our endeavors to live incarnationally. Danger, yes, but not deterrent. It is a risk worth taking, though not treating lightly.

The danger is that we can subtly begin to key on ourselves, rather than Jesus, when we think of what Christian mission is and what incarnation means. Over time we start to function as if Christian mission begins with, and centers on, our intentionality and relationality. What really excites us is not the old, old story, but our new strategies for kingdom advance. Almost imperceptibly we’ve slowly become more keen how we can copy Jesus than the glorious ways in which we can’t.

But thankfully the Advent season, and its annual buildup to Christmas …

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Born this day in 1898 was one Clive Staples Lewis. His friends called him Jack. We know him as C. S. Lewis. He died just shy of 65 years old on November 22, 1963, the same day as John F. Kennedy's assassination.

And what treasures did Jack pen in his lifetime, among them the Narnia series and many even more significant.

John Piper paid tribute to Lewis in his biographical address "Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul." Here's the key insight from Lewis:

[Jonathan] Edwards said, “God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in.” So the glory of God is displayed when we rejoice in it. Lewis says exactly the same thing even more clearly. In his book on…

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Giving thanks is no small thing for the Christian.

But far too many of us have the wrong impression. Deep down we may see the summons to thanksgiving as pretty peripheral. Giving thanks — whoop dee doo — What really excites me is fill-in-the-blank.

It is tragic when gratitude seems obscure to the very people who have the most to be thankful for. To sinners forever saved by grace, thanksgiving should be significant. Even central. Healthy Christians are thankful Christians.

Central to Honoring God

In fact, Romans 1:21 shows us that thanksgiving is what we were created for, and it is “at the heart of what it means to be a Christian,” says Tremper Longman.

Although they knew God, they …

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