We're at Bethlehem's North Campus for the first of a 2-day Trellis & the Vine workshop with Col Marshall and Tony Payne (authors of the book by the same title). We found out at the beginning of this morning's session that there are attendees here from not only the 5-state region (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas) but also as far as New Hampshire, south Texas, and Oregon.

Tony Payne led us through the first session on the biblical vision of Christian ministry.

God's Agenda for the World: The Gospel

Payne began by asking, "What is God's agenda in the world?" It is not political transformation or social liberation (the liberal agenda) or a gospel of personal fixes for our l…

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It was October 14, 1979—31 years ago today—when John Piper first felt “irretrievably called” to enter the pastoral and preaching ministry. Justin Taylor told the story well a year ago on the 30th anniversary.

Here’s how John remembered October, 1979, in his 2002 sermon “The Absolute Sovereignty of God” on Romans 9 (quoted on page 33 of For the Fame of God’s Name:

[It was] the fall of 1979. I was on sabbatical from teaching at Bethel College. My one aim on this leave was to study Romans 9 and write a book on it that would settle, in my own mind, the meaning of these verses. After six years of teaching and finding many students in every class ready to discount my interpretation of this ch…

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We commended Darrin Patrick’s new book Church Planterbefore, but here’s a particular word for the preface, titled “Why Focus on Men?” It may be one of the best short articles on biblical manhood now available.

Below are a couple paragraphs that give the flavor of Patrick’s even-handed perspective—an approach that critiques both the left and the right, and thus steers clear of both the liberal and conservative errors.

These sentences won’t sit well with the left:

The persons of the Trinity are equal, but there is, nevertheless, submission within the Godhead by the Son and by the Spirit to the Father. My interpretation of this divine deference is that submission is a characteristic of a

…

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A great quote from T. F. Torrance in his article, "The Hypostatic Union" (36, paragraphing mine) —

It is important to see that if the Deity of Christ is denied, then the Cross becomes a terrible monstrosity.

If Jesus Christ is man only and not also God, then we lose faith in God and man.

We lose faith in God because we could not believe in a God who allows the best man that ever lived to be hounded to death on the Cross—is that all that God cares about our humanity and its search after God, after truth and righteousness and peace?

Put Jesus Christ a man on the Cross, and put God in heaven, like some Mohammedan deity imprisoned in His own lonely abstract Deity—and you cannot …

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Twice Jesus was offered wine while on the cross. He refused the first, but took the second. Why so?

The first time came in verse 23, “they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.” William Lane explains,

According to an old tradition, respected women of Jerusalem provided a narcotic drink to those condemned to death in order to decrease their sensitivity to the excruciating pain . . . . When Jesus arrived at Golgotha he was offered . . . wine mixed with myrrh, but he refused it, choosing to endure with full consciousness the sufferings appointed for him (The Gospel of Mark, p. 564)

This first wine represented an offer to ease the pain, to opt for a small shortcut…

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Why were Jesus' disciples so wigged out when he stilled the sea? Already afraid of the great storm, you'd think they might have been calmed by Jesus' calming of the waves. But it seemed to have the opposite effect. Mark 4:41: "And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?'"

The disciples now seem to be perplexed about their master's identity. "Who then is this . . . ?" Stilling the sea is such a show-stopping demonstration of power that flooding their souls isn't the happy realization that their buddy Jesus has more power than they had estimated, but the unnerving new awareness that they may have misunderstood his very …

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In the book Spectacular Sins, John Piper writes about how God uses even (and especially) his people’s most tragic sins to work his global purposes for the glory of his Son, and for his people’s good. Judges 14 picks up on the tune.

There Samson bids his parents secure him a wife, a particular Philistine woman who has caught his eye. And, as you probably know, in ancient Israel, the Philistines are usually the bad guys. This marriage would be worse than Montagues and Capulets.

His parents, good Israelites, push back—but not as strongly as we might expect. Their response is surprising restrained: “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, tha…

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Here is Moses’ amazing monotheistic appeal to the people of Israel at the edge of the Promised Land, after 40 years of wilderness wandering.

Ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of.

Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?

Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand a…

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Who do you identify with in the Passion narratives?

Of course, as good Christians, we say Jesus. He’s the good guy, our protagonist. As we relive the story, we pull for him, and against his enemies. And a long list of enemies it is: Judas who betrays him, Peter who denies him, the chief priests who hate him, Herod who mocks him, the crowd that calls for his crucifixion, Pilate who washes his hands and condemns him, and Barrabas who is guilty but gets to go free.

Wait a minute.

Barrabas—the guilty one who gets to go free?

In his 23rd chapter, Luke leads us sinners, in his careful wording of the narrative, to identify in this significant way with Barrabas. As Jesus’ cond…

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