If you think spiritual warfare is irrelevant to you, you may already be losing the battle. At least you’re ripe for Satan’s picking.

Demons have a notorious way of acclimatizing to where they are, warns Tope Koleoso, pastor of Jubilee Church in London. And in secular Western society, this means playing right into our neglect and diminishing of the supernatural.

But Ephesians 6, and the rest of the Scriptures, would have us stay aware of the unseen realm, and remember that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against . . . the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). It is not Christian to suppress the s…

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It’s every pitcher’s worst nightmare. For the Detroit Tigers’ Darin Downs, the nightmare became a reality, and almost meant the end of his life.

On August 17, 2009, he took a 103-mile-per-hour line drive off the left side of his head. In an instant, his skull was fractured, blood began pooling, his head was swelling, and he couldn’t speak. Soon he lay terrified in an ambulance en route to the hospital. But in that moment, he had a strange peace and hope. God was at work.

His fellow Tiger Donnie Kelly tells a similar story — though not as dramatic. For Kelly, it was a mysterious injury in 2004 that sidelined him from the game he loved and threatened to end his career almost before it began.…

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Good pastors come and go, but the Great Pastor will never leave, forsake, or transition.

Pastors of all stripes, at their worst and best, are but under-shepherds of “the chief Shepherd” (1 Peter 5:4). Jesus is “the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25). He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), “the great shepherd of the sheep” (Hebrews 13:20).

In his final sermon as a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist, John Piper commended the Great Shepherd to his people of 33 years. He rehearsed from Hebrews 13:20–21 six pillar truths about God that have been hallmarks of his ministry at Bethlehem. God is the absolutely existing, reconciling, covenant-keeping, shepherding, san…

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It’s April Fools’ Day, and whatever its origins, the Scriptures have something to say about playing the fool.

There is uncertainty about how and when people began mocking the fool on the first day of April. Many think it goes back to sixteenth-century France when the nation changed from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian. April 1 had been the end of a weeklong festival celebrating the coming of Spring and with it the new year. Now the new year changed to January 1. Some refused to make the switch, or lived in rural areas and didn’t get the word, and were mocked as fools by those who made the change.

Others think the origin may be in a scribal error in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that had …

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This Easter marks the end of an era at Bethlehem Baptist.

John Piper served as the church’s primary preacher from July 13, 1980, until December 31, 2012. Since January 1 this year, he has been associate pastor, and his final task on staff is preaching this weekend’s Easter message — once Saturday night, three times Sunday morning, and then the last hurrah on Sunday night.

It’s the end of an era — the era of Piper as local-church pastor — but God willing, just the beginning of a new season of ministry.

For well over a decade Piper and Bethlehem have felt an increasing call on Piper for “wider” ministry. The elders and church have eagerly encouraged this broader ministry beyond Bethlehem by…

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It felt as though we were traveling back in time.

Snow was falling, the roads were icy, and civilization was in the rearview. Tony Reinke and I had landed an interview with a 96-year-old theologian tucked away in rural Minnesota, and now we meant to make good on it, despite the distance and wintry weather.

We knew we were in for a memorable day. Robert Duncan Culver is the only surviving founding member of the Evangelical Theological Society — and his mind is sharp enough to recall his membership number was 158. He taught a combined 25 years at Wheaton College and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and stirred up his share of controversy.

“I don’t mind disagreeing,” says Culver. “I can …

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As Easter approaches, gratitude is a virtue most worthy of our cultivation. Indeed, in all the Christian life, gratitude is to be planted, watered, dressed, and harvested. Gratitude gets at the very essence of what it means to be created, finite, fallen, redeemed, and sustained by the God of all grace.

Ingratitude was at the heart of the fall, and at the heart of what’s fallen about us to this day. “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” (Romans 1:21). Again and again throughout the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, it is gratitude — giving God thanks — that is the fitting response to his gracious acts of deliverance for his people.

It was grati…

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Today is Palm Sunday, and so begins our journey with Jesus from Jerusalem’s gate to Golgotha’s cross to Easter’s triumph.

In this Holy Week, we begin with “Hosanna,” walk solemnly toward “Crucify him,” and finish elatedly with, “He is risen!”

Here we see Jesus’s love for us in every intentional step. In one sense, every step he ever took was for us. He was born to die. He came to give his life. His public ministry was ever a steady drumbeat toward Calvary. But in his last week, the quickly moving story begins to run in slow motion. Roughly half the Gospel accounts are dedicated to chronicle these final days.

Five years ago, John Piper wrote a memorable Holy Week meditation on Jesus’s inte…

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Don’t forget to wear your green today. It’s Saint Patrick’s Day.

Before thumbing your nose at all the carousing and empty revelry that much of the day has become, it’s worth taking at least a brief glance at the inspiring Christian origin of, and missional impulse behind, what we now mark as Saint Patty’s.

While the day has become a celebration of all things Irish, the original feast was about gospel advance. It was not about parades, but pioneering the church among an unreached people. It was not about lifting Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking, but bringing God’s amazing grace to a pagan nation.

The Gospel to the Irish

The March 17 feast day (declared in the early 17th century)…

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Hey you, rich young ruler…

Maybe you’re old for pro football, but you’re young to the rest of the world. And rich. You’ve negotiated salary-cap-friendly deals with your team, but that still has you at a guaranteed $33 million over the next five seasons.

And as much as anyone in this generation, you have ruled the NFL — three Super Bowl rings, twice Super Bowl MVP, twice league MVP, eight Pro Bowls, and five Super Bowl appearances in ten seasons. You hold the record for most touchdown passes in a single regular season, have the highest career playoff win total in NFL history, and are the first quarterback to lead a team to ten division titles. The Associated Press even named you Male Athlet…

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