While it was a bleak 96-loss season for the Minnesota Twins, one bright spot was left-fielder Josh Willingham — who recently joined us for an interview at the Desiring God offices.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of Harmon Killebrew.

It was 42 years ago, in 1970, that the Hall-of-Fame slugger — who played 22 years in the major leagues, from 1954 to 1975, and died in 2011 — was the last Twin to hit 35 homeruns in a season. Until Willingham in 2012.

Willingham not only clubbed more homeruns this year than any Twin in four decades, he also batted in 110 runs, the third highest total in the American League. Without doubt, the 33-year-old veteran, and evangelical Christian, from Flore…

Continue Reading →

Will there be touchdowns in the new creation? Grand-slam homeruns? Three-pointers at the buzzer? When heaven comes down to earth (Revelation 21:1–2), we shouldn’t expect anything less.

Or, to really bring it down out of the clouds, here’s one way a pastor might go about recruiting for the church’s men’s retreat: Make a brief but winsome case for sports and recreation in the age to come.

In October of 1991, John Piper wrote this to rally the men of Bethlehem Baptist to a retreat that would include its fair share of athletic competition:

One reason I think there will be sports in the age to come is that there are crippled and paralyzed men in this age who never knew the joy of agility an…

Continue Reading →

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. –Luke 17:2

It may long be remembered as the night Sinclair Ferguson went rogue.

The date was June 28, 2009. During the congregational singing, he felt an unusually strong impression to preach something altogether different — both text and topic — from the manuscript he was holding in his hand for the exposition he had prepared on Romans 6:6–14.

Here’s how he explained himself on the fly in abandoning the announced topic:

There are rare occasions when during the course of a service there is such an impression made upon one’s spiri

…

Continue Reading →

Brothers, we are not professionals.

That was John Piper’s plea to pastors for radical ministry a decade ago in the publication of the 2002 book of the same title. Since then, it’s become one of our most often quoted lines, along with “don’t waste your life,” “missions exists because worship doesn’t,” and “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”

But as central as Brothers, We Are Not Professionals is to Piper’s vision of the nature of Christian ministry, we’ve never taken up this theme at our annual pastors conference — until now.

On February 4–6, 2013, we will gather at the Minneapolis Convention Center, God willing, under the banner

Brothers, We Are S…

Continue Reading →

Today is the official launch of the New City Catechism, which is marked by an extraordinary combination of fortes.

Produced by The Gospel Coalition and Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New York, this new catechism has a lot to be excited about in the various strengths coming together in this project. The New City Catechism

• both draws from the riches of history (being adapted from three outstanding Reformation-era catechisms — Calvin's Geneva Catechism, the Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechisms, and in particular the Heidelberg Catechism) and takes care to address the kind of questions people are asking today

• is both substantive and conveniently sized — with 52 questions, one for each…

Continue Reading →

It was fifty years ago today that Roman Catholicism launched what many consider to be the most ambitious of its 21 ecumenical councils. Called the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, the three-plus-year series of gatherings began under Pope John XXIII on October 11, 1962, and concluded under Pope Paul VI on December 8, 1965. Half a century later, Vatican II remains the most recent of Catholicism’s official worldwide councils.

For those of us younger than 50, all we’ve experienced of Roman Catholicism, whether from within or without, comes to us through the lens and practices of Vatican II. It’s an important reality to be aware of as we try to make sense of the (appropriately) deep rift …

Continue Reading →

You have heard that it was said to those of old, “Pray to Mary, and petition the Saints.” But I say to you that there is only one mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5). You need no other go-between than me. Do you not know that you already have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1)? Do you not know that I am the way, and the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6)? So, when you pray, ask in my name, that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14:13).

You have heard that it was said, “Kneel before the consecrated host, and worship the one sacrificed in the mass.” But I say to you that when I had offered for all time a single sac…

Continue Reading →

It is the paradox of paradoxes. The cross of Christ is both the most horrific happening in the history of the world, and the most beautiful. The universe's saddest moment and happiest turn came together one afternoon at Golgotha on a single tree.

Even now, those of us with the ears to hear, and eyes to see from God-given new birth, experience at the cross a kind of sadness that is not sad. And all the more, one day when freed from sinning and its ubiquitous effects, will we find our greatest treasure in the great sadness that is not sad.

In John Piper's sermon "Why Did God Create the World?", he concludes with four important soul-application questions related to the glory of God's g…

Continue Reading →

Future Grace is one of John Piper’s most important books. Here’s how he explains it in the new preface of the revised edition.

In my own effort to live the Christian life in a way that magnifies the worth of Christ, the message of this book is central.

In the battle against my own sin, this book is my war manual.

In the quest to become a more sacrificial, servant-hearted lover of people, this book is my coach and my critic.

In the never-ending question of how Christians, who are counted righteous in Christ by faith alone, should nevertheless pursue righteousness, this book is my answer. It is my fullest attempt to explain why the faith that justifies also sanctifies, without mingl…

Continue Reading →

The twelve of us sat in silence, on the edge of our seats. You could have heard a pin drop.

I had pilgrimaged from Minnesota to muggy Orlando, and her stifling August humidity, for a weeklong intensive course on evangelism with Steve Childers. Fortunately, Reformed Theological Seminary is as air-conditioned as it is Reformed.

With only a dozen students on board for five 9-hour days with one of the country’s top church-planting strategists, it was a rich week, to say the least. During these precious hours, the Beijing Olympics were playing second fiddle to learning about the advance of the gospel around the world and in personal conversation.

Time and again Childers had thrown us curveb…

Continue Reading →