At about 6 PM tonight the bridge of Interstate 35W over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed. I am writing this about three hours after the bridge fell. The bridge is located within sight of Bethlehem Baptist Church. Most of us who minister at the church cross this bridge several times a week. At this point I don’t know if any staff was on the bridge. Desiring God offices are about a mile from the bridge.

There are no firm facts at this point about the total number of injuries and fatalities. When we crossed the bridge Tuesday on our way out of town, there was extensive repair work happening on the surface of the bridge with single lane traffic. One speculates about the unusual s…

Continue Reading →

This is a note of deep gratitude and tribute for the life of Raymond Ortlund Sr., who went to be with Jesus on Sunday evening, July 22, 2007. You can read the life facts in the news post and see a personal post from his family. But here is why I must say a word of public thanks.

In 1968 I had just come to Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California. I was naïve theologically and foolish in my attitudes to the Lord’s greatest institution, the local church. I was still single and actually pondered – you are free to laugh out loud – whether there was a future for the local church. I was disillusioned with much of it and would walk the streets of Pasadena Sunday morning wondering how I coul…

Continue Reading →

“Lord, you know that I love you.” John 21:15

In the fall of 1968, James Morgan, my professor of theology at Fuller Seminary, who died of stomach cancer the next year, looked me in the eye during a heated debate after class and said, “John, I love Jesus Christ!”

I have never forgotten that testimony. It was one of the most powerful words ever spoken to me.

When was the last time you ever said to anyone—your spouse, your child, your friend, your colleague—“I love Jesus Christ”? May I urge you to do that? What if 10,000 Christians in Minneapolis (or pick your town) said to someone today with eye-to-eye earnestness, “I love Jesus Christ”? This would be a tidal wave of truth and power.

Wh…

Continue Reading →

These guys are crazy—Lukas, Matt, Josh, Abraham, Jon, and whoever else OK’d this nutty idea. Five dollars for any book and any number of books! Don’t they know this only happens when books are being remaindered—code word for: nobody is reading them any more? How embarrassing.

Have they never read the marketing books? You don’t value what you don’t pay for, right? I mean, if you turn books into confetti, people are just going to throw them who knows where. Why they could wind up on the street! Or Lord knows where. What am I going to do with these guys? They are out of control. Even my son! What have I reared?

Next thing you know they are going to have a “free” day. You just wait! All you …

Continue Reading →

This morning in our prayer meeting at Desiring God, as we gave thanks for the life of Ruth Graham, I was moved. Probably because of her death in proximity to my father’s (March 6). The connection is this. When I was growing up there was a cluster of independent traveling evangelists in Greenville, South Carolina. My father, Bill, and his brother, Elmer, were in that group. Cliff Barrows, Billy Graham’s partner in music for decades, was also part of the fellowship from time to time. That was the connection with Billy and Ruth Graham. So in my mind, my mother, Ruth, and Ruth Graham were in the same business—supporting a traveling evangelist.

It was a hard calling. In those early days when prope…

Continue Reading →

The New Perspective on Paul has been around long enough now that some scholars who were initially enamored with it have come back around to the historic understanding. It is good to read a few testimonies like this to keep us on our toes.

Preaching Through Romans: An Antidote to the New Perspective on Paul

My thoughts on Paul’s view of Israel have changed dramatically over the years in two respects. When I studied theology at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, the ‘new perspective’ on Paul was starting to dominate British scholarship and like many others I adopted this new approach. There was a certain excitement in arguing that the traditional Lutheran approach to Paul was mistaken. …

Continue Reading →

Last night brought to an end a 27-year tradition. I baptized my last child and read for her the last baptismal poem. Indulge a happy dad's desire to extend that celebration a few hours longer by posting the poem here. May the Lord keep her with sovereign grace (Jude 1:24-25).

For Talitha at Her Baptism

(Listen)

The Lord himself once stood
With John the Baptist in the river, just
The way you stand with me
Tonight, the Son of Man with perfect trust,

Fulfilling everything
Required of us, as if a spotless Lamb
Should there repent, as if,
Immersed and hushed, the great I AM

Could choose to sink in death
And bury there alone in the abyss
Our sin, a parable
Of love and hope and suffering—…

Continue Reading →

When we teach that our right standing with God is attained through the imputation of Christ’s obedience to our account (Romans 5:19; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 4:6, 11; 10:3), does this imply that the work of Christ on the cross—his final suffering and death—is insufficient for our justification?

This question arises in part because of texts that connect the cause of justification specifically to the cross of Christ. For example:

• Romans 3:24-25: “[They] are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood.”
• Romans 4:25: “[He] was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”
• Romans 5:9…

Continue Reading →

For Noël on Mother’s Day
May 14, 2000

Where Was Mary?

“After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”

Where was Mary, Jesus’ mother
When he sang his final song?
Where was Mary on the evening
Of the world’s most wicked wrong?

Where was Mary at the moment
Jesus broke the tender bread?
Where was Mary when he blessed it
With his mercy and his dread?

Where was Mary in the darkness
When he poured the cup of wine?
When he spoke of blood and promise,
And he whispered, “This is mine”?

Where was Mary when the Sovereign
Put his garment to the side,
When he washed the feet of sinners
On his knees before he died?

Where was Mary on the night when
Jesus sang his final song?
Where was Mar…

Continue Reading →

On this day two hundred years ago, Robert Morrison boarded the ship, the Trident, in New York to complete his journey to China as the first Protestant Missionary.

He was born in 1782 in Scotland and was brought up in the Scottish Presbyterian Church. He took a dissolute detour from the faith but was converted in 1798 and began to dream of being a missionary. His mother made him promise, however, not to be a missionary while she lived. She died in 1804 and Morrison applied to the London Missionary Society that had been founded in 1795 and was accepted. January 8, 1807 Morrison was ordained in the Scots Church in London. He was appointed for China while still a single man and set sail f…

Continue Reading →