Paul called it a “profound mystery” (Ephesians 5:32). Earthly marriage between a man and a woman is a momentary parable of one of the most gloriously permanent things in the seen and unseen worlds: Christ’s marriage to his church.

That’s why John Piper writes, “There has never been a generation whose general view of marriage is high enough.” And in the United States the general view of marriage continues to erode. Every day in the public square it’s under fire:

• Who says that marriage should only be between one man and one woman?
• Why should any two consenting adults be denied marriage if they’re in love?
• Isn’t being in love essentially what marriage is all about?
• Who says marriage ough…

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“Man, that guy’s got a voice!” That was my first impression of Joe Hallett.

In the fall of 1990, my wife and I joined Bethlehem Baptist’s young adult Sunday School class. And during the worship times Joe’s voice would soar above everybody’s. He wasn’t a big guy — about 5-foot-7, maybe 130 pounds. But when he sang he was a man among men.

Joe wasn’t shy either. In our first conversation he just laid it out there. A decade earlier he had left college to dive into the gay community — the bars, the trysts, the flamboyant clothes, everything. And it had been exciting and liberating at first, after the misery of his sexually abused childhood and depressed teens. But the “gay lifestyle” turned…

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In January 1999, Desiring God was four years old and in a growth spurt. Our office was partly in two old Sunday School rooms and partly on the balcony of Bethlehem Baptist Church's vacated (and now demolished) old sanctuary. We had eight staff members, growing demands, and new dreams. But we needed someone with serious organizational horsepower to help us before things got out of hand.

And the Lord sent Bill Walsh.

Bill joined the DG team at the beginning of February of that year as our Production and Distribution Manager. Mainly it meant he made things run. And he did it really well. As DG grew, so did his job. Pretty soon he was Director of Operations.

But by 2006, the Lord h…

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How great are your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep!
The stupid man cannot know; the fool cannot understand this” (Psalm 92:5–6).

The devil does not want you to wonder. Wonder is deadly to the domain of darkness because of its dangerous tendency to lead to worship.

So the devil is going to do his level best to keep you stupid — stupid in the sense of being sense-less. If he can’t damn you, he will try to dumb you. You must resist him (1 Peter 5:9)!

All the senses that God has given you are telling you about God today (Romans 1:20). And one of the healthiest things you can do for your soul after prayer and bathing in God’s living Word is to listen to creation tell you about t…

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In Luke 16:1–9, Jesus told his disciples an odd parable where he used a dishonest manager as an example of shrewdness. What did he mean? Imagine a discussion about this between disciples Simon (the Zealot) and Matthew.

________

“Matthew, you know more about these things than I do. Why did the Master commend the dishonest manager’s shrewdness?”

Simon’s question stung a bit and Matthew’s look said so.

“Oh. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Simon and Matthew were unlikely friends. And it had been pretty rocky between them at first.

Simon had been a zealot with a lethal hatred of the Romans. He had once sworn himself to the sacred cause of driving them out of Is…

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“Encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

His name was Joseph. But he “was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement)” (Acts 4:36). Joe Encouragement. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be such an encouraging person that your friends simply call you Encouragement?

Courage is the resolve to face a fearful threat. And courage comes from hope — a hope in something stronger than what we fear.

Discouragement sets in when our hope is leaking out. It’s a sort of surrender to our fear. When this happens, and it happens often, what we need is an infusion of hope. That’s what encouragement is. Barnabas went around giving people hope-infusion…

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Do you, like me, have family members who do not believe in Jesus? If so, we are in good company. So did Jesus. And I think this is meant to give us hope. 

According to the Apostle John, “not even his brothers believed in him” (John 7:5). That’s incredible. Those who had lived with Jesus for 30 years really did not know him. Not one of Jesus’ brothers is mentioned as a disciple during his pre-crucifixion ministry. But after his resurrection and ascension, there they are in the upper room worshiping him as God (Acts 1:14).

Why didn’t they believe? And what made them change?

The Bible doesn’t answer the first question. But I’ll bet it was difficult to have Jesus for a brother.

…

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The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied. (Proverbs 19:23)

Franklin D. Roosevelt coined one of America’s iconic maxims in his first inaugural address: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It’s not true.

Roosevelt was trying to quell the national panic of financial crisis, urging Americans not to succumb to “unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts.” It is true that irrational fear must be resisted. But it’s not true that fear is the only thing we need to fear.   

In fact, fear itself is not wrong. God actually designed us to be fearers. Fear is a faith-revealer. What we fear reveals what we trust. It’s a strong response…

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All of us want to finish well. But so many of us do not. Why? Because we too easily cherish our roles in the Great Wedding more than the wedding itself. Which is why John the Baptist¹ must become our mentor.

________

It was all a bit hard to comprehend.

John’s disciples had understood his mission. He had come to prepare the way for the Hope of Israel. It had been thrilling. The long-expected time was so close — that climactic day when Jesus appeared and John publicly proclaimed him the Messiah. The wonder could yield no words.

But they hadn’t expected to feel marginalized by it.

The past year had been a heady one. John had blazed across Judea like a shooting star, the first real …

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Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions (Romans 6:12).

It bears repeating: if you want life, deny yourself (Matthew 16:24–25). Your narcissistic nihilist self will kill you if you do not.

This truth left me trembling again when I heard last week of a respected, seasoned Christian leader who committed suicide after his sexual sin was exposed.

Such a horror is alarming. But no honest person finds it inconceivable. That’s why it’s alarming.

Living with a sin nature is like living with a demon. The devil is not irrational; he’s immoral. He’s a liar, which means he deliberately manipulates reason to serve his own selfish desires. Apart from the r…

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