What will you say when the door opens for communicating the gospel?

Imagine for a moment a co-worker asks you, "What is this "gospel" you Chrisitans keep talking about?" You're both taking a quick break, and you don't have long to explain. He is wanting the best one-minute summary you can muster. What do you say?

Granted, this is hypothetical, but it's not far-fetched. This is typically how we have opportunity to speak the gospel in one-on-one situations. Keep it short and get to the heart of the message. The gospel is, after all, a message. It is delivered in words and can be summarized without having to summarize all 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.

Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilb…

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John Piper's latest poem, "Calvary Love."

He held the world between his thumb and finger
like a tender grape.

And when the spike was driven through his hand,
his muscles flinched with world-creating force,
and crimson wine dripped from his fingertips.

But with omnipotent resolve
he neither dropped nor crushed his grape.

"This is a very weighty, very painful, and very necessary topic," explains John Piper. In this short video he extends his invitation to Desiring God's November conference on disability, "The Works of God: God's Good Design in Disability."

Speakers at this conference include Nancy Guthrie, Greg Lucas, Mark Talbot, and John Piper. Visit the event page to learn more and register.

God absolutely is. This is the most basic and ultimate fact there has ever been. The triune God — the Lord — is. He always has been and always will be. He is not to be assumed. He is not a mere foundation upon which we move on to more important things. The great driving passion of our lives should be to know him and make him known as glorious.

This is heart of John Piper's most recent sermon that kicks off a new series of eleven messages on the foundational realities that have shaped Bethlehem Baptist Church. The series is rooted in his conviction that Bethlehem's greatest days are ahead as Jason Meyer transitions into the role of Pastor for Preaching and Vision.

This first sermon fo…

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Sanctification is a long word. Even though we know it's important biblically, still it manages to get stuck in the abstract. And truth be told, our old self likes it better that way.

The abstract, after all, is much more comfortable. As long as we keep sin in vague terms — as long as sanctification stays out there instead of in here — things can stay the same. That's why it's easier to pray, "God, take my life," rather than "God, take my cash." We may love the idea of sanctification, as a theological concept, but the particular forms it should become in our specific lives, not so much. Keeping sanctification at arm’s length maintains the guise of maturity (i.e., we pray well) but nothing r…

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"The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love," Henry Scougal wrote in his 17th-century work, The Life of God in the Soul of Man. And if this is true of humans, might it also be true of God?

That is the starting place to John Piper's book, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God. He recently led a five-hour seminar on the book in Minneapolis, all of which is now available for free.

Stream or download the seminar in three parts:

The Pleasures of God (Session 1):

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The Pleasures of God (Session 2):

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The Pleasures of God (Session 3):

Growing up my dad told me that "love" is the most over-underused word in existence. Some toss it out like pennies in a wishing well. Others never mention it when it needs to be heard. His exhortation to me was simple: talk as if words mean something.

Good counsel as it is, this adage points to the bigger question of, well, what love means. For starters, Hollywood depictions of the warm and fuzzy and happily-ever-after won't do. And clinched-fist, love-is-a-choice determination won't either. I'm not concerned with love the feeling, or love the verb. What exactly is love? What is love, the virtue? Real, bona fide love?

The Real Stuff

The most popular passage on love in the Bible is 1 Cor…

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This weekend's seminar on The Pleasures of God has just ended. If you attended the seminar or joined us on the live-stream, thanks so much for being a part of this event. We hope you can join us on the live-stream tonight at 7:10 (EDT) for John Piper's sermon at Bethlehem Baptist Church (Downtown campus).

Related Resources

Here's a list of resources mentioned by Pastor John during the seminar or related to the content:

• The book, The Pleasures of God
• Full seminar notes (PDF)
• Scougal's book for purchase, Amazon or WTS Books
• Scougal's book free online: here and here
• Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University
• Edwards's Essay on the Trinity
• BCS Press: The Pleasures of God (12 w…

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Jesus Christ, the Son of God, suffered on the cross in our place and was raised triumphantly from the dead. He ascended to the Father's right hand and is now enthroned, sending his Spirit who by the Word gathers for himself a new people from every tribe and tongue and nation. This new people — the church — are those who by repentance from sin and faith in Jesus are welcomed into fellowship with God and now hope for his coming kingdom.

We know this news changes everything. It has to. But how?

What about everyday life? What about relationships? Or more specifically, what about marriage?

In their book, Love That Lasts, Gary and Betsy Ricucci list out nine ways that the gospel directly…

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2 Timothy 4:7–8 tells us that the apostle Paul will get a reward. The "crown of righteousness" awaits him. But why? What is this reward for?

Answer: fighting the fight of faith.

And there's more. The reward is not just for Paul, who has fought the fight of faith, but it's also for everyone who loves the appearing of Jesus.

Expounding these verses, John Piper explains how they teach us about the essence of faith, namely, that at the core of saving faith is wanting Jesus.

This excerpt begins at the 24:24 mark of this week's sermon.

Right at the core of saving faith is wanting Jesus, desiring Jesus, craving fellowship with Jesus. Faith is not simply acknowledging facts about…

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