Pastor John in 1984:

Now let's see what we can learn from this text about the way a pastor should preach in order to help his people make progress in practical holiness. I'll only mention four things briefly. These are not the only way to preach practical holiness. Nor must every sermon include them all. But in your overall ministry of the word I believe these should have a large place. . . .

In sum,

1. Teach your people to know God.
2. Exhort your people to practical holiness.
3. Put one and two together and help your people see all their life in relation to God.
4. Warn the people of God's vengeance.

Read the entire sermon, Preaching Practical Holiness.

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Recent posts from "Piper's P…

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A couple months ago Collin Hansen from The Gospel Coalition sat down with John Piper for an 11-minute interview on the mixed legacy of race relations among evangelicals:

Time-markers —

0:05 — Is there more white supremacy today than 50 years ago?

1:42 — Does ethnic diversity bring out more racism or help eradicate it?

3:03 — Why do some Bible-believing Christians disobey what the Bible teaches?

3:44 — How opposing interracial marriage was the foundation to segregation.

6:00 — How does the Bible or specifically, Reformed theology, abolish racism?

Check out Collin's commentary on the video and read his review of Bloodlines.

What does Jonathan Edwards have to do with baseball? It relates to how he saw the world. The technical term is typology — the mechanism of his God-entranced vision of all things. He explains,

God does purposely make and order one thing to be in agreeableness and harmony with another. And if so, why should not we suppose that he makes the inferior in imitation of the superior, the material of the spiritual, on purpose to have a resemblance and shadow of them? We see that even in the material world God makes one part of it strangely to agree with another; and why it is not reasonable to suppose he makes the whole as a shadow of the spiritual world? . . . ("Images of Diving Things," A Jonatha…

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Four-minute clip from this week's sermon:

Join us tonight from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM (EDT) for the live-stream of Pastor John's message on race and the gospel, including an hour of Q&A.

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Related posts —

• Bloodlines: Live-Streamed Event for Small Groups and Churches
• Bloodlines: Race, Cross. . . and Your Local Church
• Jesus Died to End Abortion and Racism

What exactly is meant by the confession: "The Bible is without error in the original manuscripts?"

The doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture is foundational to evangelical faith, yet there is some diversity in the opinion of what inerrancy entails. Back in 1976, John Piper sought to bring clarity to this issue in a short paper, "How Are the Synoptics 'Without Error'?"

This paper was recently transcribed as another new-old resource to feature in the Resource Library under The Life of the Mind column. Coming from Pastor John's professor days, these resources are mostly academic in nature, though this particular work concludes with a pastoral word of application:

From history and from…

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Together for the Underestimated Gospel, April 10-12, 2012, in Louisville, KY.

Tomorrow night Pastor John will gather with a group of urban leaders in Minneapolis to speak on this issue of race and the gospel. The event will be live-streamed from 7:30PM (EDT) to 9:30PM (EDT), including an hour of Q&A. We encourage you to join us online by watching and discussing with your small group or church.

Doug Wilson will speak on the subject of "father hunger" at our 2012 Conference for Pastors (Jan 30 – Feb 1). Registration is now open.

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Recent posts for the 2012 Conference for Pastors —

• Dads, Five Ways to Make Your Words Count (Excerpt from Crawford Loritts)
• What Is Father Hunger? (Video from Doug Wilson)
• Dads, Consider the Impact of Availability (Excerpt from Crawford Loritts)

John Calvin:

Therefore, that joining together of Head and members, that indwelling of Christ in our hearts—in short, that mystical union—are accorded by us the highest degree of importance, so that Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed.

We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body—in short, because he deigns to make us one with him. For this reason, we glory that we have fellowship of righteousness with him.

Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis…

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Crawford Loritts reflects on five lessons he learned from his father on how to speak so that your children take your words seriously:

1. Don't waste words. Don't add a lot of apologies or unnecessary detail that make you look timid.
2. Don't threaten.
3. Be clear about expectations. When you tell someone, especially a child, how to behave or what to do, make sure you both are very clear about what you expect.
4. Be clear about consequences, particularly if your expectations involve an area with which that child has struggled in the past.
5. Take clear, decisive action. . . .

Say what you mean and back up your words with action. It's a testimony to your integrity and an example your children will carry wi…

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Doug Wilson will speak on the subject of "father hunger" at our 2012 Conference for Pastors (Jan 30 – Feb 1). Registration is now open.

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Recent posts for the 2012 Conference for Pastors —

• Dads, Consider the Impact of Availability (Excerpt from Crawford Loritts)
• Masculinity Is the Glad Assumption of Responsibility (Video from Doug Wilson)
• "Old, Settled, and Reformed" Is Coming at You Like a Freight Train (Doug Wilson)