A month ago today the bombs went off in Boston. Through the surge of media, many of us were left on the edge of our seats for a week. There was shock and confusion and deep questions. In this latest episode of Behind the Blog we talk about how we responded to this tragedy on the blog, including our personal wrestling with how to process events like this.

Other topics in this episode include an update on John Piper’s upcoming speaking schedule and wider ministry. We talk about our latest publications now available and our newest ebook, Doctrine Matters. We also introduce our National Conference this fall, “The Romantic Rationalist: God, Work, & Imagination in the Work of C.S. Lewis.”

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“But I believe in Jesus too,” my five-year-old said, unconvinced by my explanation why she couldn’t have some of the bread and juice.

We had slipped out of the service after I received the elements because she became rowdy with questions. I led her a little ways from the crowd and knelt down to meet her eye to eye. My hands were on her shoulders, posturing to seize the moment, until my unsatisfactory answer quickly led to a bigger talk as she continued her case.

Now staring off in her own thoughts, she replied, “Dad, I believe in Jesus, but I mean, I’ve never seen him before. I’ve never heard how he talks.”

This wasn’t a crisis. She was just stating a fact. It actually came off a little b…

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The Book of Acts is clearly one of the most action-packed segments in the storyline of Scripture. The title, “The Acts of the Apostles,” cues us in on this clue from the start. As many commentators have suggested, a more accurate title would be something to do with the acts of the Holy Spirit, or perhaps “The Action of the Ascended Christ by His Spirit Through His Church.”

The book opens with Jesus ascending as human to the throne of the universe, sending the Spirit, and commissioning his messengers. “You will be my witnesses,” he promises, “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). And so Luke recounts the movements in that outline — all action and…

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Jesus is king. He is the ascended, seated, reigning Lord over everything. Now what does this mean for how we think? How does his preeminence affect our intellectual pursuits?

Last fall Mark Noll and John Piper converged to discuss this topic. In an event hosted by Bethlehem College and Seminary and the MacLaurin Institute, Noll and Piper, authors of Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind and Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God respectively, each presented a lecture and interacted with questions related to the mind and Christian scholarship.

Noll’s lecture, starting at the 1:30 mark, examined two questions: first, why is the person and work of Christ the framework for the…

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Barnabas Piper has put some thinking into sports. Actually, he has put a lot of Christian thinking into sports. Writing weekly for WorldMag.com, Barnabas has had a steady voice on what we can learn about God in America’s favorite entertainment.

So when Barnabas was recently in Minneapolis, we were eager to pull up a chair and pick his brain a little more. He starts by explaining that if Christians engage the culture through the arts, sports shouldn’t be excluded. It is more than “caveman entertainment” and there are precious truths to mine.

Get this 34-minute audio and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

For more from Barnabas, visit his blog and tune into the podcast he leads, What Did T…

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Joseph’s brothers realized something we should never forget.

It comes at the end of the story in Genesis 50. This is a long time after the brothers conspired together against Joseph. A lot had happened since then — since they hated their brother enough to sell him to Midianite traders for twenty shekels of silver (Genesis 37:28). That was the evil that started it all.

They grieved their father, Jacob, with a lie about Joseph’s death (Genesis 37:32–35). Joseph eventually was enslaved to Potiphar in Egypt, that is, until Potiphar’s wife slandered him (Genesis 39:11–20), had him thrown into prison (Genesis 39:19–20), and the cupbearer forgot him (Genesis 40:23). Years passed and then the fami…

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“I feel like I’m 22 again,” says the newly transitioned John Piper.

Now that his pastorate at Bethlehem Baptist Church has officially ended, Piper says he feels like a recent college grad who is free to do anything God lays on his heart. “When you have that much freedom, you’re really faced with significant ‘don’t waste your life’ choices.” He plans to seek God in a focused way in the next year as to how to invest his next 10 or 15 years, if God would give that many.

This past week Piper sat down with Collin Hansen of The Gospel Coalition to talk about his hopes for the future, including some reflections on his past 33 years as a pastor and how that has shaped him for what’s next.

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Here is the theological summary of one preacher’s lifetime of investment in a local church: Doctrine Matters: Ten Theological Trademarks from a Lifetime of Preaching, from John Piper.

Preaching, you could say, is where the rubber begins to meet the road on what a church believes. It is the living statement of faith. And in the case of John Piper, we have this statement captured online in over 1,200 sermons, including a whole series where he devotes a single message to the main theological emphases of his near 33-year preaching tenure. These theological emphases, preached as ten sermons last year and now edited into this volume, embody the legacy Piper hopes to leave at Bethlehem Baptist.

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The Gospels tell us what happened to Jesus when he entered Jerusalem. It is the testimony of history’s most important event and we can hold it in our hands. It is the testimony of four God-inspired authors whose words we’ve read and celebrated this spring. And then there’s the Book of Psalms.

Like the Gospels, the Psalms give us a fascinating picture of the Savior. Psalm 22 especially stands out. Jesus quotes Psalm 22:1 on the cross and the whole narrative of his crucifixion draws imagery from “the afflicted one” found there. Not only is he forsaken (Psalm 22:1), he is also scorned and mocked by onlookers (Psalm 22:6–7), he thirsts (Psalm 22:15), he is surrounded by ruthless Gentiles (Psalm…

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From big reminders taped on the wall of a college dorm, to a big book by a 96-year-old theologian, to an interview with two big-league ball players, the latest episode from Behind the Blog pulls back the curtain on the recent happenings at desiringGod.org.

Among other exciting things, we talk about John Piper’s recent transition to the full-time staff and preview the speaker lineup for our conference this fall on C.S. Lewis.

Thanks for reading and listening. We value your feedback. If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, you can send them to us at blog@desiringgod.org.

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