The whole point of Easter is that we get … blank.

How would you finish the sentence?

... we get justification.

… we get new life in Christ.

… we get the promise of imperishable physical bodies.

… we get the promise of eternal joy.

For all the right answers we could give, there’s one even more fundamental purpose behind the holy week events, writes John Piper in his book God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself [(Crossway, 2005), 37, 147]:

Until the gospel events of Good Friday and Easter and the gospel promises of justification and eternal life lead you to behold and embrace God himself as your highest joy, you have not embraced the gospel of God. …

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The Maundy in Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin root mandatum, or commandment, taken from Jesus' words in John 13:34:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

Just prior to speaking these words, Jesus knelt down to wash the disciples' feet, a model of love for the disciples. But Maundy Thursday celebrates more than a new mandate of sacrificial love, it points to a sacrifice of eternal significance.

Slaves and Foot Washing

For the sandal-wearing disciples, washing feet was a common cultural practice. It was proper hospitality to offer your guests a basin of water for their feet. But guests were usual…

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Fresh into his new post at Bethel College in the fall of 1974, Professor John wrote an article to explain the lifelong value of solid reading habits. Teach a man to fish and he can learn from the ancient fishermen. The piece itself is not long, and you can read the whole thing here.

Here are a few noteworthy quotes:

• “I have said a number of times that all I try to teach in my seminar courses is how to read well. And I think that is all any of us in the humanities should be doing.”
• “Reading is the process by which, through the means of written language, we come to understand another person's ideas. This is probably the most efficient way to increase what we know about reality and about…

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Bible scholar Don Carson cautions us about parental hypocrisy by recalling the enduring impact of his parents’ prayerful example:

My father was a church planter in Québec, in the difficult years when there was strong opposition, some of it brutal. Baptist ministers alone spent a total of eight years in jail between 1950 and 1952. Dad’s congregations were not large; they were usually at the lower end of the two-digit range.

On Sunday mornings after the eleven o’clock service, Dad would often play the piano and call his three children to join him in singing, while Mum completed the preparations for dinner. But one Sunday morning in the late fifties, I recall, Dad was not at the piano, a…

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Tears sum up everything gone wrong in this fallen world. Grief, frustration, pain, disappointment, loss, stress, tragedy, disaster, regret, mourning, depression, lament, brokenness, abandonment — all of it can be expressed through the universal language of tears.

We need no interpreter to read this language: the wet, bloodshot eyes, the sobs, the facial contortions, the sporadic breathing, the body tremors, the broken speech. We are instantly struck by the tearful face of one who weeps the blood of a wounded soul (Augustine).

… But Isaiah Points Forward

The pages penned by the prophet Isaiah are soaked with tears. And that's probably why the bold, feasting promise we read about in Isai…

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In 1994 Pastor John began explaining a theme he noticed in the introductions and conclusions to all 13 of Paul’s epistles. Paul begins each epistle with grace, and he closes each epistle with grace. The pattern is “a bracing trumpet call to the centrality of grace in Christianity.”

It is. But there was more to be discovered in the pattern.

As he studied these bookends closer, Pastor John discovered that each grace-centered greeting included some form of the phrase “grace be to you.” Each grace-filled benediction included some form of the phrase “grace be with you.”

Here are the passages:

“grace be to you” / “grace be with you”

Romans 1:7 / Romans 16:20

1 Corinthians 1:3 / 1 Corin…

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A small emergency struck our home last week when my 4-year-old son’s favorite hedgehog stuffed animal went missing.

The hope of finding him was beginning to shrink with every search under the couch and with every sweep under the bed. The outlook made it likely that (once again) my wife would need to search eBay for an exact replacement. (A few hot-water-and-bleach wash cycles wear the replacement down to faded authenticity.) But we had not lost hope. Yet.

It may have been an old stuffed hedgehog made with cheap China fabric and stuffed with beads and fuzz, but its absence made bedtime especially tough for my son. Convincing him that a stuffed bunny was an equal replacement didn’t work. T…

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In an article written several decades back, Pastor John explained the value of reading richly descriptive literature to develop a vibrant language of theology. He encourages theology students to sometimes pick up great literature and poets like Wordsworth to catch their descriptive sensibilities. He wrote this in his article "The Poverty of Theological Vocabulary" (1970):

There is an intimate relationship between our power to enjoy a sensuous experience and our capacity to describe it with words. In "Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey" Wordsworth is not taken up nearly so much with the joy of revisiting the banks of the Wye as he is with the pleasure this moment will bring him in the co…

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Sin is a mystery, and it’s a mystery the psalmist wrestles with in Psalm 19. First he looks up to the heavens to delight in the Creator’s handiwork (verses 1–6). Then he looks down to delight in God’s words (verses 7–11). And the next moment he is on his face pleading with God for power for victory over sin (verses 12–13).

¹² Who can discern his errors?
Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
¹³ Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.

Sin in Two Forms

The psalmist shows us sin in at least two different forms: "hidden faults" and "presumptuous sins." One is like a trapdoor…

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Dr. Ray Ortlund Jr. is an author, pastor and a former seminary professor. He also blogs and tweets regularly. Given his experience, responsibilities, and his devotion to social media, I asked him to explain more about why and how he uses Twitter and blogging.

Ray, thank you for answering some questions. You speak at conferences, write books, and you blog and tweet. You communicate in many various contexts. My questions for you are mostly related to pastoral ministry and social media. As a pastor, how does the rise in social media – blogging, Facebook, Twitter – complement and complicate pastoral ministry.

The media we now have offer us a tremendous advantage for getting the gospel out. I…

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