It was another full week in the Ask Pastor John podcast series, and we covered a few of the more difficult questions of Christian Hedonism.

First, we asked Pastor John whether there are times in the Christian life when — for whatever reason — God chooses to withhold his presence from us, thus nullifying our hope of experiencing Godward affections. The Puritans seemed to operate from this assumption (“God desertions,” they called it). And if this is the case — if God withdraws from the Christian at times, thus making joy in God impossible — doesn’t the plea of Christian Hedonism (the call to be happy in God) just heap more guilt on such a person? Pastor John answered in episode 19.

In epi…

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Recently Pastor John released his short book Risk Is Right, a significantly expanded version of a chapter originally published in Don't Waste Your Life. In Risk Is Right, Pastor John claims the so-called safety we seek to preserve in our lives is really a myth.

We asked him to explain “safety is a myth” in a recent Ask Pastor John podcast (episode 10). In part he explained it this way:

You can’t put enough padlocks on your door and enough bars on your window to keep a heart attack from happening. There is no guarantee that anybody is going to live another breath. And therefore all the efforts that we make to keep ourselves safe are ultimately an illusion in terms of absolute securi…

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“How good is God,” wrote Jonathan Edwards, “that he has created man for this very end, to make him happy in the enjoyment of himself, the Almighty, who was happy from the days of eternity in himself … that he might make them blessed in the beholding of his excellency, and might this way glorify himself.”

A more profound sentence can hardly be found outside of the Bible. We were created to enjoy God now and for all eternity. The only profound discovery that tops this is that, from eternity past to eternity future, God delights in himself.

Wading into these deep waters is Jonathan Edwards scholar Kyle Strobel. In his new book Jonathan Edwards’s Theology: A Reinterpretation (T&T Clark, 201…

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We released eight new episodes of the newly relaunched Ask Pastor John (APJ) podcast this week. And in episode 13 — “The Essential Warfare for Holiness” — we talked with Pastor John about the connection between happiness and holiness.

There Pastor John said this:

When we say God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him, we are saying the essential warfare of holiness, or sanctification, is the warfare to be satisfied in God. It is a fight to see him as beautiful and to savor him as beautiful. That is the number one fight. Take pornography or theft or the desire for applause, any of those sins, the fundamental way that you sever the root of those sins is by strivin…

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Christian marriage has been caught up into the cosmic drama of the gospel.

In this first Authors on the Line podcast of 2013 we talk with Bible scholar G. K. Beale, the Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. His research on Ephesians sheds light on how Christian marriage is shaped by the finished work of Christ in the inauguration of the New Creation. The patient reader will eventually encounter this material in his book A New Testament Biblical Theology (Baker Academic, 2011), around pages 880–884.

There Dr. Beale writes this summary statement:

As husbands unconditionally love their wives and as wives respond to this love in a faithf…

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How easy is it to detach our marriages from the finished work of Christ?

Very easy.

Tragically easy.

This may be due to living in a society where marriage is ever pressed into molds defined by the increasing unbelief around us, rather than biblical revelation. The very definition of marriage in our day has increasingly taken the feel of Play-Doh, all squishy and moldable in political debates and water-cooler conversations.

But no redefinition of marriage can touch the ultimate reality of God’s design. God has chosen to weave marriages — our marriages — into the most profound theological realities this universe has ever seen. To enter into a Christian marriage is to enter into the d…

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A week ago, John Piper celebrated his 67th birthday. On his birthday, we asked him about his prayer for this new chapter of ministry.

“I really do feel remarkably vulnerable to distraction because of the lifting of certain pressures,” he says. “Deadlines are wonderfully productive. And pressure, while we hate it, really does help [our productivity].”

Pastor John shares his goals (and his fears) as he moves into a new chapter of ministry in the first episode of our newly relaunched Ask Pastor John podcast (APJ).

APJ Is Back

The point of the podcast is to connect more frequently with Pastor John throughout the week and hear his thoughts on the Bible, theology, ministry, and leadership,…

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Jesus sings.

If Scripture didn’t say it, I wouldn’t either. But it’s true. In four places in Scripture we read that Jesus, the Son of God himself, raised his voice in worship.¹

Which is immediately confusing on one level. It's not that there's anything wrong with singing, just that I imagine our Savior much better suited as the silent recipient of adoration and worship (Revelation 5:6–14). But he also sings. And the only way to understand why Jesus sings is to briefly walk through all four passages (here split into three categories).

First, Matthew 26:30 and Mark 14:26 are two parallel texts picturing Jesus “singing a song of praise.”

Both passages are brief. We read that Jesus sang…

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How do you explain “glorify” to a small child? Biblical concepts like this pose a particular problem for parents, and author Sally Lloyd-Jones provides us with some help. I included her book Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing in my list of top 12 books of 2012, largely for how well she translates complex and abstract theological categories (like glory), through story, for young children (particularly mine).

One story from her book is titled “Glorify!” There she introduces the heart of what we call "Christian Hedonism" around here, but in language suited for a young child. And she does it in a mere 155 words. Recently we asked her to read the story for us on camera, which she does in this 2-m…

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Training children to love reading can be tough. Okay, really tough. A host of visual entertainment competes for our children's attention. Things like video games, which are not necessarily bad in themselves, can spill over boundaries and erode a child’s love of reading. When visual entertainment choices threaten a love for books and imaginative storytelling in a young child's life, parents should be concerned. Parents need wisdom here, wisdom suited to the strengths and weaknesses of each child.

Books are important because story is important. And story is important because to some degree parenting is storytelling. Parents are called to the glorious labor of narrating God's sovereign and co…

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