Ann Voskamp is the wife of a farmer, the busy mom of six kids, and a bestselling author. Throughout the year, Voskamp’s writings are a reminder that kindling thankfulness leads us to fellowship with God. During the holidays, Voskamp’s writings are a reminder that celebrating the birth of Christ points us to remember the death of our Savior.

On this special Christmas edition of Authors on the Line, we talk with Ann Voskamp about how she keeps the cross central in her home during the holidays. She says, "If there is no cross in my Christmas, then my Christmas has lost Christ; and what is the manger if not for the Messiah, the one who saves us with scars?"

“If my life isn’t cross-centered, …

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When the Nazis padlocked the doors of the Confessing Church seminaries in Germany in the Autumn of 1937, Dietrich Bonhoeffer took theological training underground and opened his own seminary in Finkenwalde. Before the Gestapo shut it down in 1939, Bonhoeffer managed to train 67 seminary students.¹ These 67 seminarians and Bonhoeffer formed a band of brothers that could not be torn apart, although some of them were arrested, some were dispersed by the Nazi oppression, and several were conscripted into army service and spread across the globe by World War II.²

Bonhoeffer was on the Nazi watch list. He was tracked closely and he was eventually forbidden to publish or preach or lecture. So to …

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This morning we posted a list of my 12 favorite books from 2012. In this episode of Authors on the Line we talk with pastor Steve DeWitt, the author of my choice for the book of the year: Eyes Wide Open: Enjoying God in Everything.

Several Christian publishers turned the book down because Christians don’t really have an interest in reading about beauty, or so he was told. Despite the skepticism, I’m grateful Credo House stepped forward and published this book. It is a wonderfully edifying book that first looks at the beauty of Christ and then reveals how it is through divine beauty and through Trinitarian beauty that we can see and appreciate all the lesser created beauties of the world.

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For seven years I’ve had the honor of tracking non-fiction books released by Christian publishers, and in that span of time I would say 2012 was the most fruitful year of them all. Recently I gathered up my favorite titles of the year — everything from theological works and commentaries to marriage and children’s books — and chose what I think were the 12 most important books published in 2012. The task was incredibly difficult this year, but eventually I settled on the following.

1. Steve DeWitt, Eyes Wide Open: Enjoying God in Everything (Credo). Pastor Steve DeWitt saw a need for a book on beauty, decided to research and write the book, and then floated it to eight Christian publishers.…

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On this episode of Authors on the Line we talk with two authors — pastor John Piper and historian Paul Maier — about tragedy, loss, and the Christmas season.

We talk with Maier to discover just how tightly interwoven into the Nativity story tragedy is found. We read there of a paranoid king named Herod, who unleashed the tragic killing of young boys in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16). Who was Herod? And is his violent outburst in Bethlehem historical truth or fictional myth invented by Christians? And if it is true, why is there no historical corroboration that it happened?

Matthew 2:16 also provides the background for John Piper's illustrated poem The Innkeeper, and we ask him why in this seas…

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Who has time to celebrate Advent? That’s my initial thought each year.

But that’s the point. Advent takes time. It cannot be microwaved, it cannot be compressed into 24 hours, and it cannot be sped up to the bustling speed of our daily lives. Advent is slow on purpose, because the slowness of the celebration mirrors the slowly unfolding drama of the Advent of the Savior himself in history.

One old pastor, Octavius Winslow, penned some words in his book The Glory of the Redeemer (1844) that are relevant to this slowing season of Advent:

The entire history of the Israelites was interwoven with a system of symbols and types of the most significant and instructive character. It was thus…

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The impressive new feature film Lincoln brings with it a high-definition reminder of the tremendous strengths and flaws of, and the challenges faced by, the 16th president of the United States.

One struggle that finds its way into the movie — and one scene in particular — is the strained and complicated marital relationship between Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln. And yet from their marital mess, there’s an abiding counter-cultural lesson from which all couples could learn, as John Piper explains in the following excerpt from his 1997 devotional A Godward Life, pages 33–35.

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Enduring the Pain of a Flawed Marriage

Abraham Lincoln’s marriage was a mess, and accepting the pain brought deep s…

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The theology of Jonathan Edwards is built around the living, triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But just how central is the Trinity for Edwards? How early in his life did the Trinity begin shaping his theology? How does this govern how Edwards understands love, and understands the origin of God’s impulse to create the universe, and understands the character and experience of heaven? And how does the Trinitarian nature of the Living God contrast all other forms of single-person or mono-person deities? And maybe most fundamental of all, just how biblical was Jonathan Edwards’ doctrine of the Trinity in the first place?

With these questions we put Edwards scholar Michael McClymond o…

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What would eight thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise sound like?

Well, if you want ten thousand male voices, it will sound a lot like the new album, Together for the Gospel Live II. The album releases today, and the tracks were recorded during musical worship at the T4G gathering in April (and some from the 2010 gathering).

To mark the release of the album, our friends at Sovereign Grace Music have given us permission to offer track 12 — “All I Have Is Christ” — as a free download to our blog readers. Click on the following link to download or listen:

Together for the Gospel Live II — “All I Have Is Christ” (10 MB MP3)

Here are links to both T4G Live albums —

• Togeth…

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Union with Christ is one of the most essential theological categories in the New Testament. And it may be one of the most overlooked.

Sensing a need, over the last 12 months a flurry of books on union have been sent to press and the latest is by Australian theologian Constantine Campbell. His new 480-page book, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study, was released last week by Zondervan. Dr. Campbell’s book is thorough in its exegesis of biblical texts, meticulous in its organization and structure, and encyclopedic in its scope. Paul and Union with Christ is certain to become a standard work.

We recently put Dr. Campbell on the line from his office in Sydney, Au…

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