His plans were frustrated again by a lousy generator. No matter how many times he pulled the rope, it would not start up. He was used to his rented generators stopping intermittently during his itinerant work in these remote parts of Nigeria, but tonight was the first time a generator wouldn't even start.

There was no time to find a new one. The open field was swelling with more than one thousand Nigerian villagers. Word of his coming had clearly spread, as natives walked some distance to gather together and fill up an open area of dusty common land that spread out from between the mud huts, a plot of land and a village so desolate it has not yet been photographed in any detail by Google …

Continue Reading →

We don’t often talk about our daily enjoyment of God with our friends — a deficiency J. I. Packer picked up some years ago when he compared this trend to the Puritan age:

Communion with God was a great thing; to evangelicals today it is a comparatively small thing. The Puritans were concerned about communion with God in a way we are not. The measure of our unconcern is the little that we say about it. When Christians meet, they talk to each other about their Christian work and Christian interests, their Christian acquaintances, the state of the churches, and the problems of theology — but rarely of their daily experience of God. (215)

This seems accurate. And to combat this current t…

Continue Reading →

From Rob Lister’s forthcoming book, God Is Impassible and Impassioned: Toward a Theology of Divine Emotion (Crossway; Nov. 30), pages 255–256:

In the aftermath of the fall, we do not hate sin as we ought, nor do we pursue righteousness as we should. Instead, we dabble with sin. Given a moment’s reflection, we recognize how foolish it is to dabble with sin. But because of the weakness of our affections, sin dabbling is what we love to pursue, apart from the grace of God (cf. 2 Thess. 2:9–10).

God’s ethical transcendence, then, is not one of dispassion, but of perfect passion. . . . God is eternally, transcendently, and unshakably loving in the intra-Trinitarian fellowship. The intra-Tr…

Continue Reading →

In the new episode of the Authors on the Line podcast, we put Dr. Albert Mohler on the line to discuss Christian leadership in the secular world and to talk about his new book, The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters (Bethany House, 2012).

I asked him to address ten specific topics, and all of them are listed below.

To listen to or download the podcast, go to the podcast page in iTunes here, or click on the following link:

Christians Leading in the Secular World: An Interview with Dr. Albert Mohler (21 minutes)

• It has been alleged by some that the modern church has failed to equip businesspeople for day-to-day decision making. Is that true?
• In your book y…

Continue Reading →

In modern cultures like America, every Christian is faced with the problem of homosexuality. Churches are pulled into the tension, too, because “there is no demilitarized zone in the homosexual debate.”

Shrugging isn’t an option. The implications are all around us, in schools, in politics, in denominational tensions, and — maybe most importantly — in determining how the Church lives out her faithful witness to a culture in desperate need of Christ.

With the marriage amendment on the Minnesota ballot, and with a growing list of personal questions in my Moleskine notebook, I contacted Dr. Robert Gagnon, a professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a man who has for m…

Continue Reading →

Why do we attend church on Sundays? Fundamentally, we come to church starved for God. Coming with our need, we seek God in our worship and in hearing the word faithfully preached. We arrive at church with a God-sized appetite for spiritual pleasures that only the Living God can fill.

But is it honorable to find our motivation to get to church in seeking blessing from God? Or is that a selfishness that spoils the whole morning and embarrases God? Isn’t it more honorable to arrive at church with disinterested motives?

Pastor John says no. Here’s why.

Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who died in 1804, was the most powerful exponent of the notion that the moral value of an act decr…

Continue Reading →

Any woman who willingly delivers her baby in a harsh and dilapidated hospital in Djibouti is a brave mom. That was Rachel Pieh Jones’s experience on the fourth anniversary of 9/11 when she delivered her daughter. Rachel wrote about her incredible story for The New York Times earlier this year (“A Child of Two Worlds”).

But Rachel will be the first to tell you she is not brave to raise her three kids in Africa. She’s no tiger mom, or brave mom, but a “desperate, breathless, dependent” mom.

While Rachel was stateside, we asked her about parenting in Africa, and she explained why “brave” is not the right word for what she does (3-minute clip):

---

Other resources from Rachel Pieh Jones —

…

Continue Reading →

In this second episode of the Authors on the Line podcast I talk with author, theologian, and historian Michael Reeves about his new book Delighting in the Trinity (IVP, 2012).

We discuss the nature of God in three persons, why our triune God created the universe, how the Trinity changes our eternal prospects in heaven, and why knowing about this triune God matters for the Christian life. Along the way we contrast this triune God with the god of Islam, and discover why merely knowing about the living God is not enough.

Download the podcast here, or subscribe to the Authors on the Line podcast in iTunes here.

---

Previous episodes in the Authors on the Line podcast —

• Charity and Its Frui…

Continue Reading →

In his recent sermon on Christian Hedonism, Pastor John recounts the day he first discovered C. S. Lewis’s answer to the dilemma of why God, in demanding that he be praised, "was not like an old vain woman seeking compliments" (4-minute video clip):

 

This excerpt was taken from the recent sermon, "God Is Most Glorified in Us When We Are Most Satisfied in Him."

Other video excerpts from this message —

• Go to Church Starved for God
• Every Morning There’s War in the Piper Household
  
• Why Oprah and Brad Pitt Deserted God (And Why You Shouldn't)

How should we arrive at our church gathering today? Starved for God, John Piper says in this 2-minute clip from his most recent sermon on Christian Hedonism:

This excerpt was taken from the recent sermon, "God Is Most Glorified in Us When We Are Most Satisfied in Him."

---

Other video excerpts from this message —

• Every Morning There’s War in the Piper Household
  
• Why Oprah and Brad Pitt Deserted God (And Why You Shouldn't)