On this 40th anniversary of his death, I thank God for the life and cause of Martin Luther King, Jr. It was not the first day that he had met God. Twelve years earlier there was another meeting:

He put his head in his hands and bowed over the table. “Oh Lord,” he prayed aloud, “I’m down here trying to do what is right. But, Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now. I’m afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I can’t face it alone.”

He sat there, his head still bowed in his hands, tears burning his eyes. But then he felt som…

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Can a pastor preach on joy when he is feeling little of it?

Yes. He is preaching what the word says and will say it whether he feels it or not.

Yes. He will be praying that in the very preaching of it, the gift of joy might be given. It does happen.

Yes. He will be honest with his people and over time communicate to them that he has his ups and downs and may have to preach on a text that does not find great fulfillment in his life at the time of preaching.

Yes. But over time the disjunction between text and person will undermine the ministry of the word. Preaching is expository exultation, and when the exultation is missing for extended periods of time, life will contradict content and…

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Our neighbors can attest that we don’t use dandelion poison. We recycle. One showerhead has a water saver shut-off valve. Beyond that, I don’t give much thought to ecology. I’m scared off by people who tend to treat the earth as god, rather than as God’s handiwork. So I have avoided considering my responsibility as a steward of God’s property.

I had a one-week crash course last month when Talitha and I were guests of Craig and Tracy Sorley, BBC missionaries with Care of Creation Kenya...

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Outside the Bible I have never read anything more devastating to the impenetrable permutations of pride than the section in Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections titled, “Sign #6, Gracious affections are attended with evangelical humiliation.” It ends with one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. Few paragraphs fill me with longing like this one:

All gracious affections that are a sweet odor to Christ, and that fill the soul of a Christian with a heavenly sweetness and fragrancy, are broken hearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble broken hearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a…

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The inconsistencies of liberal and conservative compassion do not define the nature of good and evil.

That there are liberals who talk compassion for the weak and oppressed, but support the butchery of the weakest persons (the unborn even to the point of birth) does not make abortion less evil.

That there are conservatives who talk compassion for unborn persons, but feel little interest or compassion for their own neighbors, let alone the sorrows of the countless poor, does not make inattentive heartlessness less evil.

That liberals justify their support for butchery in the name of freedom, and conservatives justify their indifference to the miseries of poverty in the name of …

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In this article I want to convince as many pastors as possible to sit down and start a blog today. If I can’t convince them, then I want to convince churchgoers to hound their pastor until he does.

OK, all that’s overstatement, perhaps. You can still be a good pastor and not blog.

However, here’s why I think it would be good for you and your congregation if you did.

Pastors should blog…

1. …to write.

If you’re a pastor, you probably already know the value writing has for thinking. Through writing, you delve into new ideas and new insights. If you strive to write well, you will at the same time be striving to think well.

Then when you share new ideas and new insights, rea…

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A tiny book has been feeding my soul recently, The Loveliness of Christ: Extracts from the Letters of Samuel Rutherford. Writers like Paul and Bunyan and Rutherford, who wrote much from the midst of suffering seem to have a clearer view of eternity and reality than those of us who suffer the mists of comfort.

In July 1636 Rutherford was summoned to appear before the High Commission Court to answer of his Nonconformity to the Acts of Episcopacy, and also on account of his treatise against Arminians; and as a consequence was forbidden to exercise his ministry anywhere in the kingdom of Scotland, and to confine himself to the city of Aberdeen. It was while conf…

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The worst discipline that the church is authorized to render toward its worst offender is excommunication.

And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matthew 18:17)

This means he is not welcome to be a member of the church, nor to partake of the Lord’s supper. It means that Christians love him, not as a brother, but the way Jesus loved sinners. He lay down his life for them, but welcomed them into his band of disciples only if they took up their cross and followed him (Luke 9:23).

Whether this seems harsh depends on what you compare it with. In the Old Testament (God’s law for the earthly government he pres…

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Does God have designs for deceptive signs and wonders? Does he have purposes for heresies?

From the time of Moses to the end of history, this has been and will be an issue. Jesus promised that “false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24). These are not little tricks. They are great signs and wonders. Great. But aimed to deceive.

Paul said that “the coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and signs and wonders of falsehood, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thessalonians…

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The great challenge of the preacher is to follow Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:5, “What we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.”

But there are more ways to preach ourselves than one might think. This word from James Denney has exerted a sobering effect on me since I first read it in 1982. He had these words framed and posted in the vestry of his Scottish church.

No man can bear witness to Christ and to himself at the same time. No man can give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save. (Quoted in John Stott, Between Two Worlds, 325)