Mother’s Day is a sweet opportunity for Christians to celebrate one of God’s most significant means of his common and redeeming grace.

For most, there’s some bitter flavor somewhere. We live in a fallen world. All mothers are sinful — even Jesus’s own mother knew well her need for a Savior (Luke 1:47) and for God’s mercy (Luke 1:50). Whether your own mother monumentally failed you, or you’re a mother who’s all too aware of how you’ve failed your children, there is goodness and grace to acknowledge and appreciate in almost every situation, even when deeply tarnished by sin.

But for many of us, our hearts soar in thanksgiving when God brings to mind our mothers and grandmothers, or our wife …

Continue Reading →

Missionary to India, William Carey, once exhorted a Baptist gathering in England by saying, “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.” I love that quote.

But we must heed the Bible’s warning through Simon the Magician: if we attempt great things so that others will see us as great, we are in grave spiritual peril.

The Situation with Simon

After Stephen had been brutally stoned to death, intense persecution broke out against the Christians in Jerusalem. Many were driven off to the towns and villages of Judea and Samaria.

Philip, Stephen’s co-servant to the Hellenistic widows, landed in a Samaritan town and preached and performed signs and wonders there. Lar…

Continue Reading →

MINNEAPOLIS — It’s no secret John Piper is an introvert.

This week 75 pastors and ministry leaders gathered together as a local chapter of TGC Twin Cities to hear Pastor John share about his 33 years of ministry. The discussion was led by R.W. Glenn of Redeemer Bible Church.

One of the first questions was how an introverted pastor, like Piper, has learned to love others through his personal gifts and limitations.

The Pastor As Introvert

“It’s amazing how many introverts go into ministry,” Pastor John said of himself and others. But it’s true. For many pastors, hanging out with people is physically draining. “A lot of people would say that’s a bad thing; you should repent of that and…

Continue Reading →

Today is Ascension Day, the fortieth day after Easter Sunday. For centuries the Christian church has marked this day (also called Ascension Thursday) in remembrance of Jesus’s bodily ascent to heaven.

The number forty is based on Acts 1:3: “He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.” Ten days later we celebrate Pentecost (Acts 2:1), fifty days (seven full weeks) after Easter, when Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1–33) on his fledgling church.

Don’t be too surprised if you haven’t heard of Ascension Day, or even if it’s been a while since you’ve heard any reference to Jesus’s asce…

Continue Reading →

Note: Click the CC button to watch this video with captions in 18 different languages.

It’s been one year since we released this video, very simply titled: “The Story of Ian and Larissa.” The response was (and continues to be) stunning — over 1.5 million plays online from viewers around the world. But such impressive numbers only faintly echo the measure of grace in the lives of Ian and Larissa Murphy. And to mark the one-year anniversary of the video release, we wanted to reconnect with them for a quick update through this written interview.

Ian and Larissa, thank you for your time. The video has generated a lot of responses — and diverse ones at that. Any thoughts on the response? A…

Continue Reading →

Today marks the 198th anniversary of Andrew Fuller’s death. Though largely unknown to contemporary evangelicals, Fuller was a Particular Baptist pastor and one of the leading theologians during the final decades of the so-called Long Eighteenth Century (1689–1815). He was a tireless promoter of missions at home and abroad, and widely published polemical theologian, defending the biblical gospel against two key errors in his day: High Calvinism and Sandemanianism.

High Calvinism, Edwardsian Theology, and Missions

Many parishes in the Church of England had experienced significant spiritual renewal from 1730 to 1760, but most English Nonconformists, including Particular Baptists, remained la…

Continue Reading →

In a raging storm in a rural town on the coast of Japan, a man and his daughter huddled against a warehouse. They held one another, they felt the fury of the wind and the snow, and they fought for life.

In early March of this year, a major snowstorm hit northern Japan. In the rural town of Yubetsu (in Hokkaido), it stranded a father, Mikio Okada, and his daughter, Natsune, in a snow bank.

Mikio had driven until his truck could go no further. The snow now piled up all around him. Recognizing that the vehicle would be overtaken by snow, he did what he thought best: he and Natsune got out of the truck, seeking shelter in nearby buildings.

Mikio and Natsune made it to a warehouse nearly 1,000…

Continue Reading →

“But I believe in Jesus too,” my five-year-old said, unconvinced by my explanation why she couldn’t have some of the bread and juice.

We had slipped out of the service after I received the elements because she became rowdy with questions. I led her a little ways from the crowd and knelt down to meet her eye to eye. My hands were on her shoulders, posturing to seize the moment, until my unsatisfactory answer quickly led to a bigger talk as she continued her case.

Now staring off in her own thoughts, she replied, “Dad, I believe in Jesus, but I mean, I’ve never seen him before. I’ve never heard how he talks.”

This wasn’t a crisis. She was just stating a fact. It actually came off a little b…

Continue Reading →

I know myself, and I know that I couldn’t be any more angered by abortion. So when I first started seeing things about the Gosnell trial, I skipped right over it. I am sure that many of you feel the same way now. What can we possibly do about it, and how can reading about the horror of what happened in that “clinic” help us be any more faithful in our own lives?

But when I finally did read a bit about it, I found myself surprisingly challenged and encouraged, and here is why. The Gosnell situation shines light on the darkness of abortion in a way that nothing else has in a long time. Stories like this one (and the recent video sting of that clinic in the Bronx) make me realize that I am jus…

Continue Reading →

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26)

A few days ago we laid the body of my wife’s grandfather in the ground outside the little brick church in the cornfields where he attended all 97 years of his life. I was given the profound honor of preaching at his funeral. And the words of John 11:25–26 were my text.

I chose them because Jesus said them to Martha when Lazarus lay dead in his tomb. And I was to stand behind the old pulpit in front of a full casket.

A corpse is a fierce reality. It demands that we explain these claims of Jesus — perh…

Continue Reading →