There is nothing more wonderful than seeing and nothing more horrible than blindness.

But I’m not talking about physical blindness. Some whose physical eyes can’t see can see far, far better than others whose head-eyes see just fine (John 9:39). It’s blindness to glory—spiritual blindness—that is so horrible, so impoverishing to the soul.

That’s because “the deepest longing of the human heart is to know and enjoy the glory of God. We were made for this.”¹ To the degree that we do not see the glory of God, we live in the shadow-lands, wondering why our lives and affections seem so thin, why nothing satisfies.

Perhaps the greatest blinder of our spiritual eyes is our self-obsess…

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"How we listen reveals who we are," Tony explains, is at the heart of the new eBook, Take Care How You Listen. This resource is the first wave of a new eBook initiative at Desiring God that repackages unedited sermons from John Piper on particular themes and makes them available for mobile devices.

And there's a little more on marriage, hip hop, and rafting down the Colorado River, all on this episode of Behind the Blog.

You can also listen here.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Husbands, Spend Time with Your Wife
• A Clear Job Description: Date Your Wife
• Take Care How You Listen (Free eBook)
• David Brainerd Biography (Fr…

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In 1742 Yale College expelled David Brainerd.

He had made some prohibited comments about some of the faculty and, though at the top of his class academically, Yale booted him. Add to this that in order to be an established minister in Connecticut you had to be a graduate of Yale, Harvard, or a European university. Brainerd's dreams (and obedience!) to become a pastor came crashing down. It was very difficult, as John Piper explains, "Brained felt cut off from his life calling."

This is a hard fact to swallow. Tragic, it might seem, considering that David Brainerd died at the young age of 29. But here we are looking at his life, admitting there's a good story to be told, and retold. One…

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We recently sat down with Justin Buzzard, lead pastor of Garden City Church in Silicon Valley, to discuss his newest book, Date Your Wife. We diced up the interview into a handful of segments that we'll be featuring over the next few weeks. In today's portion, Justin shares about why he wrote the book and its biblical undercurrent.

Read 20 quotes, watch the trailer, and get the book from Amazon or WTS Books.

One addition to Crossway's republication of Love Your Enemies is a new preface from John Piper in which he explains why this book is a monument to God's mercy and faithfulness. He writes,

Monuments are usually built much later than the event celebrated, in this case, the years 1971–1974 in Munich, Germany. Monuments are not about themselves. They remind. They point. In this case, to the mercy and faithfulness of God. Monuments are often made of plain, lifeless stone while representing something utterly vital and beautiful. In this case, a mere book representing the shining face of God and his mighty hand on my life in those days — and before. . .

To read the entire preface, or the e…

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The YouVersion Bible app recently reached 50 million downloads. A true leader in the market, they provide a free Bible app in over 144 languages, are ranked as the first Bible app on iTunes, and have a 5-star rating based on over 400,000 ratings worldwide.

So we're excited to announce that they have just released a new devotional plan from John Piper.

The devotional is a 15-day reading plan that features content on the sovereignty of God, personal holiness, joy, and more. It comes in an easily accessible interface that allows users to read it alongside the Bible.

Learn more and download the app today: 15 Days in the Word with John Piper.

Skillful listening is a non-negotiable skill for everyone who enters a church building on Sunday or plays a sermon through headphones during the week. Scripture calls us not only to consider carefully what sermons we listen to, but also how we listen to those sermons.

It is very easy to slip into what Scripture calls “dullness of hearing,” to hear the weekly sermons without faith, and to see little or no moral fruit in our lives as a result. As Jesus makes clear, ultimately it is how we hear that reveals who we are (John 8:43, 47, 10:4, 27).

Take Care How You Listen is an ebook on listening well. It is comprised of five unedited sermon manuscripts from the preaching ministry of Past…

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This excerpt from John Piper begins as the 43:44 mark of his most recent sermon.

Here's the transcript:

Don’t press the organization of the church or her pastors into political activism. Pray that the church and her ministers would feed the flock of God with the word of God centered on the gospel of Christ crucified and risen. Expect from your shepherds not that they would rally you behind political candidates or legislative initiatives, but they would point you over and over again to God and to his word, and to the cross.

Please try to understand this concluding point. When I warn you against politicizing me, or politicizing the institution called Bethlehem, or the church in genera…

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This excerpt from John Piper begins as the 24:03 mark of this week's sermon.

Here's the transcript:

The good news of Jesus is that God saves heterosexual sinners and homosexual sinners who trust Jesus, by counting them righteous because of Jesus, and by helping them through his Spirit to live lives pleasing to him in their disordered brokenness.

Now we go to verse 11, the most important verse I will read in this message. After warning the Corinthians not to fall back into lives of sinful practice Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 6:11, the implications are huge for us, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus…

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This excerpt from John Piper begins as the 21:53 mark of this week's sermon.

Here's the transcript:

Therefore, it would contradict love and contradict the gospel of Jesus to approve homosexual practice, whether by silence, or by endorsing so-called same-sex marriage, or by affirming the Christian ordination of practicing homosexuals.

We must not be intimidated here. The world is going to say the opposite of what is true here. So you need to be ready for this if you haven't experienced it already. They are going to say that warning people who practice homosexual intercourse about final judgment is hateful. That's what they are going to say. It is not hateful.

Hate does not want people…

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