One of my goals in our ministry to children at Bethlehem is to help parents teach them the truth and model the truth, so that when a family goes to the Science Museum in St. Paul and watches a dizzying documentary on Katrina in the Omni Theater (like we did a few weeks ago), which ends with the environmentally loaded lament,

When I get to heaven
I will shed a tear,
Because it won’t be as sweet
as what I have right here.
This is my home.

a five year old will suddenly look up to daddy and say, “That’s not right. Jesus is better than what we have right here.”

My plan for this fall—and I want to stress it is a plan, not a promise—is a 7-part series on historically significant sins. It will be entitled “Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ.” The first message, on August 12, will be an overview of where we are going and why, as it relates to our life as a church and our witness in the city and the world.

Here are some goals for this series:

• To show that the Christian faith is not like Hinduism or Buddhism or vague New Age Spiritualism but is rooted in and made up of objective historical reality outside ourselves: God, Satan, creation, human beings, sin, fallenness, providence, and divine puposefulness in all thing…

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I haven’t been able to phone my dad on Father’s Day for more than 15 years. But I remember him today. And as years pass, the things that were hard seem smaller and the strong roots of my father’s life seem more and more important.

For Daddy’s funeral, my husband wrote a poem remembering the strength of Daddy’s life. Psalm 1 was Daddy’s favorite passage of Scripture. It was a sweet thing today to read it again and to give thanks again for a father who did his best to point me to Jesus.

In Memory of Dr. George Henry

Reflections on Psalm 1 and Joshua 24:15
by John Piper

No tree however deep the roots,
However high and green the shoots,
However strong the trunk has stood,
Or firm the…

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If you can’t walk, even with crutches, and you don’t have a wheelchair, will you stay home? Or will you find some way—any way—to get to the market and to church? How will you move without a chair?

In Cameroon, when our short-term team saw people arriving at our work sites to receive a wheelchair in the name of Jesus, we had a glimpse of what people are willing to endure in order to be mobile. Some—even adults—were carried by family members or friends. Some crawled on hands and knees. Some sat on the ground with legs pretzel-folded and used their arms as crutches. Some lay straight on the ground and dragged themselves forward in a sort of army crawl. Some moved with hands and feet on the…

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The specific, nitty-gritty, sometimes disgusting, sometimes beautiful things that God has done really matter. We're saved by faith alone, but faith needs facts. We need to believe in something particular and concrete.

After Joshua and all his contemporaries died, we are told that "there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord" (Judges 2:10-11).

They didn't know God, and this led them into sin. They didn't know God because they hadn't learned about the things he had done for them in the past. Their parents neglected to tell them the stories.

They didn…

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Recently a good friend shared with me these verses that he and his wife have prayed for their two daughters (now teens) since they were babies. I find them very helpful and have included them in my prayer folder for my children. I thought I’d pass them along to you as well. (Thanks, Chris!)

That Jesus will call them and no one will hinder them from coming.

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away. (Matthew 19:13-15)

That they will re…

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I read an article a few days ago about the bleaker side of "Christian" fundraising--fake handwriting, ghostwriting, and all sorts of other manipulation (HT: SI). If I were on the outside of Christian ministry, I would be skeptical of it all, so I wanted to just make a few simple promises about DG's fundraising.

Here are some quotes from the article and how we would respond here at DG.

The fact is, the “personal” ministry letter you receive each month was probably not written by the ministry leader at all, but by a direct mail strategist, and designed by a graphic designer for maximum response.

There is no ghostwriting at Desiring God. If a person's name is on a …

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Here's a messy way to draw your youngsters into the meaning of this weekend. Make a mountain out of playdough to tell the story of Jesus' death and then turn it around and you have the tomb he arises from.

This idea can be found in Noel Piper's book, Treasuring God in Our Traditions.

Ingredients for playdough:

• 4 c. of flour
• 1.5 c. salt
• 1.5 c. water
• 1 Tbs. oil

Mix ingredients and knead. Add small amounts of water as needed until the texture is right.

1. Use two backyard sticks bound together with twine to make a cross about five or six inches tall.

2. Shape the whole lump of play dough into a mountain. The size will be determined by the…

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In 1929, young Elsie Viren was the efficient, capable new secretary to the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church. By the time we Pipers arrived 51 years later in 1980, her days were filled with teaching Sunday school, visiting the church’s elderly and shut-ins and working 2 days a week at her manual typewriter in the office blessing all of Bethlehem’s missionaries with regular letters.

After more than 60 years devoted to the Lord and Bethlehem, it was a sad day when Elsie knew she wouldn’t be driving anymore—and later, sadder still when she couldn’t come in to the office. In the months that followed, sometimes she found my name on her “important numbers” list and called me from her room at th…

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A Month of Preparation for Easter

Ordinarily at the Piper house, we begin looking toward Easter near the beginning of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday. That was February 21 this year. During the season, we have special devotional readings each Sunday. Along with the readings, we use candles to help us symbolize what was happening as the world moved toward Jesus’ death.

On the first Sunday of Lent, which would be the 6th Sunday before Easter—February 25 this year—7 candles are burning. During the Bible reading, one is snuffed out. The 2nd Sunday’s devotional time begins with 6 candles burning and one is snuffed out during the reading, and so on through the weeks. The 7th candle is…

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