Thursday in Minneapolis it was so gorgeous walking home I thought: I should write a post on how astonishing it is that no earthquake swallowed up this city today.

Instead God sent warmth and crystal skies and cool breezes and golden leaves and hanging sea gulls over Elliot Park.

Amazing. Absolutely amazing!

We deserved the 52-story IDS tower to fall, and bridges to collapse, and poisonous gas to kill thousands. But instead God gave us over-the-top foretastes of heaven.

This is why everyone is crying out, Where was God on Thursday! Where were you God! How could you do this? Why did you let this happen?

Everybody is saying that, aren’t they?

A few days ago I recorded a video about the upcoming election.

Here is a four-minute version that goes straight to the heart of the matter titled, “The Most Important Issues In This Election.”

Outline:

1. Prophetic perspective
2. Sovereignty of God
3. Gospel

There is also a seven-minute version that includes the shorter one but includes three more perspectives. This one is titled “John Piper’s Heart In This Election."

Outline:

1. Womanhood
2. Race
3. Abortion
4. Prophetic perspective
5. Sovereignty of God
6. Gospel

In neither video do I tell you who to vote for.

491 years ago today, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg.

He wanted to debate the sale of indulgences with his fellow university professors. So he wrote in Latin.

But a nameless visionary translated the theses into German, carried them to the printing press, and enabled their dispersion far and wide. Luther ended up with more than he bargained for, but he proved to be no coward in defending the discoveries he was making in Scripture.

First Thesis

The truth of Luther’s first thesis would reverberate throughout his lifetime, even finding expression in his last words.

His first thesis reads,

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said “Repent,” he in…

Continue Reading →

This short note is mainly for those with connections to Bethlehem Baptist Church. Our weekly newsletter, the Bethlehem Star, is now offered in a very attractive electronic version. I love this new edition.

I am writing to encourage everyone who gets the Star or wants the Star to subscribe to this electronic version. It’s simple. Click here, and enter your email address twice. That’s all there is to it. You can unsubscribe just as simply at any time.

Thank you for considering this.

I invite you to be a part of the Wednesday Connection on November 5 at 6:15 PM at Bethlehem. (It will be live at the North Site, simulcast downtown, and replayed the following week at the South Site.) We will interrupt for one week the flow of the Fall sessions on “Growing a Heart For the Nations.”

The TBI Board of Directors has asked me to give a public lecture on the biblical foundations for Bethlehem College and Seminary. The message is titled:

“The Earth Is the Lord’s”
The Supremacy of Christ in Christian Learning—
Biblical Foundations for Bethlehem College and Seminary

The implication of the words college and seminary is that we are moving toward offer…

Continue Reading →

“Guard your heart” is a good command. That’s because it’s biblical:

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. (Proverbs 4:23)

In its context, this verse suggests that keeping—or guarding—your heart means to retain wise words and resist wicked desires. But I’m afraid some people—ahem, me, too often—use it to justify being cowardly or cold instead of loving others, because we think that “guard your heart” means “don’t get hurt.”

C. S. Lewis provides the necessary rebuke:

Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as “Careful! This might lead you to suffering.”

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I res…

Continue Reading →

Prophetic love often feels painful. It hurts when prophets tell us we have sinned. If prophets let that short term fall in popularity govern their words they are false prophets. And they do not love people, they love themselves. Here is what prophetic love would have looked like in Jerusalem before it was too late.

Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes (Lamentations 2:14).

Love longs for the restoration of the fortunes of a sinful people. But not by comforting them in their sins. There is a way toward restoration. It would have looked like this:

They have exposed your iniq…

Continue Reading →

I believe the Lord brought this word to mind in one of our prayer meetings on Friday:

The worst of all times is the best of all times for missions.

We were praying over Lamentations 3. Those were the worst of times for Israel. But in that moment they were given the best of promises,

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (3:22-23)

Today marks the close of Missions Focus at Bethlehem. So we were praying for missions. That is when this word came: The worst of all times is the best of all times for missions.

Such words do not have intrinsic authority the way Script…

Continue Reading →

When I got my copy of Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ a few weeks ago, I took it to my prayer bench, knelt down, and prayed the closing prayer printed on pages 108-110.

I thought you might be willing to join me in praying this.

A Closing Prayer

Gracious and glorious Father,
because you are rich in mercy,
and great in love,
and sovereign in grace,
we ask that you would make this little book
a window onto the panorama of your glory,
and a skylight to your supremacy in all things.

By the truth-loving power of your Holy Spirit
grant that the glass pane would be clean—
that what is faithful to your word would be confirmed,
and what is not…

Continue Reading →

Voting is like marrying and crying and laughing and buying. We should do it, but only as if we were not doing it. That’s because “the present form of this world is passing away” and, in God’s eyes, “the time has grown very short.” Here’s the way Paul puts it:

The appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. (1 Corinthia…

Continue Reading →