This is the opportunity of a lifetime. I mean that. Don Carson, one of the most respected, faithful, competent, compelling, and understandable biblical scholars in the world will do what he has never done before and will probably never do again.

At the north campus of Bethlehem Baptist Church, over the next two weekends, starting at 6:30 P. M. Friday, February 20, Dr. Carson will lead a free 12 hour seminar that takes you through the whole Bible and puts the whole great story together.

If you are in or near the Twin Cities I encourage you to come. I promise you, you will never read the Bible the same after seeing how it all fits together with Dr. Carson’s help.

Ask your non-Chr…

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It is important that we know the nature of the evil in our hearts.

Do you think the essence of your evil is disobeying commandments? That’s a good start. But it’s not the essence of our evil. Commands simply name the evil and its fruits, and tell us not to do them.

The essence of our evil is that we prefer anything to God (Romans 1:23; 2:23). Commands do not create the possibility of evil. Commands name it.

Long before we are told not to covet, we covet. Disobeying the command, “Thou shalt not covet,” is not equivalent to the evil of coveting. The evil of coveting is there first, and then is compounded by the transgression of the commandment not to covet.

Paul said, “I wou…

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“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).

We know very little about Jesus’ childhood. But as I’ve been meditating recently on what it must have been like growing up having Jesus as a sibling, I can’t help but wonder what it must have been like for him.

We know that Jesus’ own brothers didn’t believe in him (John 7:5), possibly until after his resurrection (Acts 1:14). Could some of Jesus’ experience of rejection and grief possibly have resulted from estrangement he experienced in his own family simply because he was without sin?

He was a perfect child living with sinful parents, sinful siblings, and sinful extended relatives. The dif…

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If you have two functional legs, imagine life without them.... Imagine life without them.... Imagine that your legs are gone so that you can have life.

That’s the story of my cousin, Mal. He was in a coma, almost dead, and his sons and daughter agreed to the one medication that might save his life, knowing that the loss of fingers or feet was a likely side effect.

Despite weeks of therapy, he did lose both legs below the knee. He says, “You would think that I would be angry and bitter. I can only say, God gave me two months [of therapy] to be prepared for this.” 

Yes. Losing one’s legs is desperately difficult. But how might it change our perspective if losing legs meant keepi…

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Last Thursday two judges pleaded guilty in Philadelphia to accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention center in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences.

Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan admitted that for three years they took payoffs from two penal childcare institutions.

In this we move not just beyond the law of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:21), and not just beyond the law of Moses (Exodus 23:21), but beyond the law written on the heart before there was any law of Moses.

Before Mount Sinai, when Moses was overwhelmed with having to decide more cases in Israel than he could handle, his father-in-law told him he needed help. W…

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A Love Poem of Hope
in Seven Languages
for my wife Noël

Valentines Day, 2009

My love, come listen as I seek
With seven tongues, and hope, on your
Sweet soul to let our Sovereign speak:
Je suis avec vous tous les jours.

He bids us come and learn to rest
Beneath his feather burden. Come feel,
He says, how light, how sweet, how blessed,
Porque me yugo es facil.

And if we fear what yet will be,
He tells us what we yet will see:
’al tiyra’ kiy ‘imkah aniy
temaktiykah biymiyn tsadkiy.

If darkness lingers on, and thus
Delays the precious light of dawn,
Fear not, because we know for us
God works panta eis agathon.

And if barbarians invade
The soul, and take our borderlands,
Togethe…

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My favorite love letter (besides the ones I write for Noël and she for me) is from the 19-year-old Jonathan Edwards to the girl he was falling in love with in the summer of 1723. On the front page of his Greek grammar he wrote the only kind of love song his heart was capable of. Take a deep breath.

They say there is a young lady in [New Haven] who is beloved of that great Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on him—that she expects after a while to be received up wher…

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This is a word of thanks for Abraham Lincoln in spite and because of his imperfections on his 200th birthday.

Two years before Lincoln became our 16th President he debated Stephen Douglas in pursuit of the Illinois U. S. Senate seat. Lincoln lost. He was too progressive on the issue of slavery for a state that made it a crime to bring into its boundaries “a person having in him one-fourth Negro blood, whether free or slave.”

But the debates did bring out the virtually universal racism of 19th century America including Abraham Lincoln's. For all his greatness—and it is extraordinary—Lincoln was a child of his time on matters of race (as we all are). He became the Republican candidat…

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Today, 280 years ago, Solomon Stoddard, Jonathan Edwards’ grandfather, died. He had been pastor of the church in Northampton, MA for 60 years.

Jonathan had been his assistant for two years. Now he was the sole pastor. From this position, and later from Stockbridge, CT would emerge the greatest writing from any pastor America has ever produced.

The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University has fulfilled a dream I did not expect to see. With the 26 volumes of the Yale paper edition of the Works of Edwards selling for over $100 each, I never expected to see every word of Edwards freely available to read, search, and quote on line.

But there it is, like an ocean of hidden treasures …

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Jesus wants his followers to be free from worry. In Matthew 6:25-34 he gives at least seven arguments designed to take away our anxiety.

One of them lists food and drink and clothing, and then says, “Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” (Matthew 6:32).

Do not be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. (vv. 31-32).

Jesus must mean that God’s knowing is accompanied by his desiring to meet our need. He is emphasizing we have a Father. And this Father is better than an earthly father.

I have five childr…

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