What does Jesus mean when he says to the church in Laodicea, “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Revelation 3:21)?

Sit with Jesus on his throne? Really?

This is a promise to everyone who conquers, that is, who presses on in faith to the end (1 John 5:4), in spite of every threatening pain and luring pleasure. So, if you are a believer in Jesus, you will sit on the throne of the Son of God who sits on the throne of God the Father.

I take “throne of God” to signify the right and authority to rule the universe. So Jesus promises us a share in the rule of all things.

Is this what Paul has in …

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When he was in South Africa in October, alongside giving his message at Lausanne, John Piper spoke at two smaller conferences: Piper 2 Leaders, and Rezolution 2010. We posted the audio of these Piper messages at that time.

What we didn't post (until now) was the audio of the other man who spoke at these events: Conrad Mbewe, pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia—a.k.a. the African Spurgeon.

Why is he called the African Spurgeon? The comparison isn't so new. A 2003 article in World Magazine (full text here) popularized the connection and gave some explanation:

Mr. Mbewe isn't sure why listeners compare him to the British "Prince of Preachers." Perhaps it is because Mr…

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This is the first question and answer post with Jerry Rankin.

What do you think are the greatest challenges to the world Christian movement today? What do you think are the greatest signs of hope?

From the perspective of one who has a global overview of Christian missions today, it is evident God is moving in unprecedented ways to fulfill his mission.  He is using warfare, ethnic violence, political disruption, social chaos, economic uncertainty and natural disasters to turn the hearts of people to a search for hope and security that can be found only in Jesus Christ. There is an apparent acceleration in engagement of unreached people groups and a global harvest.

The greatest challenge …

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Our friends at AsiaLink have made another impactful video that will stir your heart for the cause of global missions. Whether you are a goer, sender, giver, or pray-er, I think you’ll find this to be a tool for vision spreading.

May these words from 1 Chronicles 16:23-27 ring in your heart as you watch.

Sing to the Lord, all the earth!
Tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and he is to be held in awe above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and joy are in his place.

…

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John the Baptist has a point when he objects, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (Matthew 3:14). But there’s more going on here than he first realizes.

Here’s Don Carson on what Jesus means in Matthew 3:15 in responding to John the Baptist, “Let it be so now, for thus it is filling for us to fulfill all righteousness”—

Jesus affirms, in effect, that it is God’s will (“all righteousness”) that John baptize him; and both John and Jesus “fulfill” that will, that righteousness, by going through with it (“it is proper for us”). The aftermath, as Matthew immediately notes (vv. 16–17), shows that this baptism really did point to Jesus.

Within this framework we may recognize…

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This is our third question and answer post with Paul Miller. (Read the first and second.)

Can you give us a summary of Sonship, the discipleship course you helped put together?

I designed the Sonship course over a period of ten years from ’83-’93, but the core of it was formed in the mid-80s. Half of the sixteen lectures was dad’s and the other half was split between my mom and myself. World Harvest continued to refine the course after I left in ’97.

The heart of the Sonship course is the gospel applied to my life. We begin to mature as Christians by realizing that we don’t have it all together. So the very thing that we avoid like the plague—our weakness and our sin—is the door to gra…

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This is the third and final part of Michael Oh's article, "The Glory of God's Plan B." Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Our final payment is due on February 28th. We hope to have repairs and renovations completed by next summer. (We do ask for your prayers for God to provide the necessary finances for repairs and renovations. Since May the US dollar has lost about 15% of its value versus the Japanese yen. This has resulted in a loss of close to $200,000 of the value of the raised funds. Please pray for a turnaround of the exchange rate and for the continued generosity of God's people!)

This new home for Christ Bible Seminary will now be in the heart of downtown Nagoya, which is also a central hub…

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A second question and answer with Paul Miller. (Read the first.)

Your book, A Praying Life, talks about cynicism in prayer. How would you describe the problem of cynicism, and what is your advice to those who are struggling with it?

Cynicism is my biggest struggle in prayer. It is a quiet, cold rationalism that dulls the soul and just kills your walk with God. It is hard to even identify or name our cynicism because it just feels like being realistic. It says things like, “What good does it [prayer] do?” or “It [the answer to prayer] would have happened anyway.”

I think we are particularly susceptible to cynicism in the Reformed world because we are an intellectual world. We are rightly…

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This post continues where Michael left off in Part 1.

First of all, God provided advocates. In addition to our faithful core of supporting churches and individuals who have stood by our side for the past seven years, the Lord mobilized ministries to graciously spread the word about our project including blog posts from Desiring God and The Gospel Coalition. I received an email, out of nowhere, from Joshua Harris (whom I've never met) who shared that his mother was Japanese and offered to help in any way.

Thank you to the many of you who joined us in response to these various calls for prayer. It was fascinating to see how God used social media (like twitter, blogs, and Facebook) to spre…

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I have spent 40 years seeking to understand and explain why God’s relentless self-exaltation in all that he does (for example, Isaiah 48:9–11) is the most loving way for him to be, and is not megalomania.

Some have tried to argue that the problem of God’s self-exaltation is solved by his intra-Trinitarian other-orientedness. That is, God the Father and God the Son do not seek their own individual glory, but the glory of the other, and in that sense God seeks his own glory.

It is true that the Father and the Son do seek the glory of the other (John 14:13; 17:1). But this is not a solution to the problem of divine self-exaltation. The reason it’s not is that in the Bible the Father does ex…

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