Sometimes I just want to cry. The editor of The Journal of Medical Ethics recently wrote in Readers Digest that parents will have the moral obligation to genetically enhance their children for preferable traits, including personality traits. Part of his argument is that we already do this reactively by screening for genetic anomalies like Down syndrome. His unstated case is that aborting children with disabilities is already so normal that it just follows we should proactively alter our children’s genetics for their (and supposedly our) good.

The list of leaders in academic institutions, governmental agencies, the courts, large private foundations, and media outlets who are openly against …

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The word for preaching in the New Testament (kērussō) means "to herald." Heralding is different from teaching, as John Piper explains, though it has teaching in it. Expounding 2 Timothy 4:2, he demonstrates what it means:

This excerpt begins at the 44:50 mark of this week's sermon.

Imagine your life completely conformed to the image of Christ.

Sanctification has ceased. Glorification has arrived. There's perfect joy in Jesus at every moment. Your entire character — every thought and feeling and word and action — completely saturated with Jesus and the good news of what he has done. Imagine that.

And now remember that it won't happen in this life. It is not a reality we will attain in this world. Yet it is a reality that we should desire and strive toward. In other words, we earnestly aim at a target we will not hit, at least not now, not here. Not yet. That's how John Calvin explains it in Book III of The Institutes.

Watered-Down Standards?

Conceding that Chr…

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Mondays are notoriously difficult for pastors. If you are not a pastor, pray for your pastor today as you read through this post. If you are a pastor, listen to the words of pastor Jared Wilson as he describes the structure of his Mondays, along with the personal challenges he faces as another week begins. Here’s what he writes:

The fatigue begins for me as soon as the sermon is done. More often than not, I have “left it all out on the field.” But the gathering is not over. There are people to greet, visitors to meet, often times theological questions to answer and short counseling sessions to conduct. Many times there are impromptu meetings or executive decisions to be made.

At Middl…

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On November 2-3 at Bethlehem Baptist Church (North Campus) in Minneapolis, Pastor John will be giving a free, two-day seminar on the theme of A Hunger for God. The seminar is open to all — we'd love for you to join us!

Schedule

Bethlehem Baptist Church (North Campus)
5151 Program Avenue
Mounds View, MN 55112

Day 1
Friday, November 2
7:00 - 9:00pm (two sessions, + Q&A)

Day 2
Saturday, November 3
9:00am - 12:00pm (three sessions)

And if you'd like to stick around after the seminar on Saturday, Pastor John will be preaching at 5:30 PM that evening at Bethlehem's downtown campus.

Register

Online registration is closed, but there is still space available on a fi…

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For much of my Christian life I have had a one-sided view of “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). I assumed that the verse meant only that when hard news or rebuke needed to be brought, it should be done with tenderness and sensitivity. I was wrong.

Not totally wrong. I understood correctly the verb and the love: that hard news and rebuke should always be brought with appropriate sobriety, humility, and never with arrogance and harshness.

But I neglected to focus on the other part of Paul’s phrase: the noun and “the truth.” The context of the passage helps to explain Paul’s meaning.

In his sermon, “How the Saints Minister to the Body” (1992), Pastor John explains the earlier …

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As I have been thinking about the theme of an upcoming conference we are hosting — on Makers — a number of thoughts have occurred to me. One of them is that God makes things for his pleasure, and so should we. This edifying thought is complicated both by our finitude and by our sinfulness, but we have to work through those complications. Giving up on the imitation of God because of our sinfulness is not resisting that sinfulness, but rather succumbing to it.

Why is it that we take such satisfaction in a job well done? We can see this particular pleasure rise up in ourselves in virtually any task — from a well-mowed lawn up to the high end of doing fancy tricks with a super-collider. Why is…

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The English word "catechize" simply means to teach biblical truth in an orderly way. In his introduction to The Baptist Catechism, John Piper explains the biblical support for a pattern of doctrine: there is a "pattern of teaching" (Romans 6:17), a "pattern of sound words" (2 Timothy 1:13).

But not only is there a precedent, such authoritative instruction is absolutely vital. Pastor John gives five reasons why:

1. We are required to “continue in the faith, stable and steadfast” (Colossians 1:23).
2. We are urged to “attain to the unity of the... knowledge of the Son of God...so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:1…

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Written in 1677, "The Baptist Catechism" was patterned after the Heidelberg and Westminster catechisms to teach Reformed doctrine from a Baptist perspective.

John Piper added commentary to the catechism during his early years at Bethlehem in hopes of "building a 'stable and firm' generation who hopes in God" [Colossians 1:23]. He explains the purpose is to lay an ordered foundation from which the church may “keep growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:17)

The full catechism, including Pastor John's commentary, has been redesigned in a new PDF available for free. Whether for yourself or your family (or both!), this fresh resource is a tonic…

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We believe that the Bible, consisting of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, is the infallible Word of God, verbally inspired by God, and without error in the original manuscripts.

So begins the Bethlehem Elder Affirmation of Faith — a document ascribed to by John Piper and the elders at Bethlehem Baptist Church.

Lingering on the fact that we have the Bible, Pastor John revels in the wonder that God has spoken to us in a book:

This excerpt begins at the 26:36 mark of this week's sermon, "All Scripture Is Breathed Out by God, Continue in It."