Every January we rightly turn our attention to Roe v. Wade — the poorly argued Supreme Court decision that was driven by ideology rather than by actual case law.

It was not the first unjustly decided case that impacted tens of thousands of vulnerable lives.

In the early decades of the 20th century in the United States, there were deeply held prejudices against the three types of people: the poor, those with disabilities of all kinds, and people of color. These prejudices, along with their social and scientific acceptability, made up the fabric of what became known as the eugenics movement.

The argument went something like this: if only we could prevent the births of ‘feeble-minded’ peo…

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G. K. Chesterton:

When we are very young children we don't need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough.

A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is exicted by being told that Tommy opened a door.

Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales — because they find them romantic. . . . This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement.

These tales say that apples are golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water…

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What would the doctrines of grace sound like if every limb in that tree were coursing with the sap of Augustinian delight. (that is, Christian Hedonism)?

• Total depravity is not just badness, but blindness to God’s beauty and deadness to the deepest joy.

• Unconditional election means that the completeness of our joy in Jesus was planned for us before we ever existed as the overflow of God’s joy in the fellowship of the Trinity.

• Limited atonement is the assurance that indestructible joy in God is infallibly secured for us by the blood of the covenant.

• Irresistible grace is the commitment and power of God’s love to make sure we don’t hold on to suicidal pleasures, and to set us free by the s…

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Caiaphas schemed against Jesus (John 11:49–53). It was horrible. It was injustice.

And yet, the whole thing was God's loving set of events he planned for good. God was up to something bigger. It was for the salvation of you and me.

John Piper recently led a short devotional on this theme with the friends and staff of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Charlotte, NC.

Stream or download the 24-minute audio.

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P. S. One notable part of the audio is the warm introduction by 89-year old saint Cliff Barrows. Barrows was a friend of Pastor John's father, the late Bill Piper, and comments that he actually burped Pastor John as a baby back in the 1940s. . . . (yes, that…

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Ever since my days at Wheaton College, when I followed Clyde Kilby’s advice to read G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, it has been one of my favorite books. I think it’s the only book I have read more than twice (except for the Bible).

This is strange. Not only was Chesterton a Roman Catholic, he also hated Calvinism. So what’s up with me and Orthodoxy? I still think at least half a dozen Roman Catholic distinctives are harmful to true Christian faith (e.g., papal authority, baptismal regeneration, transubstantiation, justification as impartation, purgatory, the veneration of Mary). And I think “the doctrines of grace” (“Reformed theology,” “Calvinism”) are a precious and healthy expression of…

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Seth Godin:

Fitzgerald nailed it when he described Jay Gatsby’s attitude: “What would be the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?” It’s easy to fall so in love with the idea of starting that we never actually start. (Poke the Box, 75)

One of Godin’s goals in this little book is to expose the truth about failure — it's not as bad as we all think.

And yet, the fear of failure is paralyzing. It's the great deterrent to our starting things, to our taking risks. It is, as Godin explains, the dirt that buries us in the status quo program of the world around us.

Now, in my opinion, the biggest and simplest takeaway from reading G…

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Pastor John:

What then should a pastor do to promote a passion among his people to see God glorified by the in-gathering of his sheep from the thousands of unreached people groups around the world?

My answer: above everything else, be the kind of person and the kind of preacher whose theme and passion is the majesty of God. . . .

The most important thing I think pastors can do to arouse and sustain a passion for world evangelization is week in and week out to help their people see the crags and peaks and icy cliffs and snowcapped heights of God's majestic character. And let me sharpen the point in two ways:

1. We should labor in our preaching to clear the mists and fog away from the sharp …

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The newest episode of Theology Refresh features a discussion with Russell Moore on the person of Christ.

The doctrine of the person of Jesus — fully God, fully man, one person with two natures — has everything to do with how we live.

In this 14-minute audio Moore encourages pastors that Jesus is with us, that he really does shoulder with us everything it means to be human.

Stream or download the podcast.

[Subscribe to Theology Refresh through iTunes.]

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Recent Theology Refresh podcasts —

• John Piper on the Celebrity Factor and Pastoral Ministry
• Ray Ortlund on Union with Christ
• Jared Wilson on the Doctrine of the Trinity

Pastor John:

All of us know this and practice it in relation to the basic physical necessities of life. We take steps to see that we have enough to eat and clothes to keep us warm. But do we take our spiritual needs that seriously? Do we apply the same earnestness in planning to maximize our ministry as we do in planning to make a living?

What I would like to do here is to try to persuade you to set aside time each week in the coming year to plan—and specifically to plan your life of prayer and devotion and ministry. The bulldozer of God's Spirit often arrives at the scene of our heart ready to begin some great work of building, and he finds that due to poor planning there are piles of …

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The New Year is a great time to reconfigure the way we do things. And it can be a bit overwhelming.

Diet, exercise, memorization habits, reading lists, time management — all this is good. But perhaps the best place to start — and the foundation to all the rest — is the primary means of grace in the Christian life, the Word and prayer.

For the Word, Justin Taylor has put together a great list of Bible reading plans to consider. As for prayer, you might also find that some systematic approaches are helpful.

A Few Systems to Consider

Paul Miller warns us that systems can become rote, making us mechanical and mindless in our praying. They can desensitize our communing with God as a per…

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