Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1–2)

Hebrews 12:1–2 tells us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us.” Part of our motivation is that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” These are the runners from chapter 11 who finished the race of life before us. They have come around to line the way and cheer us on bec…

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In the UK a few years back a group of church leaders used a Maundy Thursday church service to do something extraordinary. As people entered the church for the Thursday gathering of Holy Week, elders greeted them on their knees in the entryway. Every attendee was invited to sit, and there, in the entrance of the church, the elders removed shoes and socks and washed the reluctant feet of every stunned attendee.

Maundy Thursday is like that — it shocks.

Maundy

The term maundy in Maundy Thursday comes to us from the Latin root mandatum, or commandment, from Jesus’s words in John 13:34:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are …

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The Book of Psalms is an amazing gift to the church. Says John Piper, “The Psalms, more intentionally than any other book of the Bible, is designed to carry, express, and shape our emotions, to give vent to them — all of them, and shape them, to reign them in, and to free them up, to explode them, and to kill them when they should be killed.”

The Psalms are useful for shaping our emotions, and rich devotional fuel for the soul, but how are these ancient Psalms to function in the life of the gathered church in weekend worship? Most of us don’t sing from the Psalter, or even recite from the Psalms on a typical Sunday, although such a practice seems to be assumed by the early church (Ephesians…

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It felt as though we were traveling back in time.

Snow was falling, the roads were icy, and civilization was in the rearview. Tony Reinke and I had landed an interview with a 96-year-old theologian tucked away in rural Minnesota, and now we meant to make good on it, despite the distance and wintry weather.

We knew we were in for a memorable day. Robert Duncan Culver is the only surviving founding member of the Evangelical Theological Society — and his mind is sharp enough to recall his membership number was 158. He taught a combined 25 years at Wheaton College and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and stirred up his share of controversy.

“I don’t mind disagreeing,” says Culver. “I can …

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As Easter approaches, gratitude is a virtue most worthy of our cultivation. Indeed, in all the Christian life, gratitude is to be planted, watered, dressed, and harvested. Gratitude gets at the very essence of what it means to be created, finite, fallen, redeemed, and sustained by the God of all grace.

Ingratitude was at the heart of the fall, and at the heart of what’s fallen about us to this day. “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” (Romans 1:21). Again and again throughout the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, it is gratitude — giving God thanks — that is the fitting response to his gracious acts of deliverance for his people.

It was grati…

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Theology makes all the difference in your life.

In John 10, as John Piper explains, the doctrine of Jesus’s deity is presented in terms of its utmost impact on how we live. In short, because Jesus and the Father are one, our souls are incredibly secure (John 10:28–30).

Biblical doctrine is not for the abstract. It’s for where you are right now.

This excerpt is from the sermon, “I and the Father Are One” (August 20, 2011).

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Related resources:

• The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (sermon)

• The End of Theology (Video from Paul Tripp)

• Knowledge Doesn’t Mean Maturity (Video from Paul Tripp)

Today is Palm Sunday, and so begins our journey with Jesus from Jerusalem’s gate to Golgotha’s cross to Easter’s triumph.

In this Holy Week, we begin with “Hosanna,” walk solemnly toward “Crucify him,” and finish elatedly with, “He is risen!”

Here we see Jesus’s love for us in every intentional step. In one sense, every step he ever took was for us. He was born to die. He came to give his life. His public ministry was ever a steady drumbeat toward Calvary. But in his last week, the quickly moving story begins to run in slow motion. Roughly half the Gospel accounts are dedicated to chronicle these final days.

Five years ago, John Piper wrote a memorable Holy Week meditation on Jesus’s inte…

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John Piper’s preaching gestures are quickly becoming legendary. There’s now a whole website dedicated to animated clips of his best preaching gestures. So this week we asked Pastor John two gesture questions.

In episode 49, we asked him about when he started using them in the pulpit.

It is possible to leap and wave and holler and entertain and say nothing and be useless. And I don’t want to do that. Therefore gestures in my mind are not of the essence of the demonstration of the Spirit and power. That is just not what they are, because people can listen to sheer audio of messages and have their lives changed. They can’t see you at all when that is happening. …

Whatever I do in the p…

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Today in 1758 Jonathan Edwards died. He was 54 years old.

It was a fever he had contracted from a small-pox inoculation just a month before. After weeks of worsening weakness and the recognition of his immanent death, he spoke his last words to his daughter, Lucy, who attended him. Toward the end he said,

As to my children, you are now to be left fatherless, which I hope will be an inducement to you all to seek a Father who will never fail you.

There is so much to say of Edwards, of his vision of God, of his shortened life, of his influence. But consider for a moment this scene just before he died — a scene that took place this very day 255 years ago.

We would think that Edwards, with th…

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The reason there was a “Palm Sunday” was because Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John 12:17–18). It was perhaps the most powerful, hope-giving miracle Jesus ever performed during his pre-cross ministry; the capstone sign of who he was (John 5:21–25).

That’s why the Apostle John wrote, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was” (John 11:5–6).

The word “so” connecting those two sentences is stunning. The most loving thing Jesus could do at that moment was to let Lazarus die. But it didn’t look or feel like love to Martha.

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“Martha, the Teacher has come. He’s near the village.”

Martha’s …

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