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John Piper

John Piper is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God and The Pleasures of God. Read more about John.

I Am the Light of the World

I Am the Light of the World

There is no light besides Jesus. It’s Jesus or darkness. It’s life or death. Choose this day whom you shall serve.

A Prayer for Japan

The power of moving water is greater than most of us can imagine. Nothing stands before it. We are driven to our knees: Father in heaven, you are the absolute Sovereign over the shaking of the earth, the rising of…

A Five-Pointer Shares the Gospel

Here’s a conversation between an unbeliever and an evangelist who believes in the doctrine of definite atonement (sometimes unhelpfully called “limited atonement”)—the biblical teaching that when Jesus died, God’s unalterable purpose was to cancel the sins and commute the death…

What Bob Dylan Got Right

In 1979 Bob Dylan recorded the song “Gotta Serve Somebody.” For those who listen with biblically informed ears, the refrain echoes Paul and Jesus: Paul: “You are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads…

God Is the Gospel

God Is the Gospel

Meditations on God’s Love as the Gift of Himself

This book is a plea that God himself, as revealed in Jesus’s death and resurrection, be seen and enjoyed as the final and greatest gift of the gospel.

Neither Do I Condemn You

Neither Do I Condemn You

The Bible has unrivaled historical evidence. You can trust this book with your life because God has kept his word pure through the ages.

Israel, Arabs, and the Family of God

Israel, Arabs, and the Family of God

Last Sunday, I met an Arab Christian who was visiting our church. In a respectful way, he poured out his heart concerning the plight of his people in the Middle East and his sadness at how few American Christian pastors…

Honoring Another Christian Death in Pakistan

This is my small tribute to another Christian killed for Christ’s sake. I read his story with great admiration. I pray that his death will not be in vain in my life and in Pakistan’s struggle for freedom. Shahbaz Bhatti…

I Act the Miracle

When it comes to killing my sin I don’t wait for the miracle, I Act the Miracle. Acting a miracle is different from working a miracle. If Jesus tells a paralyzed man to get up, and he gets up…

All Creation Betrothed to God

George Herbert died on this day in 1633. I return to his poetry for my own soul more, probably, than any poet outside the Bible. In a poem called “Ungratefulness,” he shows how the Trinity and the Incarnation…

No One Ever Spoke Like This Man

No One Ever Spoke Like This Man

Jesus will not allow you to call him merely interesting, intelligent, or instructive. Everyone must reckon with his actual claims.

The Gift of Victor Hugo

French poet and novelist, Victor Hugo was born on this day, 1802. He is best known in English because of his novels, Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. We have little hope that his spiritual pilgrimage led him…

No, No, Augustine!

In Augustine’s Enchiridion, chapter 46, which I am listening to in spare moments, he says this: Here lies the necessity that each man should be born again, that he might be freed from the sin in which he was…

God’s Love Is the Cause and Result of Ours

Do you believe both of these statements? 1. God loved us before we loved him, and not because we loved him. 2. God loves us in response to our love for him—because we love him. They are both true. Before…

Marriage and the Unthinkable

A 1951 laughable thought: In 60 years the President of the United States will refuse to define marriage as between a man and a woman. A 2011 laughable thought: In 60 years the President of the United States…

Conference Message

I Act the Miracle

I Act the Miracle

You can fight the battle hard against your sin because Jesus has already purchased victory over your sin at the cross.

What Is Present When Kneeling to Pray in Jesus’s Name

What Is Present When Kneeling to Pray in Jesus’s Name

Here’s what is present when we kneel to pray in Jesus’ name: 1. God the Father on his throne sovereign over the universe, with a welcoming, countenance focused on us. 2. God the Son in his high priestly role, standing…

Piper's Foreword to Crabtree's Practicing Affirmation

Foreword: Practicing Affirmation: God-Centered Praise of Those Who Are Not God The point of being created in the image of God is that human beings are destined to display God. That’s what images do. And the point of being redeemed…

Brad Pitt: Why Emphasize God’s God-Centeredness

In a 2007 interview for Parade, actor Brad Pitt describes how he stumbled, as C.S. Lewis and Michael Prowse and Erik Reece before him, over God’s ego. Pitt was raised a conservative Southern Baptist. For a while, his religion…

Beware: The Bible Is About to Threaten Your Smartphone Focus

Our phones can certainly distract us from God. But they can also rivet our attention back on God by pointing us to the Bible throughout the day.

Out of Your Heart Will Flow Rivers of Living Water

Out of Your Heart Will Flow Rivers of Living Water

Every river of joy in your soul will flow from Jesus. When you come to him, you get him. And he never leaves.

What If Your Reputation Is Unjustly Bad?

[Jesus] told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of…

How Shall We Pray About the Upheavals in the Middle East?

In 1 Timothy 2:1–4, Paul connects prayer for “all who are in high positions” with a peaceful life for the followers of Jesus, and with his desire for all people to be saved. First of all, then, I urge that…

What We Learn from God Killing the Sons of Judah

The sons of Judah, Er and Onan, were wicked men, and the Bible says, the Lord killed them. “Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death.” (Genesis 38:7) “What…

Womanizing vs. the “N” Word

Chronological smugness is the feeling that we have advanced to a moral condition higher than the generations before us. Shelby Steele has a good warning for us. We may not be advancing, but only reshuffling the vices about which we…

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