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Tony Reinke

Tony Reinke serves as Senior Teacher for Desiring God, host of the Ask Pastor John podcast, and author of Ask Pastor John: 750 Bible Answers to Life’s Most Important Questions (2024). He and his wife live in Phoenix.

Sovereign and Smiling: How Joy Makes and Sends Missionaries

Sovereign and Smiling

How Joy Makes and Sends Missionaries

Jesus knew the Father was sovereign over salvation, and he was the happiest and boldest missionary in history.

A Cure for Lame Table Prayers

I find it easy to slip into vague gratefulness, and vague gratefulness is as hollow as a light bulb. Mostly I notice this at the dinner table with my family. The vague verbiage I speak over our food is a…

God’s Sovereignty and Personal Compassion in Public Tragedy

In light of various tragedies in the news, I asked Pastor John a few weeks ago how he personally reconciles what appears to be two conflicting responses when public tragedy occurs: (1) his compassion towards those who suffer and (2)…

Cooking for a King: The Story of Jeff Ansorge

Cooking for a King: The Story of Jeff Ansorge

ST. PAUL, MN — Jeff Ansorge is a trim 40-year-old with buzzed hair and sideburns that are mostly silver and thick eyebrows that are mostly black. He’s a quiet, t-shirted Midwestern guy who can be found on any weekday hard…

Harnessing the Lightning: Tesla’s 3,000-Year Backstory

Harnessing the Lightning

Tesla’s 3,000-Year Backstory

Is a lightning rod — and by extension, all other tech — an act of faith or an act of God-thwarting unbelief?

You Killed the Author of Life

Preparing for Good Friday

Sin in Eden knocked all creation into chaos. Sin at Babel marked the collective pride of mankind. And while every sin is an act of God-rejection, humanity’s wickedness reaches new heights in the horrifying events of Good Friday. Holy Week…

Truth in the Age of Cynicism

Truth in the Age of Cynicism

“The age of anxiety has given way to the age of cynicism,” recently wrote 30-year-old composer Mohammed Fairouz. “Among my generation, cynicism is no longer a bad word: it’s being celebrated, and often it’s mistaken for intelligence.” During World War…

The Church in a Homosexual Culture: An Interview with Robert Gagnon

Authors on the Line

Dr. Robert Gagnon is a professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a man who has for many years bravely addressed homosexuality from a biblical and theological perspective. In 2002 he published a 500-page book The Bible and…

Getting Real with Personal Sin (Interview with Matt Chandler)

Why is our first inclination to run our sins into the dark shadows and hide like Adam tucked up against a tree trunk? We find it natural to hide our sins, even as Christians, but such an act contradicts our…

Interview with Matt Chandler

He is the new president of the Acts 29 Network, he just released his first book, and today he kicks off a seven-city book tour. Matt Chandler is a busy man. Now serving in his tenth year…

What’s At Stake in the Homosexuality Debate

The stakes could not be higher in the homosexuality debate, because — to put it rather bluntly — homosexual activity is a sin that parallels idolatry. The Apostle Paul seems to draw this connection in Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5…

A Father's Day Poem

Pastor John originally penned this poem when Noël’s father, George Henry, passed away. He would later dedicate it to his own father, William Piper, when he died. It is a standing reminder of the profound gift of a godly father’s…

Vote As Though Not Voting

It is easy to misinterpret the place of voting in the Christian life. For example, a recent StarTribune headline announced that Pastor John was "opting out of the marriage fight" in Minnesota. That is not the case (and today's counterpoint…

Ask Pastor John

Upcoming Changes to APJ

Upcoming Changes to APJ

Tony Reinke shares two upcoming changes to ‘Ask Pastor John’ in light of a brand-new John Piper sermon podcast called ‘Light + Truth.’

Fighting with God in Sanctification

Fighting with God in Sanctification

Fighting sin is not God-against-us. Fighting sin is ultimately God’s battle, a battle that we have been caught up into.

God Created Food and Sex for Believers

Sexual pleasure is too earthy. Enjoying delicious food is too unspiritual. That’s a two-point outline for a demonic sermon that has no place in any church — so Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 4:1–5. In fact, in a paradoxical…

Summers Are for Seeking Christ

Memorial Day is here, school is nearly done, and the days are growing longer and hotter. The firstfruits of summer have arrived. As the summer season approached in 1995, Pastor John reminded his church of the spiritual benefits of summer…

On Grudges and Generosity

God has given us a mouth to speak, a heart to feel, and gospel joy to share. He has taken away every excuse for not spreading gospel grace in our words every day to those around us (Ephesians 4:29). So…

How Do I Help My Friends Stay Satisfied in God?

Pastor John recently tweeted, “Christian relationships have this as their goal: to help each other stay satisfied in God.” To learn more about how this gets worked out in practice, we asked him. In part, he said this: It comes…

Conference Message

The Pastor and His Reading: Why You Are the Key to Building a Church That Loves Books

Desiring God 2013 Conference for Pastors

INTRODUCTION A few years back a young man came to me, asking me for help with his reading. I said, “Sure, let me collect my thoughts, and we’ll meet at a coffee shop to talk.” We did. But that meeting…

Do We Live in the Matrix?

Do We Live in the Matrix?

Three Concise Interviews on Continuous Creation

The Matrix (1999) is a man-against-the-machine movie about the enslavement of the human race. When we enter the story, human brains have been hardwired together into one supercomputer, forming a single, conscious existence. The machines keep human bodies tranquilized in…

Can Technology Delete Death?

Can Technology Delete Death?

Humanity strives for transcendence by trusting in technology. Christians seek immortality by trusting their God.

Does God Love Us By Sending Us Pain?

Slate recently reported that spanking children may not be such a bad form of discipline after all. Surprisingly, the reporter pushed past a lot of the cultural anti-spanking prejudice to ask some reasonable questions about what the studies indicate. Although…

Desiring God for God

Desiring God for God

Green Mount Cemetery is a 174-year-old, 60-acre plot of land in downtown Baltimore, a fortress for the dead, quarantined from the bustling city by a thick stone wall. Through a narrow stone arch, the street noise fades to silence and…

Same-Sex Temptations in the Church: An Interview with Robert Gagnon

Authors on the Line

Dr. Robert Gagnon is a professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a man who has for many years bravely addressed homosexuality from a biblical and theological perspective. In 2002 he published a 500-page book The Bible and…

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