Joe tracked me down one day. With desperation in his voice, he pleaded that I help him resolve a crisis moment. As a seminary student, he was overwrought with thoughts that he didn’t belong in seminary. He ticked off several reasons for his doubt. He went to class, and his mind wandered. He attempted to…
Category: Health
Love, Unity, and Assurance in the Truth: Colossians 2:1–3, Part 2
What is Look at the Book? You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.…
Read Like a Christian: Five Principles for What and How
Have you seen the recent “colored book” decoration trend? The basic idea is to take books whose covers have the same basic palette and put them together, thereby arranging all your books by color. Some used bookstores are even offering bundles of all-blue, all-green, or all-yellow books that you can buy just for this purpose.…
When you pass through the waters.
When you pass through the waters. Posted by appolus on July 20, 2023 You shall rise up with the wings of an eagle And meet Him in the air You shall shout with a voice of triumph A shout that is beyond compare. Jericho shook and the seas fled away When all of God’s people assembled…
Live for Days You Will Not See: The Beauty of Christian Legacy
Imagine that you receive a word from a trustworthy prophet. It begins hopefully enough: “You will live long and die in peace, and your name will be remembered for centuries.” But then comes a turn: “A few generations after you die, devastation will visit your family and your church. Your descendants will lie in ruins.”…
What Does It Mean to Be Spiritual?
Audio Transcript Ask three people to explain what it means to be spiritual . . . and you’ll get four different answers. That’s a humorous way to state the problem. Definitions of spirituality are very squishy things. The term means something different to everyone. So, what is biblical spirituality? Can we settle on an objective…
O Me of Little Faith
Man is a creature who hardly knows himself. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Even as a Christian with a new heart, I continue to discover within myself new contradictions, fresh perplexities, strange paradoxes. Take, for example, the cohabitation of a desire for a sturdier…
I desire truth in the inward parts.
I desire truth in the inward parts. Posted by appolus on July 18, 2023 Psa 51:6 Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden parts you shalt make me to know wisdom. Part of wisdom is to know who you are. The outward appearance is of little value other than it is…
Ready to Die for Souls: The Missionary Drive of the Reformers
In March 1557, a group of Protestant French tradesmen landed on an island off the coast of Brazil, coming to be a part of a new French colony that needed more people, especially skilled workers. Along with this company were two Protestant ministers, Pierre Richier and Guillaume Chartier, who had been invited to teach the…
How Are We Being Saved Right Now?
Audio Transcript Welcome back to this new week on the podcast. Well, the Bible says Christians have been saved in the past. And it says we will be saved in the future. And it says we are being saved right now — being saved. We’re going to look at that last one, the present-tense one,…