This is a response by John Piper to a Muslim document calling for unity among Christians and Muslims. Very kind hearted but faithful to the truth.
What to Preach?
I know that so many around the world have been waiting on pins and needles, pacing in restlessness wondering what I will be preaching when I get to Fresno. Well, pant no more! I am going preach one of the gospels: either Mark or John. I chose this because I believe that the foundation of the church is the historical events of the life of Christ. The gospel is basically “NEWS” of what God has done to reconcile the world to himself. It is NOT primarily advice to follow, but truth to believe. I was convinced to take this path, at least in part by Tim Keller’s message on the implications of the gospel for ministry. You can get it from the Gospel Coalition
BTW, I think the picture above is just fabulous. I don’t know what the sculptor had in mind- but I find this to be a great visual of what Biblical preaching should be: a chance for us to point all men, again and again, to the truth.
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Quotes from Martin Luther King
In no particular order….
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.
If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
Some Wisdom From Monticello
Thomas Jefferson was certainly an interesting and influential man. I take exception with a great many things he said, but also enjoy other. Here are a few peckings.
Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
One man with courage is a majority.
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
I cannot live without books.
I’m a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
If God is just, I tremble for my country.
It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
The Hard Road
I get prayer emails from Johnny Farese. He is a quadriplegic who serves the Lord from his bed. you should visit his site, farese.com to hear the whole story.
You can listen to some of his story below:
He sent this quote the other day:
“In the world ye shall have tribulation.”
— John 16:33
“There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the Christians will be able to escape all this. These are the false teachers that Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days. Most of them have little knowledge of what is already going on across the world. I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible persecution. In China, the Christians were told, “Don’t worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated – raptured.” Then came a terrible persecution. Millions of Christians were tortured to death. Later I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly, “We have failed. We should have made the people strong for persecution rather than telling them Jesus would come first. Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution, how to stand when the tribulation comes – to stand and not faint.”
Corrie Ten Boom
Corrie Ten Boom was a dutch christian who was sent to a concentration camp in WWII for helping Jews to hide. Her sister and father died while imprisoned. She knows something of what it means to suffer for her faith in Jesus.
The Big Picture of the Bible
Mark Dever is a pastor in Washington D.C. He is a great preacher, and some time ago he took his congregation on a journey through the whole Bible. First he preached on sermon on the big message of the whole of scripture. Next, a message on the New Testament, and then another one on the Old Testament. Each message trying to summarize the major message of God’s word. After this he preached a sermon on each book of the Bible, OT and NT.
You can find them here.
Teddy Roosevelt Lays it Down
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt
In my life I have too often sat in the peanut gallery, slinging criticisms at others from my position of idleness. I am ashamed of that, and don’t ever want to be that way again!
Jesus, a Hypocrite’s Worst Nightmare
The Anti-Hypocrite
Hypocrisy is an old game. At the bottom, it means being an impostor, a deceiver. And there are many ways to express it. It is easy for modern Americans to limit the idea of hypocrisy to the kind expressed by those great modern philosophers the Beastie Boys: “Your pop caught you smokin’ and he said no way, that hypocrite smokes two packs a day.” And they are correct; that is one of the worst forms of hypocrisy.
This was alive and well in Jesus generation, “ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence” (Matthew 23:25). Consistently Jesus opposed hypocrisy. In modern parlance, He is the “anti-hypocrite.” It occurred to me with some freshness that Jesus is not just opposed to this kind of deceitfulness with his words. He opposed hypocrisy by the way he lived His life.
I was reading Mark chapter 10 this morning and saw something important. James and John were trying to position themselves for greatness as cabinet members in what they thought was Jesus coming administration, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory” (v. 37). Jesus dialogues with them, and concludes with some magnificent words on greatness. “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant” (v.42-43). Translated into modern language, everyone wants to call the shots. Power is the world’s view of greatness. Jesus almost always turns things on their head. Real greatness comes from being a humble servant.
Here is where we see Jesus as the “anti-hypocrite.” Jesus is not prescribing medicine that He won’t take. He concludes this discussion with these words, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (v.45). First Jesus tells them how to be great, and then he shows them. Jesus is the ultimate servant, and the best example of greatness. Jesus is the perfect example of sincerity. There is no show or deception with Christ. He is exactly what he appears to be. No pretense, no stage. He is the embodiment of virtue!
But there is something else. Jesus opposes hypocrisy by His teaching and life, but he also promises to render a full accounting to every hypocrite on the last day. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known” (Luke 12:1-2). Hypocrisy thrives in the shadows. The same Jesus who preached against hypocrisy, and lived a life of sincerity, will one day broadcast the truth on the evening news of the judgment day for every hypocrite. Jesus already knows what goes on behind closed doors, and he will one day pull back the curtain for the whole world to see. He elsewhere said, “the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 24:50-51).
When I read this, I rejoice that I have such a savior. It is no wonder to me that Paul says of Jesus, He has been given the name that is above every name (Philippians 2:9-10).
Dave Barry on the Traffic Problem
Dave Barry is a riot. I think he is the funniest man in America. This article is penetrating analysis of the nation’s traffic problems
The Little Stuff: The Important Stuff
“I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”
-Helen Keller
MattTroupe.net 