John Piper is the Pastor for Preaching and Vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church (Minneapolis, MN) and the founder of Desiring God.

Some books are for tasting regularly, not reading through once. One such book is Wise Counsel: John Newton's Letters to John Ryland Jr. edited by Grant Gordon (Banner of Truth, 2009). Newton was the former slave-trader turned pastor, and the author of “Amazing Grace”. The flavor of his ministry is such that frequent tastes are better than rare gulps.

I hope that he and you and I shall all so live, as to be missed a little when we are gone. But the Lord standeth not in need of sinful man. And he sometimes takes away his most faithful and honoured ministers in the midst of their usefulness, perhaps [for this reason] among others, that he may show us he can do without them. . . . Blessed is the servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing, with his loins girded up, and his lamp burning. (p. 280)

Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead—if you can call it that—continues to move me, months after I read it. I have waited to comment on it since I knew it would be around for decades (centuries?). I wanted to let it ripen in my memory.

Rev. John Ames is dying. The book is a kind of last testament he would like his young son to read when he is twenty-five, long after his father is dead. His voice is still with me.

So I went back to gather a few treasures. Gilead is not a "must read.” There are no “must reads” but the Bible. None.

So how do you choose what to read before you die and give an account to Jesus? I do it largely by what is awakened in me when I read samples. I hope these help. Some of the treasures.

He’d walk fifteen miles across open country in the dead of winter to settle a point of interpretation. We’d have to thaw him out before he could tell us what it was he had on his mind. (p. 16)

Existence seems to me now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined. (p. 53)

You two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water. (p. 63)

In my present situation, now that I am about to leave this world, I realize there is nothing more astonishing than a human face. (p. 66)

Each morning I’m like Adam waking up in Eden, amazed at the cleverness of my hands and at the brilliance pouring into my mind through my eyes—old hands, old eyes, old mind, a very diminished Adam altogether, and still it is just remarkable. What of me will I still have? Well, this old body has been a pretty good companion. Like Balaam’s ass, it’s seen the angel I haven’t seen yet, and it’s lying down in the path. (pp. 66-67)

I have always liked the phrase “nursing a grudge,” because many people are tender of their resentments, as of the thing nearest their hearts. (p. 117)

Presumably the world exists for God’s enjoyment, not in any simple sense, of course, but as you enjoy the being of a child even when he is every way a thorn in your heart. (pp. 124-125)

At my time of life, I refuse to be angry. It was kindly meant. And it had to be done sooner or later. It’s true that if I have to spend my twilight stranded with somebody or other, I’d prefer Karl Barth to Jack Benny. (p. 128)

Boughton says he has more ideas about heaven every day. He said, “Mainly I just think about the splendors of the world and multiply by two. I’d multiply by ten or twelve if I had the energy. But two is much more than sufficient for my purposes.” So he is just sitting there multiplying the feel of the wind by two, multiplying the smell of the grass by two. (p. 147)

Adulthood is a wonderful thing, and brief. (p. 166)

But the fact is, I have never found another way to be as honest with myself as I can be by consulting with these miseries of mine, these accusers and rebukers, God bless them all. So long as they do not kill me outright. I do hope to die with a quiet heart. I know that may not be realistic. (p. 179)

And she kissed me on the top of the head, which, for her, was downright flamboyant. (p. 186)

We human beings do real harm. History could make a stone weep. (p. 190)

He could knock me down the stairs and I would have worked out the theology for forgiving him before I reached the bottom. But if he harmed you in the slightest way, I’m afraid theology would fail me. (p. 190)

It is true that we all do live in the ruins of the lives of other generations. (p. 198)

My heart was very heavy. There was Boughton sitting in his Morris chair staring at nothing. Glory told me the only words he had said all day were “Jesus never had to be old!” (p. 236)

It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health. (p. 238)

It was truly a dreadful thing he was doing, leaving his father to die without him. It was the kind of thing only his father would forgive him for. (p. 240)

There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient. (p. 243)

“He will wipe the tears from all faces.” It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required. (p. 246)

This whole town does look like whatever hope becomes after it begins to weary a little, then weary a little more. But hope deferred is still hope. I love this town. I think sometimes of going into the ground here as a last wild gesture of love—I too will smolder away the time until the great and general incandescence. (pp. 246-247)

On September 13, 1980, Charles Malik gave an address called “The Two Tasks” at the opening of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. He was the Lebanese Ambassador to the United States. The message was so seminal that in 2006 (his centenary) it was republished with a collection of essays built around it. What strikes us as he stands to speak is the personal dimension and the public scope of his Christian commitment.

I speak to you as a Christian. Jesus Christ is my Lord and God and Savior and Song day and night. I can live without food, without drink, without sleep, without air, but I cannot live without Jesus. Without him I would have perished long ago. Without him and his church reconciling men to God, the world would have perished long ago. I live in and on the Bible for long hours every day. The Bible is the source of every good thought and impulse I have. In the Bible God himself, the Creator of everything from nothing, speaks to me and to the world directly, about himself, about ourselves, and about his will for the course of events and for the consummation of history. And believe me, not a day passes without my crying from the bottom of my heart, ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’

Charles Malik (1906-1987), Lebanon's ambassador to the USA (1945-55), President of the UN General Assembly (1958-59), professor of philosophy at the American University of Beirut (1962-76). Quoted from “The Two Tasks” in The Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar: Redeeming the Soul, Redeeming the Mind, eds. William Lane Craig and Paul M. Gould (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2007), p. 55.

Scott Simon interviewed the Jesuit priest James Martin on NPR Saturday morning, March 6. Martin just published The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (Harper One, 2010). The last question Simon asked was this: “If there is a God, why do little children suffer?”

Martin answered, “That is the hardest question, and I think the answer is, we don’t know.” To his credit, Martin did go on to say that, for the Christian, Christ has entered into our suffering and gives consolation. He also asks wisely, “Can we believe in a God whose ways we don’t understand?” He answers Yes.

I am glad that Martin pointed to Christ’s sufferings. And I am glad he affirmed that we can believe in a God whose ways may be inscrutable to us. But the Bible does not want us to say “We don’t know,” when the overarching Why questions are asked about suffering and death.

It is true, we may not know for sure why any particular child suffers in this particular way. But the Bible wants us to speak what it says about death and suffering.

Why do little children suffer and die? We ask it with the awareness that it is happening this very moment by the hundreds, and we ask it through tears of personal experience and empathy. Here is one biblical answer: “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—” (Romans 5:12).

Death came into the world through sin.

That is the fundamental biblical answer for where all suffering and death came from. Or to use the words of Romans 8:20, “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope.”

In other words, because of sin, God subjected the entire creation to the futility of mortality with all its suffering and death. The whole creation groans under the judgment.

If the interviewer says, “That seems a bit harsh, to bring the whole creation under the judgment of suffering and death, including little children, because of one man’s sin?” we answer,

“That is how outrageous sin against an infinitely wise and good and holy God is. We don’t measure the outrage of our suffering by how insignificant we think sin is; we measure the outrage of sin by the scope of suffering.

The really amazing thing is that you and I, as sinners, are sitting here talking, when we deserve to be in hell. God is remarkably patient. And he gave his Son to die in our place so that everyone who believes may escape from this judgment and have eternal life.”

I just read Numbers 7 on my annual way through the Bible. I read every word. It is one of the longest, most repetitive chapters in the Bible.

From verse 12 to verse 83 Moses describes the offerings that each of the twelve tribes of Israel brought to the tabernacle when it was first dedicated to the Lord.

But here’s the amazing thing. There are 93 words in the description of what each tribe brought as an offering. And all 93 words are repeated verbatim for each of the 12 tribes. Twelve times he says exactly the same thing. Twelve times! Exactly the same 93-word description for each tribe’s offering!

Why?

Gordon Wenham answers: “It seems likely that a theological purpose underlies his wordiness.”

The purpose he says is “to emphasize as strongly as possible that every tribe had an equal stake in the worship of God, and that each was fully committed to the support of the tabernacle and its priesthood.” (Numbers, p. 93)

Yes. But let the method of emphasis sink in. Moses could have used Wenham’s words and saved time, space, and tedium. He could have said, “Every tribe has an equal stake in worship and all are to be fully committed to the tabernacle.” That’s 18 words. But he used 12 x 93 = 1,116 words.

Here are some lessons:

• There are times when you look into every child’s eyes and say the same important thing. You don’t say the precious thing to one and then sweep over the others: “That applies to all of you.”
• These tribes are not equal. Some are larger. Some have sordid legacies. But everyone heard every word of God’s plan for their approach to God. Every one. Every word. Identical.
• Efficiency is not always the highest value. Slow, long, repetitions are sometimes the best way to make an impact.
• Patience in reading God’s word may be a test of the frenzy of our pace and our demanding attitude toward the Bible that it be the way we want, not the way God made it.

Michael Oh spoke at our 2009 Desiring God Conference for Pastors. I love his vision for Japan. As a Korean this commitment has the Christ-like flavor of reconciliation and risk. I would like for you to know him and, if God leads, support his vision.

He is president and founder of Christ Bible Seminary in Nagoya and a cluster of other ministries under Christ Bible Institute. Here is a short video where Michael presents the amazing opportunity for this seminary and church to be housed in downtown Nagoya.

The video below is a message I gave last Monday in chapel at Westmont College. It is a rethinking of an old idea. I used to ask, How is it loving for God to make so much of himself and do everything for his glory? Now I ask: Why does God reveal his love for us in such a way that it turns out to be for his glory?

Or: I used to say: Do you feel more loved when God makes much of you or when he frees you to enjoy making much of him? Now I say, “Why does God make so much of us in a way that winds up making much of him?”

It may not sound very different. But I think many will feel a significant shift. See if it helps.

William Wilberforce was driven in his political, emancipation efforts by a clear doctrinal understanding of what Christianity was. Pray that those today who care deeply about social justice will be as vigilant to righteous action in right thinking.

He was especially jealous to keep clear the right relationship between good works and justification. Notice especially his third statement below about what Christianity is.

Wilberforce said, "Christianity is:

• a scheme "for justifying the ungodly" [Romans 4:5], by Christ’s dying for them "when yet sinners" [Romans 5:6-8],
• a scheme "for reconciling us to God"—when enemies [Romans 5:10];
• and for making the fruits of holiness the effects, not the cause, of our being justified and reconciled."

William Wilberforce, A Practical View of Christianity, ed. Kevin Charles Belmonte (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996), p. 64. Emphasis added, but the capitalization is his emphasis.

Some Bible passages make crystal clear what we must not assume when reading other Bible passages. For example, consider Exodus 33:13 where Moses prays to God,

If I have found favor in your sight,
please show me now your ways,
that I may know you,
in order to find favor in your sight.

What this verse prevents us from assuming is that, if God’s favor is conditional, it is therefore not unconditional.

Or to put it another way, the verse prevents us from assuming that, if God’s favor is unconditional, it is not therefore conditional.

Knowing God through knowing his ways is the condition of finding favor in his sight in the future. “Please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight.”

And finding favor in God’s sight is the unconditional ground of knowing God through knowing his ways. “If I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways.”

We may not assume that conditions of being in God’s favor in the future cancel out the truth that we are already in his favor, and that this is how we are able to meet the conditions of future favor.

Nor may we assume that the presence of conditions makes our future insecure! As if God’s prior unconditional favor will not guarantee that we meet the conditions.

O how precious are the strange and wonderful verses like Exodus 33:13!

And even more, how precious is the electing, calling, regenerating, all-providing, favor of God’s unconditional grace!

If you want to crawl inside the possible world that opens when a dirt-poor, illiterate, former-share-cropin’, homeless 50-something enters the life of a swank, upscale, southern, Christian art dealer, read Same Kind of Different As Me. These two men tell their increasingly interwoven stories in alternating short chapters that kept me coming back night after night.

Their names are Denver Moore and Ron Hall. There is a woman who binds them together. But if I tell you what happens to her it might ruin the story for you.

Here are the kinds of lines that would keep me going even if the story didn’t (which it did):

• “Denver and I are not preachers or teachers but sinners with a story to tell.”
• “You never know whose eyes God is watchin’ you through.”
• “I hope people will recycle the love they’ve been givin’ to somebody that’s not easy to love.”
• “This earth ain’t no final restin’ place, so in a way we is all homeless.”
• “Just tell ’em I’m a nobody tryin’ to tell everybody about Somebody who can save anybody.”
• “How do you live the rest of your life in jus a few days?”

Are you so discouraged you don’t know what to do next? I want to help you get through this. Maybe this will help.

The following quote is from my journal dated November 6, 1986. I had been at Bethlehem 6 years. If you have ever felt like this, remember this is 24 years ago and I am still here.

The point is: Beware of giving up too soon. Our emotions are not reliable guides.

Am I under attack by Satan to abandon my post at Bethlehem? Or is this the stirring of God to cause me to consider another ministry? Or is this God's way of answering so many prayers recently that we must go a different way at BBC than building? I simply loathe the thought of leading the church through a building program. For two years I have met for hundreds of hours on committees. I have never written a poem about it. It is deadening to my soul. I am a thinker. A writer. A preacher. A poet and songwriter. At least these are the avenues of love and service where my heart flourishes. . . .

Can I be the pastor of a church moving through a building program? Yes, by dint of massive will power and some clear indications from God that this is the path of greatest joy in him long term. But now I feel very much without those indications. The last two years (the long range planning committee was started in August 1984) have left me feeling very empty.

The church is looking for a vision for the future—and I do not have it. The one vision that the staff zeroed in on during our retreat Monday and Tuesday of this week (namely, building a sanctuary) is so unattractive to me today that I do not see how I could provide the leadership and inspiration for it.

Does this mean that my time at BBC is over? Does it mean that there is a radical alternative unforeseen? Does it mean that I am simply in the pits today and unable to feel the beauty and power and joy and fruitfulness of an expanded facility and ministry?

O Lord, have mercy on me. I am so discouraged. I am so blank. I feel like there are opponents on every hand, even when I know that most of my people are for me. I am so blind to the future of the church. O Father, am I blind because it is not my future? Perhaps I shall not even live out the year, and you are sparing the church the added burden of a future I had made and could not complete? I do not doubt for a moment your goodness of power or omnipotence in my life or in the life of the church. I confess that the problem is mine. The weakness is in me. The blindness is in my eyes. The sin—O reveal to me my hidden faults!—is mine and mine the blame. Have mercy, Father. Have mercy on me. I must preach on Sunday, and I can scarcely lift my head.

I loved you by the bending tree
Where N plus J marks you and me.

I loved you outside Williston,
The year before God made us one.

I loved you in a paisley dress,
When everything in me said, Yes.

I loved you when your hair was long,
Like Mary and her sixties song.

I loved you in your wedding gown,
And how we tiptoed out of town.

I loved you on the balcony
Of our small flat in Germany.

I loved you when your heart was buoyed,
And even when you were annoyed.

I loved you when our first son came;
Yes, Karsten is a boy’s first name.

I loved you with the quiver full;
How could you carry such a bull!

I loved you for your leadership.
That hulk’s still sitting on your hip!

I loved you with your autumn bloom,
As if God said, “Talitha kum!”

I loved you subtle in your joy;
I loved you sweater-clad and coy.

I loved you beaming, eyes a-bright,
All formal black, and my delight.

I loved you on a mountain deck,
When I was dripping from the trek.

I loved you stokin’ at my back,
Or if you coasted with your snack.

I loved you when God took the stress,
And gave us peace at Inverness.

I loved you in the Blue Ridge trove
Near Asheville that they call the Cove.

I loved you when they made us wait.
“No charge!” they said, “the meal was late.”

I loved you when you joined with ease
To stare down all our enemies.

I love you still with mystery:
The mystery that you love me.

From February 4 through March 17, I will be on my annual writing leave (with a couple speaking trips thrown in). Thank you for supporting me in these focused times away. They are not vacation. I usually work longer hours during writing leave than during regular ministry seasons.

So please pray for me that I would love my family well and that I would be very productive for the glory of Christ. Pray that I would devote more time to prayer, not less; that I would give more time to read and meditate on the Scriptures, not less; and pray that I would see beautiful truth in God’s word and be able to write about it in spiritually compelling ways. What will I work on?...

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What the Bible teaches keeps us in line with reality. But what the Bible includes keeps us balanced and protects us from ill-advised overstatement.

As he came to Christ C. S. Lewis was learning from J.R.R. Tolkein that Christianity is “true myth.” “It really happened.”

Then he says, “The ‘doctrines’ we get out of the true myth are of course less true: they are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.”

My Bible awareness triggers a response: “More adequate” for what?

Certainly the events of incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection are “more adequate” to accomplish redemption. These events accomplished my redemption. No concept or idea could do that.

But these events are not “more adequate” for proclaiming the meaning of the events. Events are proclaimed with words. And words only have meaning when put together as concepts or ideas. This is how the apostles proclaimed the events so that people could grasp what happened and embrace the meaning of them and be saved.

For this we need words. Deeds are not adequate to communicate the meaning of deeds.

How do I know this? Why do I react this way to Lewis’ comment? Because the Bible is more than deeds. The Bible is dense with conceptual explanations of what God was doing in the deeds.

I infer from this that God considers the concepts and ideas of the Bible to be essential for grasping God’s purposes in the “true myth.”

I am protected from overstatement and imbalance by knowing what the Bible includes.

I encourage you to measure your favorite authors and your favorite quotes by what the Bible teaches and what the Bible includes.

Jesus in Haiti
After the Earthquake

Do you consider safety, or your health,
          A sign from me?
I am not awed by might, nor struck by wealth,
          Or poverty.

O, I am struck! And crushed. Buried, I wince,
           And dying, pray,
A sympathetic Priest in Port-au-Prince,
          Even today.

But there, in those United States the boot
          Is on my face.
“Saul, Saul,” I ask, “Why do you persecute
           And not embrace?”

Your King, I lift my arms to you in peace
          And patient grief;
And summon now to Haiti enemies
          For my relief.

Today, 91 years ago, my father, William Solomon Hottle Piper, was born. When I gave my tribute to him at the Desiring God Pastors’ Conference I called it “Evangelist Bill Piper: Fundamentalist Full of Grace and Joy."

Alongside the emergence of Bethlehem Seminary, there is a sister institution, Bethlehem College. The fall of 2010 will mark the admission of its first four-year class.

The reason I can thank God for it, though it hasn’t happened yet, is that we have been doing the same thing in one-year and two-year programs for some time. And all the pieces are in place for next fall’s move to a four-year launch—even an installation service on October 3rd with Albert Mohler as our main speaker.

The curriculum is not traditional. And there will be no football team. We will offer a 2-year degree in Christian Worldview, a 4-year degree in the History of Ideas, a 4-year degree in Biblical and Theological Studies, and a Degree Completion Program.

In other words you won’t come to Bethlehem College to learn a trade or a profession. You come to learn how to learn for the rest of your life—with the glory of Jesus Christ at the center of every idea and every event. We want to impart “habits of mind” that fit students for life-long, Christ-exalting learning.

These habits of mind apply to all objects in the world, but most importantly the Bible. Thus we aim to enable and to motivate the students

1. to observe their subject matter accurately and thoroughly,
2. to understand clearly what they have observed,
3. to evaluate fairly what they have understood by deciding what is true and valuable,
4. to feel intensely according to the value of what they have evaluated,
5. to apply wisely and helpfully in life what they understand and feel, and
6. to express in speech and writing and deeds what they have seen, understood, felt and applied in such a way that its accuracy, clarity, truth, value, and helpfulness can be known and enjoyed by others.

In all of that, our aim is to instill these habits of mind and heart in such a way that they see the glory of God more clearly, love the gospel of Christ more deeply, and by the power of the Holy Spirit spread a passion for his supremacy in all things to all the peoples of the world.

When all this happens in the context of a living, local church, something amazingly whole and strong is built into a student’s life. We hope many of our friends will want to follow the progress of this dream.

We would love your prayers for this new venture. We believe God will use it long after we are gone. If God puts it in your heart to be part of our prayer support, or if you would like to stay in touch with us and follow the news, please join our mailing list.

One of the strangest things about the book of Job is how the three “friends” (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) are restored to Job and to God. It is very round-about and teaches us surprising lessons about prayer.

After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly.” (Job 42:7-8)

In verse 7 God says that his wrath is kindled against Eliphaz and his two friends “for you have not spoken of me what is right.” How then shall they be restored to God's fellowship and escape his wrath? 

God says that they must ask Job to pray for them as they offer up for themselves a burnt offering, “for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly.” So they do this. “And the Lord accepted Job's prayer” (v. 9).

All of this happened not just for the three friends’ sake, but for Job’s. When he had prayed for them, everything changed for him. "The Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends" (v. 10). 

So it appears that the condition for Job's friends to be restored to God was Job's forgiving intercession for them. And it appears also that the condition for God's restoring Job's fortunes was the same. 

It is remarkable that God would not simply accept the repentant prayers of these three friends for themselves. They had to get Job to pray for them. God would hear Job's prayer not theirs.

Perhaps the reason for this is that it is God's way of demanding (along the lines of Matt. 5:18-23) that there be reconciliation before there be acceptance of worship and forgiveness. 

The Lord's prayer says, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." Job needed forgiveness. He also needed to forgive. His enemies also needed God’s forgiveness. So God brought them to Job, seeking his intercession on their behalf, and that is exactly the kind of love Jesus commands—“pray for those who persecute you.” 

And the three friends needed to seek forgiveness from Job before their prayers could be heard because Job's animosity toward them was their fault in large measure. If your brother has anything against you, go and be reconciled to your brother.

But the text does not say that God will hear their prayers when they patch things up with Job. It says that Job's prayer for them will be heard. So the dynamic here is not simply human forgiveness opening the way for the three to be heard in heaven. The dynamic is that God ordains that the prayers of some people will be received for the guilt of others.

Part of the reconciling process is the vertical intervention of Job on behalf of the three adversaries, not just the horizontal reconciliation with them. The prayer of Job for these three was essential for God not to "deal with them according to their folly." 

What we learn is that God wills to do some things in answer to prayer that he wants to do, but will not otherwise do. And we should be diligent to pray for others whose prayers for themselves may not be accepted for reasons we do not know.  It means we may be the appointed means of someone escaping the consequences of their folly, which they may be able to escape in no other way.

O, what eyes he had! He was like his hero, C. S. Lewis, in this regard. When he spoke of the tree he saw on the way to class this morning, you wondered why you had been so blind all your life. Since those days in classes with Clyde Kilby, Psalm 19:1 has been central to my life: “The sky is telling the glory of God.”

That night Dr. Kilby had a pastoral heart and a poet’s eye. He pled with us to stop seeking mental health in the mirror of self-analysis, but instead to drink in the remedies of God in nature.

He was not naïve. He knew of sin. He knew of the necessity of redemption in Christ. But he would have said that Christ purchased new eyes for us as well as new hearts. His plea was that we stop being unamazed by the strange glory of ordinary things.

He ended that lecture in 1976 with a list of resolutions. As a tribute to my teacher and a blessing to your soul, I offer them for your joy.

10 Resolutions for Mental Health

1. At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.

2. Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle, and an end.

I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death when he said: "There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing."

3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities.

I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

4. I shall not turn my life into a thin, straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.

5. I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

6. I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their "divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic" existence.

7. I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the "child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder."

8. I shall follow Darwin's advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

9. I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, "fulfill the moment as the moment." I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.

10. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect who calls himself Alpha and Omega.

(Originally posted 12/31/07)

Carolyn Mahaney wrote “Homemaking Internship ” especially for moms with daughters. It’s about how to pass on to the next generation of young women some of the most important things in life. She says, 

But the truth is that homemaking involves so much more than just cleaning a house. The commands in Scripture to love, follow, and help a husband; to raise children for the glory of God; and to manage a home encompass a vast responsibility. Homemaking requires an extremely diverse array of skills—everything from management abilities, to knowledge of health and nutrition, to interior decorating capabilities, to childhood development expertise. If you are to become an effective homemaker, then you must study these subjects and many more. 

It turns out that, in God’s plan, the home is the University and mom is the Professor of this all-encompassing subject. The whole article is wise and helpful.

In September, 2009, we admitted the first class in the four-year program of Bethlehem Seminary. Here at the end of the year I want to give public thanks to God and take some of you with me into this vision. Not everybody. But some of you carry a special, God-given burden for the preparation of future generations of God-centered leaders.

Bethlehem has been training future pastors, teachers and missionaries through The Bethlehem Institute for over ten years. That two year program has now become the four-year Bethlehem Seminary. We plan to admit 15 men every year to the seminary. The number will be kept small so that the vision for mentored ministry and church involvement can be sustained.

At the heart of this vision is the invincible God, the infallible Bible, and the indispensible Gospel of Jesus Christ. We want future pastors to be stunned by the greatness of God. And stay stunned by living in the Bible. And spread this amazement to sinners, who qualify through faith alone because of the Gospel.

We want them to love the church. The real live, blemished, blood-bought bride of Christ. So we sink them into ministry while they are here.

I love sitting with these brothers (There will be about 60 at any one time.) most Thursdays during the school year just talking about the hundreds of real-life challenges that ministry brings. This personal give-and-take is crucial for us.

I love the ministry of the word. I never get tired of preaching to the same flock. I have been doing it for almost 30 years at Bethlehem. There are things students can learn that let the Bible keep on feeding them and their people year after year in faithful expository preaching. We want to teach those things.

We have now called two new full time faculty, one in Old Testament (Jason DeRouchie) and one in New Testament (announcement coming soon).

They call me the Chancellor! It sounds incredibly overblown to me. But Tim Tomlinson is the President, so that title (and job!) is well-taken. And Tom Steller is already an incredibly gifted teacher and dean. And I have more responsibility than teaching. So there you have it: Chancellor.

I am eager to give the last chapter of my life to this vision, as long as God gives me breath and a clear head.

Whoever of you would like to stay in touch with us and follow the news of the new school you can sign up for email updates.

We would love your prayers for this new venture. May God use it long after we are gone. If God puts it in your heart, we would be very happy for you to be part of our prayer support.

The fact that hundreds of the pages of God’s inspired word are devoted to poetry moves me. One of the effects is to make me aware that God thinks the sound of language matters. 

God has blessed and humbled me with the inability to speed read. I read about the same speed that I talk. I hear what I read as I read it. For years I tried not to. Speed reading consultants (I took their courses—in vain.) say that pronouncing the words, even in your head, turns a rabbit reader into a turtle. No use. I’m a turtle. 

So I take heart that so much of the Bible is poetry. It is self-evident to me that poetry is not meant to be speed-read, but ordinarily read aloud. So I would encourage you to supplement your speed with slow savoring of the way things are written to be heard. 

Consider this observation about what happens when poetry is read aloud and read well by a person who understands it. 

“Even after almost three millennia of written literature, poetry retains its appeal to the ear as well as to the eye; to hear a poem read aloud by someone who understands it, and who wishes to share that understanding with someone else, can be a crucial experience, instructing the silently reading eye ever thereafter to hear what it is seeing.” (John Hollander, Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize, 1)

Noël and Talitha and I recorded a Christmas greeting for you and a “glimpse” into our home and traditions.

And since I didn’t write the advent poems this year, I wrote this Christmas poem to read at our Christmas Eve services last night, in the hopes of sharing my love for Jesus and my joy in him.

In this smelly place he lay,
Smelly like the swine,
Smelly like the rotting hay,
Like your sin, and mine.
Do you see how low he lay?
Do you see how low?
There is lower yet to go.
Lower yet to go.

He is lying where they eat,
Lying where the swine—
Lying like a piece of meat
Where the hungry dine.
Do you see the flow complete
Do you see the flow?
There is greater love to show
Greater love to show.

Such a happy toddler there,
Happy like the birds,
Happy like the morning air
Filled with happy words.
Does he see or know or care?
Does he see or know:
O, how deep will be his woe
Deep will be his woe?

Knowing God was born like this
Knowing this is he,
Knowing somehow this is bliss
For the swine and me,
Is this love's full glow and kiss?
Is this love’s full glow?
There are deeper things to know,
Deeper things to know.

Mary musing every year,
Musing on her son,
Musing with a rising fear
Who will be the one:
Who will strike the blow and spear?
Who will strike the blow?
Does she know that blood must flow?
Know that blood must flow?

Jesus hanging on the tree,
Hanging like the meat,
Hanging there for swine like me,
Gives his flesh to eat.
Here is Life brought low and free.
Here is Life brought low.
O, how vast the debt I owe
Vast the debt I owe.

I hope you feel the same undeserved debt to the grace of God this year because of Christ. What an amazing Savior we have!

December 21, 2009

In echoes of Capernaum the Lord
Inquired of me, his happy friend, and said,
“Will you, like these five thousand, take my bread
And leave?” But I replied, “Who can afford
To lift his little hand and wield the sword
Of pride, and sever now the hand that fed
Us with his love? No. No. I would be dead
If I should leave, and you be unadored.

I may as well in this exquisite night
Of pleasures—night to mark our wedding day—
Set out to find a harlot before light
To supplement my ecstasies for pay!
No. No. You only have the words of life
Nor will I dream of any other wife.”

When G. K. Chesterton was arguing against a rationalist who denied miracles on the ground that experience is against it, he cited this:

There was a great Irish Rationalist of this school who, when he was told that a witness had seen him commit a murder, said he could bring a hundred witnesses who had not seen him commit it. (Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 176)