Why Require Unregenerate Children to Act Like They’re Good?
via Why Require Unregenerate Children to Act Like They’re Good? :: By John Piper. © Desiring God
If mere external conformity to God’s commands (like don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t kill) is hypocritical and spiritually defective, then why should parents require obedience from their unregenerate children?
Won’t this simply confirm them in unspiritual religious conformity, hypocritical patterns of life, and legalistic moralism?
Here are at least three reasons why Christian parents should require their small children (regenerate or unregenerate) to behave in ways that conform externally to God’s revealed will.
Thinking About Santa
via Thinking About Santa :: By John Piper. © Desiring God
Over the years, we have chosen not to include Santa Claus in our Christmas stories and decorations. There are several reasons.
First, fairy tales are fun and we enjoy them, but we don’t ask our children to believe them.
Second, we want our children to understand God as fully as they’re able at whatever age they are. So we try to avoid anything that would delay or distort that understanding. It seems to us that celebrating with a mixture of Santa and manger will postpone a child’s clear understanding of what the real truth of God is. It’s very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part-truth and part-imagination to find the crumbs of reality.
Third, we think about how confusing it must be to a straight-thinking, uncritically-minded preschooler because Santa is so much like what we’re trying all year to teach our children about God. Look, for example, at the “attributes” of Santa.
he is not like God at all.
Be Not Lacking in Diligence to Pray for the Lost!
May it never be that the people closest to me fail to escape the flames of hell owing to my lack of diligence to pray and fast for their salvation. And may no one burning in hell be able to say to me, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
What Is Advent?
via What Is Advent? :: By John Piper. © Desiring God
We are a people of promise. For centuries, God prepared people for the coming of his Son, our only hope for life. At Christmas we celebrate the fulfillment of the promises God made—that he would give a way to draw near to him.
Tears of the Saints Video
St. Augustine’s Confession
“Thou awakest us to delight in thy praise; for thou madest us for thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in thee.”
–Book I, 1 of St. Augustine’s “Confessions”
”Therefore it says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’”
–The Apostle Paul in the Letter to the Ephesians (5:14)
As Absurd As Blaming the Sun Rays
The following analogy by John Calvin attempts to help us understand the mystery of how God can be perfect in love and perfect in righteousness, and how at the same time God can ordain that evil exists or–even more mysteriously–cause evil to take place:
Whence, I ask you, comes the stench of a corpse, which is both putrified and laid open by the heat of the sun? All human beings see that it is stirred up by the sun’s rays, yet no one for this reason says the rays stink. Thus, since the matter and guilt and evil repose in a wicked man, what reason is there to think that God contracts any defilement if He uses his service (the evil man) for His own purpose?
John Piper On Abortion & President Obama
Is the Church Becoming a Christless Christianity?
The premise of Michael Horton’s book, “Christless Christianity,” is that although the church has not stopped using the name of Jesus Christ, and has not stopped talking about Jesus Christ, the church has stopped referring to Jesus Christ as the “Christ” or as the “Savior” from sins and from the wrath of God. Hence, the title, “Christless Christianity.” The question Horton presents is: are we preaching the crucified Christ who takes away sins, or a counterfeit message of good advice for a better life in Jesus’ name? Has the office of “Christ” or “Messiah” been replaced with “Life Coach” and “Sage”? I have been challenged by Michael Horton’s book. Here are a few challenging quotes to chew on:
In my experience, this is where a lot of Christians are living today: not quite accosted by the death sentence of the law, they are also not regularly hearing the liberating Good News of the gospel. Our intuition tells us that if we just hear more practical preaching (that is, moving exhortations to follow Jesus), we will improve. When this becomes the main diet, however, we do not find ourselves improving. We neither mourn [for our sinfulness] nor dance [over our forgiveness in Christ]. (p132)
There Is the Will of God and There Is the Will of God
John Piper on the Two Wills of God:
“There are two clear and very different meanings for the term ‘will of God’ in the Bible. We need to know them and decide which one is being used [when we talk about God's will]. In fact, knowing the difference between these two meanings of ‘the will of God’ is crucial to understanding one of the biggest and most perplexing things in all the Bible, namely, that God is sovereign over all things and yet disapproves of many things. Which means that God disapproves of some of what he ordains to happen. That is, he forbids some of the things he brings about. And he commands some of the things he hinders. Or to put it most paradoxically: God wills some events in one sense that he does not will in another sense.”
via What Is the Will of God and How Do We Know It? :: By John Piper. © Desiring God