Fighter Verses

Deuteronomy 6:4–5, Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) is considered one of the most important passages in the Hebrew bible. It has been referred to [...]

John Piper on the cross, . . . in that accomplishment on the cross, as he died for sinners, Christ revealed the love and righteousness of the Father supremely. This was the apex of the revelation of the glory of God—the glory of his grace. Therefore, in the very moment of his perfect act as [...]

There is an “indestructible toughness” to the Bible. It is a blaring contrast to “the incredibly short shelf-life of the ever-changing remedies and treatments and schemes of hope in our day.” So John Piper begins in a sermon on Isaiah 40:8. He goes on the to name four eternal realities of the Bible: God, sin, [...]

Psalms 23:1-2, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.” The beginning of Psalm 23 sounds a lot different from the beginning of Psalm 22. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1) “The Lord is my [...]

John Piper: There is a phony faith that claims to believe in Christ, but is only a fire insurance policy. Phony faith “believes” only to escape hell. It has no real desire for Christ. In fact, it would prefer if he not come, so that we can have as much of this world’s pleasures as [...]

The setting for this week’s Fighter Verse is the upper room on the night that the Lord Jesus was arrested. Trouble was in the air. Jesus was speaking and acting in a way that was disturbing to his disciples. He had washed all their feet including the one he said would betray him. During supper [...]

The Psalter occupies a unique place in the Holy Scriptures. it is God’s Word and, with a few exceptions, the prayer of men as well. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 45. As Bonhoeffer explains, we feel this tension as we pray through this book — some prayers are by Messiah and we pray them for ourselves [...]

Psalm 20 is “a Psalm of David” written for the people of Israel to sing in anticipation of battle that they might put their confidence in Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the God who anointed their king. This God listens to his anointed. When his anointed calls, this God answers. And when [...]

Before I embraced the sovereignty of God over all things, I lived in fear of the ‘spiritual forces of evil.’ It was easy to see evil as powerful – it surrounds us! And knowing how weak I was, spiritually and morally, taking up the ‘whole armor of God’ didn’t provide much hope that I would [...]

Jesus is the one mediator between God and man. 1 Timothy 2:5 raises some important questions about the exclusivity of Jesus Christ. John Piper addresses this subject in chapter 4 of Let the Nations Be Glad. He writes: The crucial point here is the universality of the work of Christ. It is not done in [...]