Birkdale Baptist Church

Life, Heart and Hope in Jesus

If you look at porn, have looked at porn, or know someone that looks at porn—download this book, print it out, and read it.

This book is now available to download and print as many copies as you like. It's short and should be cheap to print. We'll be making the book available for purchase soon.

A Few Ideas

• Get a few friends together and deal honestly with each other about the subjects of each chapter.
• Once you're done reading, pass it on to a friend.
• Give it to the counseling pastor at your church as a resource.

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If you’ve missed any of the Peasant Princess sermon series, in which we’ve walked through the Song of Songs, I hope it was not last Sunday. Why? Because we covered the most erotic, passionate, and debated section of the entire book, and possibly the entire Bible.

If you subscribe to the sermon feed this week, you can learn what the Dance of Mahanaim is, why a husband greatly enjoys seeing his wife perform it, and whether or not Song of Songs 7 is really talking about her belly button or something more interesting.

Also, at the end of each sermon in the series, my wife, Grace, and I answer questions text messaged to us during the sermon. So, please help us get the word out and the sermon subscriptions up as we labor to replace Christian porn, adultery, and divorce with hot, hetero, covenantal monogamy.

Who knows, you may even help us leapfrog Oprah and Osteen on iTunes for Religion & Spirituality as we just don’t have their marketing budget and can’t seem to overtake them. But if ever there was a week to make a run, this is it.
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In my years of pastoral ministry I have worked very hard to not be political. I believe that my job as a pastor is to preach and teach the Bible well so that my people make their decisions, including their voting decisions, out of their faith convictions.

This election season which has dominated the cultural conversation for many months has been particularly insightful regarding the incessant gospel thirst that abides deep in the heart of the men and women who bear God’s image. Without endorsing or maligning either political party or their respective presidential candidates, I am hopeful that a few insights from the recent election season are of help, particularly to younger evangelicals.

First, people are longing for a savior who will atone for their sins. In this election, people thirst for a savior who will atone for their economic sins of buying things they did not need with money they did not have. The result is a mountain of credit debt they cannot pay and a desperate yearning that somehow a new president will save them from economic hell.

Second, people are longing for a king who will keep them safe from terror in his kingdom. In the Old Testament the concept of a peaceable kingdom is marked by the word shalom. In shalom there is not only the absence of sin, war, strife, and suffering but also the presence of love, peace, harmony, and health. And, this thirst for shalom is so parched that every election people cannot help but naively believe that if their candidate simply wins shalom is sure to come despite sin and the curse.

The bottom line is obvious to those with gospel eyes. People are longing for Jesus, and tragically left voting for mere presidential candidates. For those whose candidate wins today there will be some months of groundless euphoric faith in that candidate and the atoning salvation that their kingdom will bring. But, in time, their supporters will see that no matter who wins the presidency, they are mere mortals prone to sin, folly, and self-interest just like all the other sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. To help extend naïve false hope as long as possible, a great enemy will be named and demonized as the one who is hindering all of the progress to atone for our sins and usher in our kingdom. If the Democrats win it will be the rich, and if the Republicans win it will be the terrorists. This diversionary trick is as old as Eve who blamed her sin on Satan rather than repenting. The lie is that it’s always someone else’s fault and we’re always the victim of sinners and never the sinner.

Speaking of repentance, sadly, no matter who wins there will be no call to personal repentance of our own personal sins which contributes to cultural suffering and decline such as our pride, gluttony, covetousness, greed, indebtedness, self-righteousness, perversion, and laziness. And, in four years we’ll do it all again and pretend that this time things will be different. Four years after that, we’ll do it yet again. And, we’ll continue driving around this cul de sac until Jesus returns, sets up his throne, and puts an end to folly once and for all.

In the meantime, I would encourage all preachers to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and repentance of personal sin. He alone can truly atone for our sins. He alone can deliver us from a real hell. He alone is our sinless and great King. And, he alone has a Shalom kingdom to offer.

Lastly, for those preachers who have gotten sidetracked for the cause of a false king and a false kingdom by making too much of the election and too little of Jesus, today is a good day to practice repentance in preparation to preach it on Sunday. Just give it some time. The thirst will remain that only Jesus can quench. So, we’ve still got work to do….until we see King Jesus and voting is done once and for all.
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And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (Gen. 2:25)

Click to go to the Mars Hill Blog

In answering text message questions about sexuality as part of the Peasant Princess sermon series studying the Song of Songs, we have been a bit overwhelmed.

First, the online response has been shocking and we are grateful for all our Internet friends who have tripled traffic to the Mars Hill Church website (www.marshillchurch.org) and also pushed our iTunes podcast as high as #4 under Religion and Spirituality, just behind Oprah, Joel Osteen, and the LDS national conference.

Second, we have been overwhelmed with all of the questions we have received and are answering as many as we can on Sundays. Some of the questions are not best suited for a church service but do merit honest responses, therefore we will answer some of them in this month-long series of daily blogs in an effort to be of further help to Christians everywhere.

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This book list comes from the back of Death by Love.

Bridges, Jerry, and Bob Bevington. The Great Exchange: My Sin for His Righteousness.

Charnock, Stephen. Christ Crucified: A Puritan’s View of the Atonement.

Dabney, Robert L. Christ Our Penal Substitute.

Jeffery, Steve, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach. Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution.

Packer, J. I., and Mark Dever. In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement.

Peterson, David, ed. Where Wrath and Mercy Meet: Proclaiming the Atonement Today.
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This book list comes from the back of Death by Love.

Beilby, James, and Paul R. Eddy, eds. The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views.

Boice, James Montgomery, and Philip G. Ryken. The Heart of the Cross.

Demarest, Bruce. The Cross and Salvation: The Doctrine of Salvation.

Denney, James. The Death of Christ: Its Place and Interpretation in the New Testament.

Hengel, Martin. Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross.

Hill, Charles E., and Frank A. James, eds. The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Theological, and Practical Perspectives.

McDonald, H. D. The New Testament Concept of Atonement: The Gospel of the Calvary Event.

McGrath, Alister E. The Enigma of the Cross.

Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross.

——. The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance.

——. The Cross in the New Testament.

Nicole, Roger. Standing Forth: Collected Writings of Roger Nicole.

Piper, John. Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die.

Smail, Tom. Windows on the Cross.

Smeaton, George. The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement.

——. Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement.

Sproul, R. C. The Truth of the Cross.

Stott, John R. W. The Cross of Christ.

Tidball, Derek. The Message of the Cross: Wisdom Unsearchable, Love Indestructible.

Wallace, Ronald. The Atoning Death of Christ.

Wells, Paul. Cross Words: The Biblical Doctrine of Atonement.
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Seattle is one of the most progressive cities in America when it comes to alternative medicine. This is in part due to the influence of Seattle’s Bastyr University which is one of the leading schools in the world for alternative medicine. And, this trend is growing rapidly around the nation and world as witnesses in the fact that nearly every grocery store now has an organic section and collection of naturopathic remedies for everything from colds to allergies.

Admittedly, the entire industry is not yet well regulated which leaves room for poor medical alternatives. And, much of the naturopathic world is dominated by non-Christian and even pagan thinking.

Yet, the question persists, where can Christians go to get wise counsel on navigating the world of alternative medicine? Now, they can go to The Resurgence.

Some years ago I chose a naturopathic doctor named John Catanzaro. He is a godly Christian brother, ordained evangelical pastor with a Masters Degree in theology, and also a practicing naturopathic doctor. Thanks to his help in such areas as diet and nutrition I am in the best health of my life after hitting a place of fatigue and burnout a few years back. He is a gifted doctor, wise brother, and is very sympathetic to the need of Christians to have wise counsel in navigating the growing world of alternative medicine. So, he will begin blogging at Resurgence to help serve God’s people as they pursue wisdom and health.

Dr. Catanzaro's first post

Dr. John A. Catanzaro is President and Founder of Health and Wellness Institute. He is an author, lecturer, has guest appearances on television and radio as an advocate on integrative medicine. He is affiliate clinical faculty of Bastyr University and is responsible for the advanced medical training of medical students and residents. He has served on the Washington State Healthcare Quality Assurance Commission as the Vice Chair of the Naturopathic Advisory Committee from 1999-2005. He has served as integrative medical advisor for a CDC sponsored Cancer Control Partnership in Washington State responsible in paving a new direction for integrative cancer treatment. He was selected by Seattle Magazine as one of the twenty best naturopathic physicians in Seattle. He is married and has 5 children. You can learn more about his Dr. Catanzaro’s work here.
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Having now settled back in to work at Mars Hill, I wanted to publicly thank my new friends from Australia—and there are hundreds of them! My family enjoyed three weeks in Sydney, and then poppa-daddy had a good week and a half of preaching in and around Sydney as well as in Brisbane. God gave me a deep heart for the country, a deep love for the churches, and a deep passion to return to learn and serve some more.

Some kind folks sent a few photos of two of the largest events at which I had the honor of preaching. The first was the Burn Your Plastic Jesus event in the Sydney Entertainment Center. It was humbling to see the ten thousand seats sell out the day before the event and to have the honor of preaching Jesus to that many people. It was a night I'll never forget. One pastor said the room had not been filled up by an evangelical preacher since Billy Graham preached there thirty years prior.

The second was the Rice Rally (I did not name it that) for around four thousand Asian students. In the front row with me (I'm the one white guy in the stadium) are my wife Grace, our daughter Ashley, and my new friend Steve Chong and his great wife Naomi. You can pray for their church plant in Sydney.

I learned a ton on this trip. Especially helpful was seeing the fruit of the work of the Jensen brothers, who are the two barrels of the gospel gun for Sydney Anglicanism.

While in Australia I met hundreds of men who said they want to be considered for church planting. So, we're working on a plan.

For those who think of it, you can pray for two things.

One we are in early discussions about my possible return to Sydney for some evangelistic preaching to as many as forty thousand people if we can work out the details.

Two Pastor Scott Thomas and Pastor Tyler Powell who run the Acts 29 Church Planting Network are working out the details of a return trip to evaluate church planters and to see if we can be of assistance to some major denominations while also helping independent church planters.

It is a big task and we can use a lot of prayer for wisdom on how to organize a version of Acts 29 in Australia and when to return to kick it off. For my Aussie posse, stay tuned, because I'll be back . . .
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Read Chapter 3 of "Porn Again Christian"
- A Theology of Pornographic Lust

The newest chapter of this free eBook is available now.

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Read Chapter 2 of "Porn Again Christian" - The Fear of the Lord

Watch the Video Introduction:

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The following is a clip from the Q&A portion of the sermon series on the Song of Songs, which we called the Peasant Princess.

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The first chapter of "Porn Again Christian" is available now—here. Please tell all of the guys you know about this.

When all of the chapters are on the site, the complete book will be available as a free pdf.
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He's a good sport.

See the previous 4 here.
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I became a Christian at the age of nineteen, started doing ministry as a Bible study leader almost immediately, and planted Mars Hill Church in the fall of 1996 at the age of twenty-five. Prior to my conversion, I had been sexually active and looked at porn. These were the first sins I remember being deeply convicted of as a new Christian and by God’s grace I have been able to walk away from those sins and to Jesus.

Over the years, much of my ministry has been to men in general, and young, single men in particular. The least likely person to go to church in virtually every nation, including my own, is a single man between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four. These guys are a priority for me. As our church began growing, I started pulling these guys together for “boot camps” to speak to them off the record with plain speech about real issues of being men. The guys were responsive and very few had a dad, let alone a Christian dad, and they were clueless about why God made men.

What started as a handful of guys has now grown to a large church that is half single and half married, half male and half female. We have thousands of single men ages eighteen to thirty-four who call Mars Hill home, which is a miracle since we are in one of the least churched cities in our nation and statistically the least likely city in the nation where these guys would attend church. Most of them are new Christians who meet Jesus while in sexual sin of every sort and are fighting to get dominion over their pants.

To help these guys, some years ago I sat down and in one day wrote a small booklet about male sexuality that we published in-house. Since then we have gone through thousands of copies and literally cannot keep it in stock. I asked some Christian publishers if they wanted it, and they said it was too hot to handle and so they declined.

So, I decided to just put it online and give it away for free. The book has had a small amount of editing and rewriting since its original version. We’ll give it away at the Resurgence a bit at a time in conjunction with the Song of Songs series I am preaching titled “The Peasant Princess.” Once the entire book has been put online, it will then be posted as a file that guys around the world can download and read on their computer, forward to their friends, or print copies of to hand out as they like.

I hope this thing goes nuts and hundreds of thousands of guys read it.

In closing, I want to say two things. One, a lot of folks will not like the content or tone of this book and I love them and wish them well. You get what you pay for and this is free. Two, a lot of young guys (and some older guys too) tell me they have been helped by this content and if God uses it to help some guys I would be overjoyed with that. So, let the critics fire away and I’ll gladly take the shots for the guys who are walking wounded in an effort to help them get their shield up and sword sharpened.

Until we see Jesus,
Pastor Mark Driscoll

Porn Again Christian e-Book
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Soon I will be heading out to speak at a Desiring God Conference for Dr. John Piper. He has asked me to speak on Christ, controversy, and cutting remarks, or something like that. Basically, the gist is that no matter what I say, the critics who forget the whole plank-speck thing Jesus talked about will make every effort to turn it into controversy with their cutting remarks. Should be fun.

Admittedly, the topic is not my first choice because it’s enough rope from which to either swing or hang depending upon how the session goes. But I took the invitation in large part to get some hang time with Dr. John Piper. To be honest, he’s even better off the stage than he is on. I mean that in no disrespectful way because he is one of the greatest preachers on the planet and I think he could hold my attention reading the phone book. But as a man off the stage over a meal when the crowds are gone and the microphones are off, I have found him to be even more enjoyable, encouraging, helpful, passionate, and compelling. As an example, we recently posted a long interview I did with him at the Resurgence (embedded on the bottom of this post) and in it he was so genuine and honest that at points the interview is somewhat raw. I sent him the finished interview to get his permission before posting it out of respect, and true to form he edited nothing out. So, out of love for a man I consider a great mentor and friend, I thought it would be fun to share four reasons why I truly and deeply appreciate John Piper, before I head out to speak at his conference.

1. He is the most passionate guy I think I’ve ever met.

Of course, he is first and foremost passionate for the glory of God. But he is pretty much passionate about everything. For example, the first time we had him preach at Mars Hill Church the nuts we had out were unsalted. I learned that he is passionate about salted nuts.

2. He does not seem to really care about his approval ratings.

He does not own a television, and I would bet he spends less time checking what people say about him through Technorati and Google than he does watching television.

3. He has a father’s heart.

Unlike so many older men who are threatened by, competitive with, or critical of young men, I have repeatedly seen Dr. Piper have a father’s heart to encourage, exhort, and empower young men. The few times we’ve been able to sit down together have been incredibly transforming. On a few occasions he has been gracious enough to sit down with the young church planters in our Acts 29 Network with no microphones and very honestly answer the painful questions about life, ministry, and family. In those moments, from his heart and off the cuff comes pure gold that my brothers in Acts 29 still talk about. Especially noteworthy was the question from Jonathan McIntosh at The Journey Church in St. Louis, who asked what he would have to offer as final wisdom to young pastors. Piper buried his face in his hands to think and pray for a few minutes while the rest of us held our breath and waited. He then lifted his head and forcefully encouraged us to gouge out our eyes before looking at a woman lustfully (other than desiring our wives, of course) and chop off our hand before touching a woman other than our wife. Personally, I will never forget the time he told us about holding his stillborn grandchild around Christmastime as tears rolled down his face, describing how he prayed for God to resurrect the baby from death. As I looked around the room I saw dozens of young pastors, myself included, fighting back buckets of tears.

4. By not trying to be cool . . . he’s cool.

I cannot confirm it, but I think Dr. Piper may only have one jacket. I see him preach in it all the time and it’s a tweed coat with more than a few years of faithful service. I also think he may own one belt because I’ve only ever seen one. He drives a simple car, lives a simple life, does not have a tattoo (at least that I’ve seen), does not skateboard, and likes to read stuff by dead guys a lot. But by trying to just be himself rather than being cool, he has curiously become cool because he’s about Christ and that’s always cool.

________________________

Mike Anderson will be live blogging the Desiring God Conference this Friday - Sunday on theResurgence.com
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I was recently handed the first shipped copy of Death by Love, the newest book by Dr. Gerry Breshears and myself. We are both very excited about this book that is for sale everywhere starting September 30.

Unlike Vintage Jesus, it does not have comedy and is pure, unadulterated, intense, Jesus-centered, sin-confronting, raw, and real gospel theology. The look by the guys at Portland Studios is unreal and unparalleled. I do think, without shameless self-promoting, that it is a timely book with essential truth in a creative format. I explain the book in greater detail in this video:

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Read the first part of this series here.

Amazing Mom

Grace is an amazing mom to our five children. She works incredibly hard, never complains, and has sacrificed a great deal over the years for me, our children, and our ministry. She feels the pain of my critics and gets furious when people assume they know me but have no idea since they see me for an hour a week on the stage and have no clue who I am or what I am like the rest of my life with her and the kids. She’s had people pretend to be her friend just to try and get into our life because they want power, influence, and/or employment. She’s been cussed out by complete strangers for decisions the elders made that she had nothing to do with. She’s had to deal with people showing up at our home demanding our time and even threatening our family. She’s had to share me with the world and weep many times when I catch a flight. She’s had to serve ungrateful people who took so much of her time and energy that I became frustrated only to then receive even more demands and threats of anger or manipulative guilt if she did not continue to do what they wanted when they wanted how they wanted.
Through it all she’s learned to be my friend. Grace is the one person I know will be with me in forty years. And I will still close my eyes every day and think about holding her hand then too.

Grace is not like me.

I can be brash, intense, overbearing, ill-worded, and the like. She is patient, loves to counsel people, has hope for everyone, and serves anyone. I learn a lot from her example, and praise God I have gotten to grow up with her through high school, conversion, and college, all the way from our teens to our thirties.

This Sunday I will share her with Mars Hill Church and those who tune in online. When I preach the story of the Peasant Princess from the Song of Songs, I will be teaching from a series of love letters between a husband and wife. As we do often at Mars Hill, we will open up some time for live text-message questions from our campuses and, following the sermon, Grace and I will try our best to answer them so as to be of service. To be honest, I’m a bit anxious. I’ve preached live to crowds of ten thousand people without even getting a bit nervous and could literally take a nap before getting up to preach. But the thought of having the person I love, cherish, and care for the most with me makes me anxious. I am Grace’s defender and protector and friend. I know that her role will be misunderstood by some, and her answers picked through by critics who have made it their life mission to act like Judas in the name of Jesus. So, before I share my Grace with you, I wanted you to pray for a few things, if you would.

Prayers

1. Pray that people understand that she’s not preaching but rather practicing Titus 2 by coming in to answer women’s questions about marriage and sexuality that frankly I have no wisdom on as a man.
2. Pray that she and I do a good job threading the needle when answering the questions.
3. Pray that we can help the people in our church because we love them and have given our entire life to them.
4. Pray that people will understand that she is not an employee of the church, does not lead anything at the church, and as a mom with five young children is focused on her family in this season of life and cannot meet with all the women and deal with all the issues that some will want her to.
5. Pray that she and I will see more of our future through this process. Grace wants to work alongside of me in ministry for the rest of our lives and we’re wondering if, one day when our kids are grown and we’re in a different season of life, she should be teaching women and encouraging pastors’ wives, as that is her heart.
6. Pray that I honor her well publicly as I should.
7. Pray that I can get her to laugh loudly a few times from the stage because it’s awesome.
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I was seventeen years old and as lost as Dick Cheney in the woods when she caught my eye. She was a grade older than me in high school, a petite sprinter on the track team with curly blonde hair, and I was drawn to her like I had never been drawn to any woman before or since. Twenty years later I am more drawn to her than ever.

Grace was my high school sweetheart.

Her father Gib was a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary who had planted a church in Seattle before Grace was born. He tended to that little flock for over forty years until he retired in his mid-seventies nearly a year ago. Grace gave her life to Jesus at a young age and walked faithfully with God until a rough patch in high school. We began spending time together on March 12, 1988, when she was a senior and I was a junior. Within weeks I told her I wanted to marry her and was deadly serious. I was raised Catholic, and while some Catholics are Christians, I was not one of them but was instead a moral “good” guy. Some time later she bought me a really nice Bible; when I read through the book of Romans in that Bible as a college freshman, Jesus saved me.

At the time, we were about three hundred miles apart attending different colleges. I prayed at a men’s retreat as a new Christian shortly thereafter and God spoke to me and told me to marry Grace, train men, preach the Bible, and plant churches. So, I called Grace and asked her to transfer to my college so we could be together. She obliged, and together we attended a wonderful Evangelical Free Church and prepared for marriage. Our wedding day came on August 15, 1992. We returned to college for Grace to finish her final semester and me to finish my final year of college.

We were completely broke, and very happy.

Our first apartment was a small one-bedroom place in the basement of a Christian couple’s home that we rented for $250 a month. We did our laundry at the laundromat and played board games together to kill the time. To be honest, I did not really like the board games but I liked being with Grace so much that anything I did with her was fun because, unlike anyone I have ever met, I truly enjoy hanging out with her. Friday night date nights, which continue to this day, consisted of dinner at home and a movie for 99 cents at a second-run old movie theater because it was all we could afford. I worked nearly full-time while piling on college credits to graduate in four years. Life was busy but I would have done anything to be married to Grace.

Following graduation, Grace and I moved back to Seattle to house sit and work simple jobs until we could land better jobs and afford our own apartment. Those months were very difficult as we worked split shifts and did not get the time together we both craved. Eventually we scraped together enough money to get a small one-bedroom apartment for a whopping $450 a month. Grace landed a job working for a large media company. I started a small evening service on Sundays to try my hand at preaching. Before long we started a small college ministry and moved to the city of Seattle into a house with a big-time rent of $1,000 a month so as to be closer to the major universities. I got a ministry salary of $1,000 a month and worked a job running the theology section at a Christian bookstore, which has since gone out of business, while Grace got promoted in the media company as the assistant to the president.

Mars Hill

After a year or two we started the core group for Mars Hill Church with maybe a dozen people in our living room. Grace still worked full-time, did all the hospitality for the church, threw every bridal shower, every baby shower, brought meals to all the new moms, did hours of counseling, co-taught Bible studies with me, hosted meetings nearly every night in our home, and brought food every Sunday for the first years of the church. Her health took a turn for the worse from the long stressful hours at her job and nights spent with a house full of people doing ministry. So, I repented to her, brought her home from work for the rest of her life, and we had our first daughter Ashley. Since we launched Mars Hill in October of 1996, we have seen the church grow to thousands and our family grow to seven.

Last month we celebrated our sixteenth wedding anniversary and more than twenty years together at Icebergs Restaurant on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. It was a picturesque night and one of those snapshot memories I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Like every pair of sinners striving to be one, we have had our troubles. But by God’s grace, my Grace and I have gotten through them stronger, closer, and more certain that marriage is to make us holy and not just happy. I believe that God gave me a need for Grace that is unlike anyone else. I am a self-sufficient guy, an introvert in many ways, and can take care of myself just fine. But I need Grace. I am drawn to her, smitten by her, and in love with her to a depth that I cannot explain but only enjoy. To this day I am more drawn to her than anyone I have ever met, and as always I just love being in her presence. I recently told her that her presence is one of the greatest gifts in my life. I work from home most of the time just so I can be near her. I love her touch, I love her smile, and I absolutely love her enormous laugh that fills a room. Not everyone thinks I am funny, but she has for over two decades and our home is filled with laughter and fun.

Read part two HERE.
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Once someone has taken the time to study and meditate upon Scripture, they are then most fit to teach it to others accurately, passionately, and practically. Just as every Christian should meditate upon Scripture, so every Christian is a teacher of Scripture.

Everyone is a Teacher

The Scriptures speak of teaching very broadly and in many forms. Elders are formally appointed male senior leaders and teachers in the church (1 Timothy 3:1–2). Those with the gift of teaching who are approved by the elders also have formal teaching ministries in the church (1 Corinthians 12:28). Parents are also supposed to be teachers, as is illustrated throughout Proverbs, where the mother and father continually instruct their children in wisdom. Furthermore, in some sense, every Christian is to be a teacher who imparts biblical truth into the lives of others. For example, Colossians 3:16 is directed to an entire church: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”

In Conclusion

Those who meditate upon Scripture will see God continually giving them opportunities to share what the Holy Spirit has taught them with others for their strengthening and encouragement.
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We can assume that Jesus practiced regular times of meditation since He was known as a brilliant teacher with amazing insight and often spent time alone with God the Father. Personally, I wonder if Jesus spent His forty days alone in the wilderness preceding His temptation by Satan meditating on Deuteronomy; He responds to Satan’s temptations by quoting from Deuteronomy, which was obviously at the forefront of His mind.

Meditation has also been a common practice of all branches of Christianity throughout the history of the church. For example, the Puritans were masters at meditation. The lengthy Puritan sermons normally only explored a verse or two of Scripture but did so in a deep and thorough way in an effort to help people learn to meditate deeply on Scripture for themselves. Some Puritan pastors even said that they were more interested in how much Scripture their people understood and obeyed than how much Scripture their people read. They were not discouraging Scripture reading, but acknowledging that sometimes people read too much too fast and remember and apply too little. Slowing down to meditate can be beneficial.

Practically, there are some steps that can be helpful for Christian meditation:

1. Pray for the Holy Spirit to teach you Scripture, convict you of sin, and give you a heart to lovingly obey Jesus.
2. Memorize a word, verse, phrase, chapter, or scene of Scripture that bites you.
3. Write it out in your own words, seeking to grasp the full meaning of what is said.
4. Ask yourself what is revealed about God.
5. Repent of any sin that the Holy Spirit convicts you of.
6. Pray for anyone or anything that the Holy Spirit brings to mind.
7. Determine what God would have you to do in obedience to His Word.

Summary

Meditation is not complicated or mysterious. It can be done anywhere at any time by anyone with a heart to know God better and become more like Jesus. The result is that God the Holy Spirit will honor our time and make the written Word become for us a living Word that transforms our hearts, minds, and lives.
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