Ask Pastor John

Where should an unmarried pastor look for a wife? Pastor John encourages single men in ministry to take practical steps while trusting God’s providence.

Transcribed - Published: 25 July 2024

What makes for a true friend, according to God’s word? Pastor John sketches the nature and importance of friendship across the Scriptures.

Transcribed - Published: 22 July 2024

God looks throughout the earth, eager to work for those whose hearts are whole toward him. Pastor John unfolds glory from a favorite verse.

Transcribed - Published: 18 July 2024

Will God condemn someone for being born into another religion? Pastor John responds to a former Muslim deeply worried about her loved ones.

Transcribed - Published: 15 July 2024

“For his steadfast love endures forever” appears 26 times in Psalm 136. What might we learn from this psalm about the right kind of repetition in worship?

Transcribed - Published: 11 July 2024

If you want more of your thoughts to become captive to Christ, open the Bible and pray, “Anything in my thinking that needs to be destroyed, destroy it.”

Transcribed - Published: 8 July 2024

American citizens enjoy lavish blessings of common grace. Pastor John calls us to give thanks without giving away our far deeper allegiance to God’s special grace.

Transcribed - Published: 4 July 2024

If joy in God is a gift from God, why does he also command us to rejoice? Pastor John takes us into a paradox that lies at the heart of the God-glorifying life.

Transcribed - Published: 1 July 2024

The local church’s task of sending and sustaining long-term missionaries rests on several deep biblical assumptions. Pastor John shares five.

Transcribed - Published: 27 June 2024

At the root of our sin is not a mind ignorant of God’s ways, but a darkened love, a hardened heart, and a will bent away from God’s ways.

Transcribed - Published: 24 June 2024

In this fallen age, resurrection power does not keep us from pain. Instead, it brings life to others as we keep loving Jesus in our pain.

Transcribed - Published: 20 June 2024

Bible reading can bring comfort, but Bible reading can also bring fear. How can we rightly embrace both the comfort of God’s promises and the fear of his warnings?

Transcribed - Published: 17 June 2024

Paul says that the renewed mind discerns God’s good will “by testing.” What does that testing look like in the thousands of everyday decisions we make?

Transcribed - Published: 13 June 2024

Our boredom in this world is meant to point us to another world — a world where the infinitely interesting God will banish boredom forever.

Transcribed - Published: 10 June 2024

No matter how comfortable our friends and neighbors may seem, they are headed for hell unless they repent. So, what words might break through their comfort?

Transcribed - Published: 6 June 2024

Why does Paul call Satan “the prince of the power of the air”? Pastor John explores the extent of Satan’s authority and Christ’s decisive victory.

Transcribed - Published: 3 June 2024

If God has not chosen to save me, then why would he condemn me for not believing? Pastor John explains the kind of inability that does not remove responsibility.

Transcribed - Published: 30 May 2024

Is Shia LaBeouf right to say that Jesus experienced “maximum joy” as he died? Pastor John considers the joy set before Christ and the horrors of the cross.

Transcribed - Published: 27 May 2024

“Cross,” “nails,” “spear,” and “thorns” are words that evoke images in our minds — images with tremendous power to dispel lustful thoughts.

Transcribed - Published: 23 May 2024

How should Christians think about sexually explicit material on the page rather than the screen? Pastor John offers ten questions for readers of erotica.

Transcribed - Published: 20 May 2024

Parents have the God-given duty to warn their children not to rebel against Christ, and some of the most powerful warnings come from stories of failed rebellions.

Transcribed - Published: 16 May 2024

How can a mom raise boys to become strong and godly men? Pastor John offers counsel for training up the next generation.

Transcribed - Published: 13 May 2024

Sometimes, God responds to our sinful requests with a merciful no. But other times, he gives what we ask, brings misery with it, and then amazingly works good through it.

Transcribed - Published: 9 May 2024

How can Christians grow in expressing their deepest affections for God and others? Pastor John offers eight pieces of counsel for those who struggle to speak.

Transcribed - Published: 6 May 2024

God could destroy Satan at any moment. So, why has God allowed Satan to blind the minds of unbelievers from seeing the glory of Christ?

Transcribed - Published: 2 May 2024

Does Proverbs 22:6 promise that children raised by godly parents will become Christians? Pastor John explains the proverb and points parents to their ultimate hope.

Transcribed - Published: 29 April 2024

What makes a good sentence? Good sentences are true, clear, authentic, thoughtful, creative, well-timed, clean, loving, and glorifying to God.

Transcribed - Published: 25 April 2024

How can we walk through this world of sin, suffering, and futility with strength and joy? Psalm 90:14 holds the key.

Transcribed - Published: 22 April 2024

In a society steeped in self-worth and self-esteem, how can Christians aim for significance in a way that glorifies Christ?

Transcribed - Published: 18 April 2024

Should churches be willing to somehow “bless” same-sex relationships? Pastor John responds to Pope Francis’s concerning proposal.

Transcribed - Published: 15 April 2024

God does everything he does for his glory, including answering our prayers. So, how can we align all our requests with this big, overarching purpose?

Transcribed - Published: 11 April 2024

How can we tell if we’re abusing caffeine (or any food or drink)? Pastor John offers three questions to guide a Christian’s consumption.

Transcribed - Published: 8 April 2024

If death belongs to the children of God, as the apostle Paul says, then death not only loses its sting, but it turns around and becomes our servant.

Transcribed - Published: 4 April 2024

On September 22, 1967, V. Raymond Edman collapsed while delivering a chapel message at Wheaton. Pastor John reflects on his college chancellor’s final words.

Transcribed - Published: 1 April 2024

Some Christians carry an ongoing sense of guilt for sins confessed long ago. What can we do with these stubborn guilt feelings?

Transcribed - Published: 28 March 2024

If God is sovereign over our suffering, then we can trust him to strengthen us in suffering, sanctify us through suffering, and ultimately save us from suffering.

Transcribed - Published: 25 March 2024

From eternity, God has been self-sufficiently happy in himself. And because he has no needs of his own, he is gloriously free to meet ours.

Transcribed - Published: 21 March 2024

If our souls are deeply satisfied in God, what room is there for petitionary prayer? Pastor John reframes the question by clarifying the nature of prayer.

Transcribed - Published: 18 March 2024

If God is sovereign over salvation, do the non-elect even have a chance to repent? Pastor John addresses Romans 9:22, your most-asked-about Bible verse.

Transcribed - Published: 14 March 2024

Some biblical truths are essential to believe for salvation — but not all. So, how much error can someone hold and still be saved?

Transcribed - Published: 11 March 2024

How can parents resist the despair that comes from feeling like failures? Pastor John offers ten words of hope for parents of prodigals.

Transcribed - Published: 7 March 2024

After ten years and two thousand episodes, Tony Reinke has distilled the best of ‘Ask Pastor John’ in a remarkable new book.

Transcribed - Published: 5 March 2024

If we obey God outwardly but feel no affection for him inwardly, is our obedience still love? Pastor John takes us to the heart beneath God-pleasing obedience.

Transcribed - Published: 4 March 2024

How do preachers guard themselves from hypocrisy? Pastor John traces double-faced preaching to its deepest root: the love of human praise.

Transcribed - Published: 29 February 2024

How did Paul endure such unimaginable sufferings without turning from Christ? Pastor John traces three threads of the apostle’s perseverance.

Transcribed - Published: 26 February 2024

In Leviticus 21, God forbids men with physical defects from participating as full priests. How do we reconcile this prohibition with Jesus’s approach to the disabled?

Transcribed - Published: 22 February 2024

How do we enjoy pizza, friendship, or any other good gift without committing idolatry? Not only by enjoying God more than his gifts, but also by enjoying him in them.

Transcribed - Published: 19 February 2024

How do Paul’s travel plans relate to the Trinitarian depths of God’s love? Pastor John shows how ultimate reality undergirds the love between the saints.

Transcribed - Published: 15 February 2024

Christians have not only the right but the calling to speak truth to power. But such speech differs greatly from mere political flag-waving.

Transcribed - Published: 12 February 2024

The wrath of God is gone for those who are in Christ. But does God still sometimes bring physical suffering in response to unconfessed sin?

Transcribed - Published: 8 February 2024