Spiritual Growth / Suffering

  • Christian Exiles by John Piper

    FROM TABLETALK | May 2011

    In a profound sense, this world is not our home. When we are away from our bodies we will be “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). We are not to be “conformed to this age” (Rom. 12 …Read More

  • No Pain, No Gain by Mark Dever

    FROM TABLETALK | January 2005

    Sometimes Scripture is just not obviously true. It is certainly true. Scripture is always true. Sometimes, however, Scripture is just not obviously true to us. At the beginning of James’ letter, we are told that we should “Consider it all …Read More

  • Hope in This Broken-Down World by Paul David Tripp

    FROM TABLETALK | December 2011

    Years before I met her, Joan had come to Christ and met and married Henry, a successful, wealthy Christian businessman. They built a mansion in an affluent suburb, had a circle of great Christian friends, and were involved together in …Read More

  • A Community for Broken Homes by James Coffield

    FROM TABLETALK | December 2011

    It’s 10:30 a.m. on Sunday morning and a monumental battle is being waged. Margi wants to go to church, but is it really worth the trouble? Her disabled son is more difficult to deal with in the …Read More

  • Ten Years Later by Burk Parsons

    FROM TABLETALK | September 2011

    The world has changed. We are not the same people we were on September 10, 2001. The events of September 11, 2001, and the events that followed in ensuing years have not only changed America but nations and peoples throughout …Read More

  • Pain: God’s Megaphone by Alistair Begg

    FROM TABLETALK | January 2008

    For sixty years, successive generations have been helped by what C.S. Lewis wrote on the subject of pain and suffering. The sustained benefit is due in large measure to the fact that he brought to the “problem” a solid …Read More

  • How Now Shall We Die? by John Blanchard

    FROM TABLETALK | October 2011

    Woody Allen, the well-known movie director, screenwriter, and actor, once said, “I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” The quirky quotation is famous but fatally flawed. God has the date …Read More

  • Sin, Death, and Grief by Burk Parsons

    FROM TABLETALK | April 2007

    My father was a veteran of World War II, the son of a small-town country preacher, school teacher, and sheriff, the son-in-law of the automobile manufacturer Preston Tucker, a fellow college graduate of Sam Walton, the leader of one …Read More

  • The Gospel and the Oncology Waiting Room by Mike Pohlman

    FROM TABLETALK | July 2011

    I recently sat with my wife in the waiting room at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. We were there to meet with Dr. Lupe Salazar to receive the results of Julia’s latest PET/CT scans. The goal: to determine …Read More

  • Ten Years Later by R.C. Sproul

    FROM TABLETALK | September 2011

    A full decade has passed since America suffered the tragedy of 9/11. Ten years ago, I repeatedly heard the question raised: “Where was God in all of this? Where was God on 9/11 when the planes crashed into …Read More

  • What If or If God? by J.R. Vassar

    FROM TABLETALK | September 2011

    I love the Lord of the Rings. I remember sitting in a hotel room in Seattle, Washington, in December of 2003, reading the last book of the trilogy, The Return of the King. I had just spent the previous few …Read More

  • This Isn’t Going to Be As Easy As It Looks by Keith Mathison

    FROM TABLETALK | October 2011

    I have an old newspaper comic strip in my desk that I cut out years ago (Mr. Boffo, for those who are interested in such things). I saved it because I think it’s funny. In the top left corner …Read More

  • The Gospel Cure by Elyse Fitzpatrick

    FROM TABLETALK | March 2008

    Upon brief reflection it’s easy to see that the remedy du jour for treating depression solely with medication is based upon very specific assumptions: that its genesis is always within the body (primarily the brain) and that we do …Read More

  • Hope by R.C. Sproul Jr.

    FROM TABLETALK | April 2007

    Strange as it might seem, I was actually looking forward to seeing her, and wondering how she would react to seeing me. Two years ago my dear wife Denise was stricken with cancer. She received excellent treatment, and faced …Read More

  • Suffering and the Glory of God by R.C. Sproul

    FROM TABLETALK | February 2013

    I once visited with a woman who was dying from uterine cancer. She was greatly distressed, but not only from her physical ailment. She explained to me that she had had an abortion when she was a young woman, and …Read More