It hardly seems possible that, ten years ago on September 11, 2001, we witnessed an act of horror, evil, and grief that left a nation reeling. There has been a great deal of soul-searching and reflecting on the Event and what it means today. How should Christians ponder 9/11 a decade later?

Here are several articles that will help Christians process what happened on that infamous day, how to process what has occurred since, and how we should look to the future to be faithful and obedient sons and daughters of the living God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ligonier Ministries is making their monthly devotional magazine Tabletalk available for free. Selected articles are highlighted below for you to ponder. On top of these, John Piper (of Desiring God) helps us believe what Scripture teaches on God’s sovereignty and suffering in the wake of 9/11.

May these articles stir your soul to deeper trust in the Lord, a deeper love for His Word to do it, and a greater zeal to serve Him!

John MacArthur “Can God Bless America?”
In this era of terrorism, poverty, oppression and a few less-distinct enemies, waves of patriotism occasionally revive the slogan “God Bless America.” Sadly, though, the sentiment long ago became a cliché to which people rarely give serious thought. The phrase is even seen… Continue reading at Ligonier.org

Charles Drew “A Pastor’s Reflection”
What do you do when the world falls apart? When the planes struck, I was in my office overlooking Columbia University on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, eight miles north of Ground Zero. I listened helplessly to news reports and to the sound of sirens as rescue workers raced… Continue reading at Ligonier.org

Thabiti Anyabwile “The Gospel for Muslims”
In 2005, I make my first trip to the Middle East. I was there to engage in a Christian-Muslim dialogue sponsored by a local university’s Muslim and Christian student associations. As far as we knew, it would be the first such public dialogue in this country’s history. It would be… Continue reading at Ligonier.org

R.C. Sproul “Ten Years Later”
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 the twin towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania?” My answer… Continue reading at Ligonier.org

John Piper “Why I Do Not Say, ‘God Did Not Cause the Calamity, but He Can Use It for Good‘”
Many Christians are speaking this way about the murderous destruction of the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001. God did not cause it, but he can use it for good. There are two reasons I do not say this. One is that it goes beyond, and is contrary to, what the Bible teaches. The other is that it undermines the very hope it wants to offer… Continue reading at DesiringGod.org

Burk Parsons “Coram Deo Ten Years Later”
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 the world. People are more afraid and less naïve. People are more aware of the differences between world religions and of the different cultures of those world religions. People are either more antagonistic towards the religion of their fathers or they are more committed adherents.

There are fewer and fewer merely nominal religious bystanders and more and more radical adherents. In ten short years, we have emerged a changed human race — a race of people with a few different norms and many different perspectives, different words and different definitions of words. Those things that once seemed foreign are now familiar, and those things we thought we would never see are now boldly marching down Main Street and entering our homes in ways we never dreamed possible. It has been a rapidly changing ten years, and most people are still trying to figure out what to make of our brave new world.

September 11, 2001, is a day that is burned into our memories. In the history of the world, humanity has never been a witness to such horrendous terror via live video footage. It is our generation’s dreadful day of infamy. Ten years later, and we have not forgotten the murdered or their families, the heroes or the villains. Terrorist attacks are not isolated to America, nor are they isolated to a particular time in history. That dreadful day was not the start of something new but the consequence of something very old. The historic evil of that sad day ten years ago is a symptom of the historic evil of the day of the fall of man.

Since the fall, such sins have been common to all men everywhere, and the works of sinful flesh are evident: terrorist attacks at the hands of committed and conservative Muslims; murderous crusades led by cross-draped and body-armored biblically confused crusaders in the name of Christ; indiscriminate mass murders by fame-seeking, face-masked American high school students; discriminatory holocausts fueled by the psychotic minds of nationally appointed madmen; and government-supported, socially accepted infanticide in the once safe wombs of inconvenienced women and their self-centered, irresponsible “men.”

Although the horrific events of September 11, 2001, sent shock waves throughout the world, our sovereign God was neither shocked nor surprised, and though the world has changed and will continue to change, the one and only God of the Bible has not changed but is forever changing His world by building His kingdom through the advance of the gospel by His sovereign hand and for His own glory.