Christmas, Theology, Advent, Church, Hospitality
John Beeson
The Faithfulness of God of the Manger

Recently we had someone over and as the night came to a close Angel warmly offered, “Let’s do this again soon!” I wilted as I processed just how many things were on our calendar in the coming month. Just like Angel did, I wanted to be with them again and soon, but her invitation made me flinch.

 

My wife Angel and I are very different people. Angel brings light and life everywhere. People are drawn to her, and she is drawn to people. One of the many things I love about Angel is how she gets caught up in a moment with people. In that space, it’s not unusual that she shares hopes with those we are with of spending more time together. And she means it: there is no doubt of her genuineness.

The Faithfulness of God of the Manger
Advent, Christmas, Theology
John Beeson
A Humble God?

“I don’t compare myself with anybody, but nobody is better.” Michael Jordan

“They say the sky’s the limit, but I think my potential is beyond it.” Jay-Z

“I won’t be happy until I’m as famous as God” Madonna

“I won’t be a rock star. I will be a legend.” Freddie Mercury

“We’re more popular than Jesus now.” John Lennon

We tend to expect that greatest among us are also some of the most arrogant. And why wouldn’t they be? For many who make it to the top of their field, we can see how that arrogance can be a driving force for their greatness.

A Humble God?
Christmas, Forgiveness, Theology
John Beeson
The Just and the Justifier

God became flesh.

Let that sink in. Christianity asserts that God—sovereign, immutable, omnipotent, other—the eternal God who has no beginning and end—became a human being.

 Because many of us have had exposure to Christianity from our early years, it is easy to miss how massive the theological implications of the incarnation are. The incarnation lays the groundwork for a God who chooses to participate in his creation. The incarnation denies the existence of an abstract and distant God, unmuddied by his handiwork.

The Just and the Justifier
Advent, Christmas, Theology
John Beeson
The Theology of the Manger

“God did not, as the Bible says, create man in his own image; on the contrary, man created God in his own image.” Ludwig Feuerbach dropped this theological bombshell three years before Friedrich Nietzsche’s birth. Feuerbach, a name forgotten by most, but who influenced Nietzsche, wrote these words in his book, The Essence of Christianity (1841). He argued that human beings project their own attributes and desires onto an imagined deity, creating God in their own image. This for Feuerbach, is the essence of Christianity (and indeed all religions), the deification of our human ideals. “What man wishes to be, he makes his God… God is the outward projection of a man’s inward nature.”

The Theology of the Manger
Death, Gratitude, Prayer, Suffering
John Beeson
Go To a Funeral

We Westerners avoid death.

 

When was the last time you walked through a cemetery? When was the last funeral you went to? Our churches no longer have cemeteries, those who are older head to retirement communities and then to head to long-term care or assisted care facilities. The number of funerals held in churches has diminished. Death has become professionalized, antisepticised, and remote.

Go To a Funeral

Biblical Studies

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. God brings us bad to bring us best: Joni Eareckson Tada, “When God lobs a hand grenade into life and rattles our faith to the core, we wonder how he’ll work the pieces of shrapnel together for our good. What does good mean, anyway?”

  2. Why we should expect witnesses to disagree: J. Warner Wallace, former cold-case detective explains, “I spent the first nine years of my career investigating crimes as a committed atheist. Even then, I would have approved the notion that witnesses who fail to agree on every detail, raise as many questions as they seem to answer and are inaccurate in some detail of the event, could still be trusted as reliable eyewitnesses.

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The Faith of Unbelief

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The Faith of Unbelief

Bart Ehrman has perhaps done more to undermine the credibility of the Bible than anyone else in my lifetime. But his story didn’t begin that way. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and skeptic. Ehrman grew up in a Christian home, attended a conservative Bible school, and then found his way to a liberal seminary where his faith in the God of the Bible unraveled. That seminary happens to be the seminary I would attend a couple of decades later.

For Ehrman, everywhere he looks he sees holes in the biblical story. The inconsistencies that he sees have led him to determine that he cannot trust in the God of the Bible.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Trauma asks, “Lord, have you forgotten about me?” Darby Strickland shares, “Trauma sufferers tend to ask things like, “How did God let this happen to me?” “Does He hear me?” “See me?” “Or even care about me?” It is important to note that these faith questions are highly personal.”

  2. Let’s stop the kid jokes: Moriah Lovett begins, “Recently, as my husband and I chatted with a newlywed couple, the wife remarked, “We need to hang out with your family soon as a form of birth control for us!” She was referring to our four kids, and despite the discomfort I felt at her words, I laughed. Looking back, I wish I’d said, “I hope hanging out with us would do quite the opposite—kids are such a blessing!” I missed the opportunity.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Maybe you don’t need a therapist: O. Alan Noble says, “I suspect that many people don’t need to see a therapist, or will only need to see one for a brief time to deal with an acute problem like the loss of a loved one. Everyone will suffer. Everyone will need wise counsel and encouragement and guidance and someone to talk to, but not everyone needs that guidance to come from a licensed mental health professional.”

  2. We can’t be friends: T.M. Suffield writes on the absence of deep male friendship and how to buck the trend, “And perhaps,

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Outrage is not a fruit of the Spirit: Randy Alcorn with a timely reminder, “Outrage appears to now be a core value of some Christians. Righteous indignation is sometimes appropriate, e.g. when it involves the killing of children, or false doctrine promoted at the expense of the gospel. But when outrage/anger becomes our default, we lose all credibility and, in my opinion, become poor ambassadors for Christ.”

  2. Your holy deeds are not filthy rags: John Piper clarifies an oft-misunderstood verse. He says, “God does not despise the righteous deeds of his children done by faith. What verse 6 is referring to in calling righteous deeds “filthy rags” is the hypocritical works that flow from nothing.”

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Character Produces Hope

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Character Produces Hope

Have you ever begun reading a passage in the Bible and started anticipating where it was going, and then it took a left-hand turn? I recently had one of those moments. In Romans 5, Paul takes four turns, each more surprising than the last. At the core of Paul’s argument is a counter-intuitive perspective on hope.

Having just worked through Abraham’s faith, Paul begins, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:1-2). I’m tracking with Paul here.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

    1. What does the Bible teach about divorce and remarriage? Jim Newheiser says, “Due to our increasingly therapeutic culture and its expansive definitions of “abuse,” the pendulum has swung in our day from protecting marriage at the expense of not protecting victims of abuse to protecting alleged victims at the expense of not adequately protecting marriage.”

    2. Fewer want children: A sobering poll from Pew reveals that “Adults younger than 50 without children who say they are unlikely to ever have kids rose 10 percentage points between 2018 and 2023 (from 27% to 47%).

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Does Bach’s music prove the existence of God? Trevin Wax thinks so, “The inconsolable longing we feel when we encounter true beauty, when the soaring symphony swells toward a melody’s resolution, is the window to another world, whispering to us, singing to us, ‘There is something more.’”

  2. Lessons from a Job season: Travis reflects, “Whether you have suffered more, suffered less, or your suffering is still to come, none of us lives a life free from the difficulties that are part of a world marred by sin and curse. Sometimes the troubles seem unexplainable, uncontrollable, and unending. Like Job, we may relentlessly call out to God, and, like Job, we may not receive quick relief or quick answers.”

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The Enemy Speaks To You In Your Father's Voice

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The Enemy Speaks To You In Your Father's Voice

Have you ever felt forsaken or rejected by a parent like one of Joseph's brothers? Could you imagine the claws of envy that would clutch at your heart wanting to be loved as deeply as your sibling? Do you hear negative scripts play in your head? "You'll never be as good as him." "Father will never love you like that." Even the names of their moms likely played into the trap of jealousy. Rachel (Joseph’s mother) was the "ewe lamb," but Leah was the "wild cow," and the two maidservants' names also spoke diminishment: Zilpah the "drop," and Bilhah, "trouble."

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The Bible Isn't a Q-Tip

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The Bible Isn't a Q-Tip

You know you’re not supposed to use a Q-tip that way, right? Right on the box it reads, “Do not insert swab into ear canal. Entering the ear canal cold cause injury.” A bevy of articles warn against using cotton swabs to swab your ear canal as “the majority [of earwax] is actually pushed deeper into your ear canal. This can lead to impacted earwax and a vicious cycle of feeling like your ears are dirty, using Q-tips and pushing more wax deeper in your ears.”

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