Church, Relationships, Wisdom
John Beeson
How to Make Yourself At Home At (Almost) Any ...

“This year my resolution is to get back to God.” My friend shared his resolution with me and my heart leapt. He asked me how he could start that journey. I encouraged him to read a gospel and to connect with a church. He’s only been to church a few times in his life and I could feel the anxiety creep up on him as he considered the possibility.

When was the last time you were at church? Maybe it’s been years. Just thinking of your last time at church might make you recoil a bit. Perhaps it was the music, the awkward coffee hour, the rambling sermon.

How to Make Yourself At Home At (Almost) Any Church
Culture, Christian Living, Religion, Wisdom, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
The Light of Your Own Fire

Outside of Christian music, the song that I’ve most often heard played at funerals is a 55-year-old song from the Great American Songbook. In 1969 Frank Sinatra released “I Did it My Way.” At 53 years old, he reflected back on his life and determined that while he had some regrets, the most important thing is that he did it his own way.

The Light of Your Own Fire
Recommendations, Christian Living, Forgiveness, Nature
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Why am I so spiritually dry? Glenna Marshall reflects, “I couldn’t think of any particular trigger. No big reason stood out to me that would explain why everything felt stale and stagnant inside.”

  2. When offenses come: Scott Hubbard encourages us to reframe when we’ve been sinned against, “Offenses are gifts wrapped with dark ribbons. So don’t let the packaging deceive you. Every snub and jab and wound invites you into deeper fellowship and joy with your forgiving Lord.”

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Church, Family
John Beeson
I've Missed You

Life comes at us fast. How do our calendars get so full? Birthdays and conferences and vacations stack up. We miss church one week, and that turns into two, which turns to a month. Ever so sneakily, new rhythms have crept in and getting to church feels like a challenge.

“How much is it really hurting my spiritual life, anyway?” you wonder. “I still read the Bible. I listen to sermons online sometimes.”

I’m so glad that you are pursuing God on your own. But your spiritual life isn’t intended to be lived out alone. It’s not even designed to be lived out with just you and your family.

I've Missed You
Identity, Spiritual Growth, Worship
John Beeson
God's Names and Our Identities

There was a season of worship music from my childhood where a flood of songs were released reflecting on the names of God. El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh My Provider, and Emmanuel all spring to mind. Interest in the names of God appears to making a comeback in worship as demonstrated by the popularity of Jireh, Yahweh, and Yahweh Elyon.

The names of God have always been dear to his people. The first person in scripture to give God a name is Hagar, who calls God El Roi, “The God who sees”

God's Names and Our Identities

Theology

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. A theology of leisure: Reagan Rose with an important piece. She says, “Many Christians have unthinkingly adopted a view of leisure that sees rest time as synonymous with me time. But this is a historical anomaly.”

  2. The church’s unsung hero: the persevering Sunday School teacher: Can we get an amen to Trevin Wax’s post? God bless our amazing faithful teachers! “Committed Sunday school teachers are a big part of what makes discipleship effective. Yet how often do we let weeks and years go by without lifting up their example or celebrating their faithfulness?”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. My top ten theology stories of 2024: Collin Hansen reports. #2 is encouraging, “Gen Z has borne the consequences of pandemic closures and therapy influencers, so it makes sense they’d also benefit from the church’s efforts to foster resilience through catechesis and spiritual formation.”

  2. Hunter Biden and a father’s pardon: Stephen Steele reflects on President Biden’s pardon to make a spiritual point.

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Glory to God in the Lowest!

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Glory to God in the Lowest!

Last week on The World and Everything in It George Grant considered “The Wisdom of paradox.” He concludes his reflection,  that Christmas is “the greatest and most remarkable paradox of all is revealed: He who was infinite, was yet an infant; He who was eternal, was yet born of a woman; He who was almighty, was yet nursing at His mother’s breast; He who was upholding the universe, was yet carried in His mother’s arms. Thus, Chesterton exclaimed, ‘Outrushing the depth of the fall of man is the height of the fall of God. Glory to God in the Lowest.’”

“Glory to God in the lowest.” What a mind-bending truth.

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The Faithfulness of God of the Manger

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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.

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A Humble God?

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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.

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The Just and the Justifier

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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.

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The Theology of the Manger

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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.”

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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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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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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. YOLO is the new Epicureanism: Cameron Cole explains why YOLO (and FOMO) are just reheated old ideas. “If this life constitutes the entirety of your existence, then you absolutely must maximize your enjoyment. You must never miss an opportunity for fun and pleasure. If this life is it, then you live with a sense of urgency and fear that if you decline an invitation or miss a good time, then you are wasting your one and only finite life.”

  2. The indiscipline of overwork: Ryan Holiday asks, “Do you want to be the artist who loses their joy for the process, who has strip-mined their soul in such a way that there is nothing left to draw upon? Burn out or fade away—that was the question in Kurt Cobain’s suicide note. How is that even a dilemma?

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