Christian Living, Biblical Studies, Religion, Spiritual Growth, Theology
John Beeson
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.

The Faith of Unbelief
Christian Living, Culture, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Don't Numb Your Feelings

“Don’t listen to your feelings; remember what Jesus did for you!”

“Don’t be guided by your feelings; listen to what God commands you to do!”

In just the past week, I heard both of these warnings. Two very different Christian speakers urged their audiences to shut down their feelings. These admonitions resonate. They contain truth. It is correct that our feelings don’t override truth, nor do our emotions negate what God has done. Neither do our feelings give us an out for what God commands us to do.

Don't Numb Your Feelings
History, Spiritual Growth, Suffering, Wisdom
John Beeson
Lord, Reach Your Justice Down

I had outsized emotions as a child. Games, especially, would get the best of me, whether cards or boardgames or sports. In response to a stroke of bad luck, a hot surge of anger would erupt, followed quickly by tears and then embarrassment.

Emotions are God’s gift to us in many ways. They are one of his kind ways of showing us where our deep attachments lie.

Our son started his freshman year at the University of Arizona this fall. It’s been a great experience for him, but not without its adjustments. The climate of a secular school is quite different than the Christian school he graduated from

Lord, Reach Your Justice Down
Culture, Generosity, Nature, Relationships
John Beeson
Marshmallows and Friends

Most have heard of the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment. In 1970, psychologist Walter Mischel invited kids into his lab. A child was offered a marshmallow that they could eat, or, if they waited until the researcher returned, they were given a second marshmallow. About one-third of the kids waited approximately fifteen minutes for the additional reward.

The study then tracked those children over time and found that children who waited for the second reward tended to have higher SAT scores and lower body mass indexes. Later tests have challenged those outcomes, but it hasn’t stopped parents everywhere from running the experiment on their kids, often with humorous results.

Marshmallows and Friends
Christian Living, Culture, Politics
John Beeson
Uprooting Our Political Identity

Happy election day!

In 2016, data scientists Eitan Hersh and Yair Ghitza analyzed data among registered voters to determine how often Democrats and Republicans married. They learned that 9% of marriages had the spouses registered in the two parties. Over the next four years that meager number would drop precipitously, down to 4%.

 As Jonathan Haidt and others have successfully argued, the ideological disparity between FOX News and CNBC are child’s play compared to the engineered social media algorithms that create hermetically sealed echo chambers for our political views.

Uprooting Our Political Identity

Audobon

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. All 22 Pixar Movies Ranked:This is pretty fun. This list is pretty close to mine. I would go 1) WallE; 2) Up; 3) Incredibles. What are your top 3 favorite Pixar movies?

2. Christians, Please be Meek During this Year's Elections: Jason Carter puts forward this helpful proposal for Christians this election year: "If meekness in general is subordinating our passions and rights in order to love another (think: the example of Christ), then I’d argue that meekness on social media during a time of extreme political divisiveness might be subordinating our own political passions and rights (at least on social media) in order to preserve the priority of our witness to Jesus Christ to our unbelieving friends."

3. 5 Leadership Lessons from Jethro: What can Moses's father-in-law teach us about leadership? I appreciate Paul Alexander's reflection on how easy it is to become the lid of our own leadership.

4. Japan's Successful Nationwide Lost-and-Found System: Healthy systems can bring about radical changes in behavior. In Tokyo, 80% of wallets are returned to their owners (compare that to New York City's 10% rate of return).

5. The 2020 Audubon Photography Awards: Check out the picture of the Northern Jacana by the youth winner. Wow.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Her Stillborn, Him Sovereign: Lianna Davis with a profound reflection on her daughter's stillbirth. Everyone should read this post. She concludes, " I do not know the total sum of sovereign goodness He plans from our child’s early departure from this world; His ways are mysterious. But I do know enough of Him to be sure that, whatever the sum is, He will yield it: “Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame” (Psalm 25:3)."

2.       First, Understand: Simple, but profound advice from Glen Elliott, "we are at our best as a leader and as a person when we seek to 'understand before being understood.' Our human pride that feeds our brokenness wants others to understand how we feel, why we did what we did or didn’t do first. But the key to great leaders is that they, out of humility, seek first to understand before being understood."

3.       An $8.2M Judgment, Over $8.2M Given Away, and God's Sovereign Grace: Randy Alcorn's amazing story of how an $8.2M judgment against him set off a different trajectory for him and his wife and God's incredible grace in the midst of what seemed to be horrible and unjust news. 

4.       Cremation: Why and Why Not: Jon Dykstra with a thoughtful analysis of the biblical argument for and against cremation.

5.       Audobon Photography Award Winners: Holy moly, these photos are incredible. 

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