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

Biden

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. There are Not Enough Atoms in the Universe to Model Your Brain: Gene Veith responds to this, “Elon Musk, our real-life Tony Stark, plans to announce this week the progress of his company Neuralink, whichi s dedicated to developing a Body Machine Interface; specifically, implanting a computer connection into the human brain.” In response, he shares this incredible fact, “There aren’t enough atoms in the universe to build a full model of what every cell is doing [in the brain].” Wow.

2. Five Ways God’s Anger is Not Like Ours: Colin Smith says that the theme of God’s wrath “is so interwoven with the hope of our peace with one another and with God that, if we lose our grasp on the one, we lose our hope of the other.” He goes on and explains why God’s wrath isn’t like our own. I love his conclusion.

3. Can I Trust the Bible? Timothy Paul Jones answers this question with four clear proofs.

4. 6 Ways to Ruin Your Children: Jeff Robinson’s article is simple and important. He shares, “I am at my worst as a father when I assume the role of sinless savior. That place belongs to Christ alone. When I say things like, “I didn’t act that way when I was your age” (a lie if ever there was one), then I confuse them as to why they need the gospel in the first place. And I become a whitewashed tomb.”

5. What John Piper Thinks About the Election: Piper on the challenging decision for the Christian. He concludes, “I will not develop some calculus to determine which path of destruction I will support. That is not my duty. My calling is to lead people to see Jesus Christ, trust his forgiveness for sins, treasure him above everything in this world, live in a way that shows his all-satisfying value, and help them make it to heaven with love and holiness. That calling is contradicted by supporting either pathway to cultural corruption and eternal ruin.”

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Top Five Reasons Why Christians Should Vote

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Top Five Reasons Why Christians Should Vote

“Clown.”

“Racist.”

“There’s nothing smart about you.”

“The worst president we’ve ever had.”

“Liar.”

That’s a smattering of the insults the presidential candidates lobbed at one another a week ago. My oh my. What a year.

According to the Census Bureau, 67% of eligible voters have registered to vote. 53% of eligible voters voted in the 2018 election.[i] Given the challenging choices we have to make, I understand why 47% of eligible voters would sit out elections. There is no shortage of decisions that leave us scratching our heads as we choose between bad and worse. Furthermore, I would be the first to caution us that our hope is not in government or any political ideology, but in Christ the King.

Despite these cautions, Christians ought to fulfill our civic obligation and vote

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