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

Culture

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Is ‘Be True to Yourself’ Good Advice? Brian Rosner begins, “You don’t need to look far today to notice that personal identity is a do-it-yourself project. A gym near where I live advertises itself with the slogan: “Be Fit. Be Well. Be You.” A new apartment complex around the corner, offering high-end luxury design, carries the byline: “An Unlimited You.” People think about themselves constantly, it seems, and with high expectations!”

  2. The Dead Seriousness of Careless Words: Tim Challies concludes, “And as it is right and just that there be an accounting for the careless performance of tasks, it is right and just that there be an accounting for the careless uttering of words. For words can bring harm every bit as much as deeds.”

  3. The Internet is More Powerful Than the Printing Press: Chris Martin makes the argument. “The internet is the most consequential technological advancement in human history.1 The most common retort to this hot take of mine is, "Yeah but the printing press.”

  4. Reflections on Temptation from Peter’s Sifting: Wendy Willard shares, “God intends for us to be joined with Jesus so perfectly that we cannot be sifted out—or strained—regardless of how hard Satan shakes—or boils—us. Those negative statements we hear in our head? What if that’s Satan “sifting” us, trying to see if he can separate us from our Savior?”

  5. The Land is Bright: Jake Meador celebrates the overturning of Roe. “Overthrowing Roe is not the totality of what our response to abortion ought to be, nor does it mean that the culture of death has been defeated (or the culture of life established), nor does it mean that our work to promote a culture of life is done. It simply means that one highly significant step in the quest to create a culture of life has been taken. But more must follow.”

  6. FAQs: Supreme Court Overturns Roe, Sends Abortion Back to States: Joe Carter explains, “This is one of the most significant acts of justice in modern history. While ruling brings only a change of direction, not an end, to the fight over abortion, it is an essential victory for the pro-life cause that should be celebrated by all Christians. Roe was one of the most evil and repugnant decisions of jurisprudence in our nation’s history, on par with Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

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Praying for Women with Unwanted Pregnancies

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Praying for Women with Unwanted Pregnancies

Several weeks ago I offered a prayer in the wake of the leaked decision that will likely overturn Roe v. Wade and send the determination of the limitations of abortion back to each state. I also pray for the many women who are fearful as they navigate unexpected and perhaps unwanted pregnancies. I pray for men who selfishly coerce their girlfriends and wives to have abortions. I pray for abusive men to repent and seek help. I pray for protection women who are in abusive relationships. Below is a slightly amended prayer for women who are struggling right now with these types of pregnancies. Would you continue to join me in prayer?

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Why Are So Many Kids Rejecting Christianity? Look at Their Parents: Pamela Danzinger considers on what startling new survey data tells us, “The Cultural Research Center (CRC) is out with a new study comparing the number of American parents of children under age 13 who hold a biblical Christian worldview with those who adhere to competing secular alternatives. The results are a damning indictment of Americans’ rejection of or simple indifference to a biblical worldview. Across all parents of pre-teens, only 2 percent hold a biblical worldview, which is defined as “consistently interpreting and responding to life situations based on biblical principles and teachings.” Those with a biblical worldview believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God containing all moral truths.”

  2. Why ‘Consent’ Isn’t Enough for a Sexual Ethic: I think Trevin Wax’s observation here is important. He begins, “Perusing various magazines and news sites in recent months, I’ve noticed a growing number of commentators who recommend we reexamine our society’s norms surrounding sexuality. Casual sexual encounters bring more misery than happiness, they say, and “consent” isn’t a high enough standard to bring about sexual fulfillment and freedom.”

  3. 40 Random Pieces of Advice for the Christian Life: Tim Challies loads tons of wisdom in this post. I love this one, “Open your home to other people often. Help foster a culture of hospitality within your local church by being the one who invites people over on a regular basis. The living room is one of the best contexts in the world for friendship, discipleship, and evangelism.”

  4. Zombie Sins: My friend Chris Thomas consider zombie movies and sin, “Zombie sins thrive in darkness, like the Orcs of Mordor they gather in the gloom beyond the Black Gates. To fight them in the dark watches of the night, alone against the throng, our hopes fade. But we look to the East.”

  5. Well, THAT was Magic! Seth Lewis shares the story of his three-year-old son’s amazement at the automatic doors. In response he asks, “Somewhere along the way, we seem to have picked up the idea that once we can explain how something works, the magic and wonder disappear. But why should that be?”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The Manna is Always There: Glenna Marshall is one of my favorite bloggers and this might be my favorite post she’s written. It leveled my heart. She shares, “Sometimes, the manna is found when others help me look for it. It’s always there if you have eyes to see it. I am coming to terms with the fact that life with an incurable disease will ebb and flow between seasons of healing and seasons of illness. What I really want is full trust in God’s daily provision of grace. I want it to be enough.”

  2. I Am Proud of You: Craig concludes, “Death and life are in the power fo the tongue,” according to Proverbs 18:21. So, give life with your words. Find a young person today, look them in the eye, and pronounce your life-giving blessing: I am proud of you.”

  3. Please Waste Some of Your Prayers: I love this simple admonition from George Sinclair. He concludes, “Do not say ‘God’s No’ for God. Pray for the salvation of the unlikely. ‘Waste’ your prayers on them. Oh yes, please pray for me that I will do the same.”

  4. Does Predestination Mean God is the Author of Sin? Michael Horton handles this challenging question with clarity and simplicity. He explains, “God created Lucifer, but he didn’t create Satan. He didn’t create an evil opponent; he created a wonderful, beautiful, godly, righteous, and just servant, who then of his own free will turned away.”

  5. What a Tangled Web: Carl Trueman points out where we’ve become culturally confused regarding life and gender. He begins, “Confusion over what it means to be human continues to dog public life in the West. Soon after Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party shadow secretary for women, revealed that she does not know what a woman is, U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson deferred the same question to biologists.”

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Intercessions for Life

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Intercessions for Life

My heart has been conflicted since the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked last week. I praise God that states will have the opportunity to protect the lives of unborn children. I am hopeful that many will step forward to care for children who are put forward for adoption. I prayed for three couples at our church who are currently hoping that God would allow them to adopt and considered how they might hear this news. I was disheartened by the attack on our democratic system by the leak of the decision. I was frustrated by many politicians’ lack of honesty in the explanation of what the ruling means for women. I was aghast by the blatant disregard for the welfare of the conservative justices by the pro-choice group who spread their home addresses.

Have mercy on us, sinners, Wounded Savior.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Let the Global Church Give You Perspective: This is really helpful advice from Trevin Wax. He begins, “Stay connected to the global church if you want to hold on to orthodoxy…and if you want to hold on to your sanity.”

  2. God Does Not Despise the Small Things: Ed Welch begins, “Zechariah 4:10 says, ‘Who despises the day of small things?’ Indeed, everything we do is a very small thing.”

  3. Does God Give Us Only What We Can Handle? My friend Caroline Albanese reflects on a tumultuous three years in her family’s life. She says, “All these events took place in rapid succession. The emotional toll on our family is incredible. Suffice to say, the weight on our souls has felt absolutely unbearable, and we’ve been clinging to Christ for dear life.”

  4. Does ‘Love the Sinner Hate the Sin’ Still Work? Carl Trueman explains how the cultural shift to expressive individualism creates an argument where this posture is intolerable. He clarifies, “The old chestnut of “love the sinner, hate the sin” simply does not work in a world where the sin is the identity of the sinner and the two cannot be separated even at a conceptual level. In a time when the normative notion of selfhood is psychological, then to hate the sin is to hate the sinner.”

  5. Escape from Kabul: Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra tells the story of Christians fleeing Kabul, Afghanistan in this gripping podcast. Despite facing persecution and as the country implodes, they still shared Jesus with so many. But, how?

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Does Systemic Sin Exist?

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Does Systemic Sin Exist?

Our world is talking theology. They probably aren’t aware of it, but theological conversations permeate the air. One such conversation that has persisted over the past several years has been about whether or not America is a racist nation. How would you answer that question: is America a racist nation?

I’m aware that the question itself likely creates a strong emotional reaction in you. But, if we can lean in together to listen to scripture, there is much we can learn from the question. Before we can answer the question, “Is America a racist nation,” we have to ask an underlying question: does systemic sin exist?

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

As LGBTQ Identification Rise, Conversations More Important: Aaron Earls reports, “Today, 10.5% of millennial adults identify as LGBTQ, whereas 5.8% did so 2017.”

  1. Young Adults Have Complicated Relationship with Money: Marissa Postell reports that, “The typical Christian young adult donates more than three times as much as non-Christians over the course of a year ($1,820 v. $556).”

  2. How to Work With a Domineering Boss: Joseph Grenny at Crucial Conversations responds to this question in a surprising way, “I have a domineering boss who micromanages everything I do. He has no filter when speaking to me and often is just outright rude. Whenever I send out a piece of work, he finds fault with it and tries to undermine my confidence. Having read online about his characteristics, I truly believe he suffers from narcissism. The sad fact is that he gets results and senior management love him, so he is untouchable. How can I deal with this aside from leaving the company?”

  3. No, Christianity is Not as Bad as You Think: Josh Howerton responds to five cultural narratives. He begins with this one, “Cultural narrative #1: Christians aren’t really pro-life; they’re just pro-birth. Christians are sometimes accused of being pro-birth more than pro-life. They pretend to be passionate about the lives of the unborn as a political weapon, the argument goes, but they don’t really care about children once they’re born. But the data tells a different story.

  4. The Liturgy of Powers: Carl Trueman begins, “The trans revolution reached new heights of absurdity last week when the BBC asked Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party’s shadow secretary for women and equalities, to define “woman.” Dodds proved singularly incapable of doing so; after saying that “it does depend what the context is,” she equivocated for several minutes and refused to give a direct answer

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Johnny Depp and a Few Degrees Off Course

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Johnny Depp and a Few Degrees Off Course

Who wouldn’t want to be Johnny Depp?

And yet, all it takes is a quick scroll through the news to see that this man’s life inspires more pity than envy. Johnny Depp’s ex-wife, Amber Heard has accused Depp of domestic abuse. Depp has fought back with a lawsuit charging Heard with abuse. Whatever the truth of who initiated the violence, one can’t help but be sad for Heard and Depp. Physical endangerment, drug and alcohol abuse, and violent, vulgar words marked their toxic and tumultuous relationship.

It has also been reported that Depp managed to blow through $650 million of his $800+ million net worth. One can’t help but scratch your head and wonder how spending that kind of money in a decade is even possible. One gets the sense that Depp has become the living version of his big screen caricature: intoxicated and unmoored.

Who would want to be Johnny Depp?

I think of my daughter and her friends in the final months of their senior year. These are days where they are peppered with questions about their future, “What are your plans?” “Where are you going?” “What are you going to do next?”

Setting one’s sights even slightly off course can result in significant error down the path. Air navigation experts refer to the one in sixty rule, which means that for every degree a plane veers off course initially it will miss its target destination by one mile for every sixty miles flown. The results can be fatal.

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I Shop Therefore I Am

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I Shop Therefore I Am

Like it or not, we are consumers. Just as a peasant in feudal 13th century Normandy was, without a choice, a farmer, so we, 21st-century westerners, are consumers. That isn’t to say the 13th-century farmer or the 21st-century consumer is reduced to that identity, but it is undeniably a part of how the farmer or the consumer thinks, feels, believes, and acts.

That consumerism, then, profoundly shapes the way we view the world and our faith. We can’t help but view our faith with the eyes of consumerism. That might feel like an off-putting statement. I realize that consumerism is thrown around as a dirty word and our natural impulse is to distance ourselves from it.

But to be able to diagnose our hearts, we have to be willing to accept this reality about ourselves. Just as you would think it absurd for a medieval feudal peasant to demand, “farming may impact the faith of those around me, but it doesn’t impact my faith!” so we ought to have enough self-awareness to realize that consumerism impacts the way all of us in 21st century America interact with our faith.

Jamie Smith’s profound book, Desiring the Kingdom, lays out a captivating description of the shopping mall as seen through the eyes of a Martian. In doing so, Smith gives us new eyes to see the ways in which the mall speaks cultural truths.

Smith exposes three truths that the mall tells us about ourselves as consumers and I’ve added a fourth:

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