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

Keith Mathison

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. What Do I Do When I Can’t Seem to Get Over My Grief? Alasdair Groves provides a nuanced answer. He asks, what do we do with “grief that just does not relent and it aches and I did not expect it to ache this long and it seems to still be aching and I’m not sure why. I cannot seem to get over it. I want to start by saying getting over it is maybe not the best way to capture the biblical response to grief.

  2. What is Dispensationalism? Keith Mathison with a helpful explanation of an influential theological camp in America. At the heart of the difference between dispensationalism and reformed theology is this, “Dispensationalism differs from Reformed covenant theology in a number of ways, but the most significant is this idea of two peoples of God.”

  3. You Might Be a Stingy Forgiver If… Cindy Matson begins with this, “Sometimes anger just feels so good, doesn’t it? In the moment we’re letting the other person finally get their comeuppance, we find pleasure, just as we do in all sins…”

  4. When You Feel Small, Look to the Cosmos and the Cross: Philip Yancey concludes, “A God beyond the limits of space and time has a boundless capacity of love for his creations, no matter how small or rebellious they might be. As it happens, that message is best expressed not from a whirlwind, or burning bush, or smoking mountain—but rather person to person, through Jesus and his followers.”

  5. Death and Taxes: I particularly appreciated the first half of this This American Life episode that focuses on hospice care.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. How to Meet God at Your Lowest Point: Jane Marczewski guest posts over on Ann Voskamp’s blog. She has cancer and has been given only a 2% chance of survival. Jane recently auditioned on America’s Got Talent and received the golden buzzer. You’ll want to read her post and then watch her memorable performance. She writes, “I have heard it said that some people can’t see God because they won’t look low enough, and it’s true. Look lower.”

2. Not this Man, but Barabbas! Keith Mathison nails it here, “I hear and read Christians almost every day saying that their biggest concern is the direction in which the United States is headed. Or they are most concerned about the collapse of Western civilization. Granted, many people are concerned about these things because of their love for their children or grandchildren… The problem occurs when our main concern is fundamentally a political concern.”

3. 5 Cultural Shifts We Need to Know to Reach Our Neighbors: Mark Clark begins with this truth, “The highest good is now individual freedom and happiness.” All five are helpful in considering how to reach our neighbors with the gospel.

4. Romanticizing Death: A fellow Tucson pastor, Rod Hugen reminds us that to understand the power of Jesus conquering death we must come face to face with the ugliness of death. He concludes, “I live in the time when death is still the enemy, but with the sure knowledge that death is defeated and will one day be no more. It is an exhilarating time, freeing me to seize life and to take joy in the journey, knowing that Christ’s resurrection is a reality. Death defeated is far superior to death romanticized.”

5. PT Barnum’s 10 Most Famous Human “Freak” Show Attractions: If you’ve seen The Greatest Showman you’ll appreciate how this video humanizes the various people that Barnum promoted (and often exploited) in his show.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. What You Need to Know About the Devil’s Tricks: Andrew Menkis illuminates the attacks of the enemy as they relate to beliefs and persecution. He draws parallels between today and the first-century Roman context and then encourages us, “First, as Christians, we can be joyful in the face of persecution because we know God uses it to sanctify us. We learn to walk in faith when we are persecuted. Knowing that we are united to Christ by faith gives us confidence that He will sustain us through all trials that come our way.”

2. How to Expose the Idols of Your Heart: Joe Carter begins, “Few stories in the Old Testament tend to make us feel more superior to the Israelites than the tale of the golden calf in Exodus 32:1–6. How backwards they must have been to think you could make a god out of metal! How silly to think bringing offerings to a statue would bring peace, joy, and happiness! The entire story is almost too absurd to believe. Or at least, until we examine our own idols.”

3. 3 Blessings of Seeing Our Sin: Ed Welch suggests that, “Suffering feels like our biggest problem and avoiding it like our greatest need—but we know that there is something more. Sin is actually our biggest problem, and rescue from it is our greatest need. There is a link between the two.”

4. The Biggest Threat Faced By the Church: Keith Mathison begins, “What is the biggest threat faced by the church today? Many in the U.S. seem to think the answer is government tyranny.”

5. Hamidolph: If you like Hamilton, you have got to see this. One of the most fun things I’ve seen in a while.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. The Most Important Election in US History: Keith Mathison gives us some helpful perspective. He begins with this quote, “We have had many important elections, but never one so important as that now approaching…. The republic is approaching what is to be one of the most important elections in its history.”

2. The Answer to Loneliness: Andrew Blunt begins, “Loneliness is a serious and growing problem. The stats are pretty heartbreaking. One study found that 9 million people in the UK are always or often lonely—that’s just slightly more than the population of London or the entire population of Australia.”

3. 3 Apologetic Approaches to Reach the Next Generation: Jacob Haywood sums up his three approaches this way, “The next generation should see that the gospel applies to their lives, answers their biggest questions, and fulfills their deepest longings.”

4. How Big Should You Think? And How Big Should You Act? I appreciate the way Eric Geiger considers this. He begins, “Some leaders seem to think small and act big. There is not a large vision that captivates them, grand plans that motivate them, or an overwhelming sense of awe for the opportunity in front of them. Yet at the same time they seem to act big. They hold tightly to their positions, enjoying that others view them as and and that they are able to make decisions that impact others. Their plans may be small, but they act large.”

5. The Science of Male and Female: What does God teach us about gender through nature? Steven Wedgeworth begins, “Recent breakthroughs in human genetics have made it clear that humanity is fundamentally dimorphic, which is to say, human nature is irreducibly male and female.”

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