Christmas, Theology, Advent, Church, Hospitality
John Beeson
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.

The Faithfulness of God of the Manger
Advent, Christmas, Theology
John Beeson
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.

A Humble God?
Christmas, Forgiveness, Theology
John Beeson
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.

The Just and the Justifier
Advent, Christmas, Theology
John Beeson
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.”

The Theology of the Manger
Death, Gratitude, Prayer, Suffering
John Beeson
Go To a Funeral

We Westerners avoid death.

 

When was the last time you walked through a cemetery? When was the last funeral you went to? Our churches no longer have cemeteries, those who are older head to retirement communities and then to head to long-term care or assisted care facilities. The number of funerals held in churches has diminished. Death has become professionalized, antisepticised, and remote.

Go To a Funeral

Lifeway

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Many Americans are more consumers than contended: Lifeway research’s new poll offers some disconcerting news to Christians, “Religious service attendance is correlated to embracing a consumeristic mindset. Those who attend more than once a week are the most likely to say shopping makes them feel worthwhile (61%) and they know they are getting ahead when they have nice things (56%). They are also among the most likely to say they are driven to accumulate nice things (61%) and like to have the latest technology (55%).”

  2. Ministers of Loneliness: Jacob Crouch reflects on the world’s response to the problem of loneliness, “What the world offers to the lonely is merely an anesthetic. It merely numbs the pain and ignores the real problem. It attempts to provide new remedies for a problem that has an ancient solution.”

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How to Invite Someone to Church

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How to Invite Someone to Church

An encouraging study by Lifeway Research found that two-thirds of churchgoers invited someone to church in the last six months. When was the last time you invited someone to church? Who is the next person God might have you invite?

Inviting someone to church isn’t, of course, a substitute for evangelism, but it sure is a great partner in our evangelistic efforts. Similar to our homes, our churches ought to be a place that, while they are primarily for the gathered body of Christ, are also always welcoming to the outsider.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. Meant to Be: How a World War II veteran cheated death four times to find love. Bonnie Allen’s story on Reg Harrison is absolute perfection. It begins, “Reg Harrison slides his leather wallet out of his pocket and removes a weathered black-and-white photo of a beautiful woman. ‘I've been carrying that since 1946,’ said the 98-year-old. ‘Our love story? I think it was meant to be.’”

2. iGeneration and iDentity: Kyle Borg with a sobering warning to Generation Z on what the impact of them being formed by social media will mean: “Young people aged 8 to 12 spend an average of six hours a day on technology, and teenagers aged 13 to 18 spend an average of nine hours a day streaming videos, looking at pictures, listening to music, and playing games. That's more social time in a given day than is spent with parents, peers, or sports teams.”

3. Americans Less Optimistic About Race Relations: Aaron Earls reports, “A new study from Lifeway Research conducted prior to the 2020 election finds U.S. adults are less likely now than in 2014 to agree with the statement “We have come so far on racial relations.” Today, 46% say we have made worthwhile progress—28 points fewer than in 2014 when 74% said the same.”

4. Just Keep Going: David McLemore urges us forward. He encourages us, “But God is not letting up on us because he’s not giving up on us. His call is not to take it easy when it gets hard but to press in all the more, especially when it’s hard. The Lord loves us deeply, but he doesn’t coddle us, and he won’t let us coddle ourselves either. He knows the cancer that time is to our zeal, but he has fresh mercies every morning.”

5. In Defense of Um, Er, and Like: Such an enlightening video on why we have verbal hesitations and how they can, like, help.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. I’m Not Hateful, You Are: David French shares one of the consequences of our “you-can’t-judge-me-culture” is the perception that those in the other political party are more extreme than they actually are. He says, “This mutual loathing translates into other misperceptions, such as completely misjudging the extremism of your political opponents.”

2. A Day for Lament at the Supreme Court: Marvin Olasky explains John Roberts’s convoluted reasoning for now allowing even the most modest protection for moms and unborn children at abortion clinics. Christianity Today provides its own analysis, including more background on the lack of safety in Louisiana abortion clinics.

3. How Often Do Churchgoers Read Their Bibles? Lifeway’s study is relevant for this week’s blog post on the Bible.

4. How Many Reasons May Christians Divorce For? Wayne Grudem shares why his thinking has changed. He begins, “Until 2019, I held the common, historic Protestant view of divorce, namely, that adultery and desertion were the only two legitimate grounds for divorce allowed by Scripture.”

5. A King Proximate to Pain: Chris Thomas with a short reflection on the powerful lies of pain and the gift of a Savior who is present in our pain. He begins, “As pain levels intensify, so does my sense of isolation. As the ache sets in, so does loneliness. I wake in the night with torment whispering sweet nothings in my ear, ‘No one understands. No one feels. No one knows. You’re alone.’”

6. Stand Up! So beautiful and powerful.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Modern Research About Happiness Repeatedly Reflects Biblical Principles: Randy Alcorn walks through eight findings about happiness from psychological research and their eight biblical parallels.

2.       The Top 50 Countries Where It’s Hardest to be a Christian: Of particular interest to me is India not only remaining #10 on this list, but unfortunately taking the top place in a new designation. Jayson Casper explains, “India ranks first in the new category of physical or mental abuse, which includes beatings and death threats. The continuing rise in the subcontinent of a militant Hindu nationalism contributed to 1,445 of the reported 14,645 cases worldwide.”

3.       Patrick Lencioni's Personal Leadership Crash: This Carey Niewhof podcast is gold. It's loaded with helpful leadership insights about a leader's health.

4.       National Giving Trends: Lifeway recently published a report on national giving trends. A few takeaways: the national giving percentage has remained at 2% for decades. Diving deeper, "giving to religious causes receives the largest amount of gifts when compared to other sectors. It is at 31%. However, in the 1980’s, religious giving received 58% and has been on a steady decline every year. This is not good."

5.       Can The Cosmic Crisp Live Up to Huge Expectations? You might have heard of the new breed of apples that just hit store shelves. But can the apple pay back the huge investment that has been made in it?

6.       What Does the Bible Say About Divorce and Remarriage? Tom Schreiner answers this difficult question.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      Most Teens Drop Out of Church When They Become Young Adults: There is a lot of important stuff in this recent study by Lifeway. Among the information uncovered is that, " Two-thirds (66 percent) of American young adults who attended a Protestant church regularly for at least a year as a teenager say they also dropped out for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22." "The five most frequently chosen specific reasons for dropping out were: moving to college and no longer attending (34 percent); church members seeming judgmental or hypocritical (32 percent); no longer feeling connected to people in their church (29 percent); disagreeing with the church’s stance on political or social issues (25 percent); and work responsibilities (24 percent)."

2.      When Money Gets Between Family Members: This is perhaps one of the most pastoral responses I've ever read, and it's not only not written by a pastor, it's written in a secular forum. What an incredible model of speaking the truth in love.

3.      I Grew Up Hearing My Grandfather was a War Hero. Army Records Say Otherwise. Dan Chrisinger tells about his search to understand his cantankerous grandfather that ends with surprising insight: " The only truth I can feel certain of now is that Hod had once been a young man who went to war, and that he died an old man who never found a way to make peace with what he had experienced... he remained trapped alone in his cover story. In discovering this about my grandfather, I encountered the man on a more human level: a man who was damaged and hurting — and ultimately, I now feel more closeness and connection with that man than I could possibly have felt for an untarnished hero of the battle for Kakazu Ridge."

4.      Awe in the Ordinary: I love this invitation from Cassie Watson, "Over my holiday, I wanted the feeling of wonder to keep going on and on. The good news is that it can—and I don’t have to wait until my next holiday to experience it. The true object of my awe is with me all the time. I don’t need to recreate the circumstances of that sunset, but instead run back up those beams to the one who is truly worthy of adoration."

5.      Higher/Wiser: I like this song both musically and lyrically that is from a band that is new to me, The Silver Pages.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      Poll Shows that Americans Like the Idea of the Bible, but Don't Actually Read it: Lifeway reports, " About half of Americans (53 percent) have read relatively little of the Bible. One in 10 has read none of it, while 13 percent have read a few sentences. Thirty percent say they have read several passages or stories."

2.      More Than a Quarter of the Deaths in Holland are Induced: This sobering report by John Burger finds that, "Fifteen years after the Netherlands decriminalized euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, more than 25 percent of all deaths in the nation are induced, rather than by illness or other natural causes."

3.      My Declaration of Faithful Disobedience: Dr. Wang Yi, Chinese pastor who was imprisoned in December, wrote this manifesto. Please read it. Among the many jewels in the letter, Yi writes, " As a pastor, my disobedience is one part of the gospel commission. Christ’s great commission requires of us great disobedience. The goal of disobedience is not to change the world but to testify about another world."

4.      The Importance of Clarity in Leadership: My friend and pastor Glen Elliott with a great post: " There’s too much noise and too many distractions in our world and anything short of being crystal clear won’t be heard. More than ever, folks want and need the clarity of a compelling vision, mission and purpose. And great leaders provide that."

5.      Hearing His Voice: Please watch this marvelous story of an unreached people group who are introduced to the Word of God. It's 25 minutes of encouragement.

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How to Invite Someone to Church

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How to Invite Someone to Church

An encouraging study by Lifeway Research found that two-thirds of churchgoers invited someone to church in the last six months.[i] When was the last time you invited someone to church? What would it look like for you to increase those efforts?

Inviting someone to church isn’t, of course, a substitute for evangelism, but it sure is a great partner in our evangelistic efforts. Similar to our homes, our churches ought to be a place that, while they are primarily for the gathered body of Christ, are also always welcoming to the outsider.

Diana Davis had an excellent post at Lifeway that spurred me to consider ways that I can better engage those God has put in my life with the gospel and be more active in inviting them to church.[ii] I’ve tweaked and whittled her list of 52 down to 17. They are a good challenge for me, and I hope they will be for you as well.  

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