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

Romans

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Character Produces Hope

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Character Produces Hope

Have you ever begun reading a passage in the Bible and started anticipating where it was going, and then it took a left-hand turn? I recently had one of those moments. In Romans 5, Paul takes four turns, each more surprising than the last. At the core of Paul’s argument is a counter-intuitive perspective on hope.

Having just worked through Abraham’s faith, Paul begins, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:1-2). I’m tracking with Paul here.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

Happy Easter, friends! 

This week's list is Holy-week-centric with a few other fun nuggets. Enjoy!

1.       How Much is Your Vocation Trusted? Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra reports on the recent Gallup report. Pastors, in particular, took a big hit: "Less  than half of the country—just two out of every five Americans—believe clergy are honest and have high ethical standards... That level of trust has dropped steadily since 2009, down from a high of 67 percent in 1985, the pollster reported." Unsurprisingly lobbyists, car salesman, and members of congress filled out the bottom of the polls with nurses, military, and teachers on top. Did where you vocation land surprise you?

2.      What was Crucifixion Like? Got Questions answers, "Crucifixion was invented and used by other people groups, but it was “perfected” by the Romans as the ultimate execution by torture... Crucifixion was meant to inflict the maximum amount of shame and torture upon the victim."

3.      Why the Donkey was the Supporting Actor for the Triumphal Entry: My childhood pastor, Roger Barrier, with a wonderful reflection on how “God never miss[es] an opportunity to use powerful symbols throughout scripture. Jesus’ famous ride on this lowly animal reveals much about Christ’s character and purpose.”

4.       Modern Parenting and the Winter Olympics: Exit "helicopter parenting," enter "curling parenting." I love this clever little reflection by Stephen McAlpine, "Helicopters hover serenely over the landscape, seeing all with a birds-eye view that takes the frantic out of it.  It’s big picture stuff. Curling on the other hand? It’s all micro-management and frantic scrubbing of anything that might cause just that one little bump in order to arrive at the goal."

5.       How Early Christian Worship Managed to Offend Everyone: Starting with the Romans, Michael Kruger explains why this was the case, "A fundamental aspect of early Christian worship was its exclusivity. Only Jesus was to be worshiped. Whatever other religious loyalties one possessed before coming to Christ, they had to be abandoned and full devotion given to Jesus the King. One might think the Roman state wouldn’t care about such things. Wasn’t religion a private matter? Not at all. To be a good citizen, your duty was to pay homage to the Roman gods who kept the empire prosperous and flourishing." 

6.       10 Levels of Light Pollution: Cool two and a half minute video that shows that different levels of light pollution across the globe.

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A Purposeful Spiritual Life, part 5

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A Purposeful Spiritual Life, part 5

Mike Tyson, one of the greatest boxers in history earned over $400M in his career, but managed to file for bankruptcy in 2003 with debts of $27M. He is not alone. Mega-stars Scottie Pippen, Johnny Unitas, Lenny Dykstra, Lawrence Taylor, and Tony Gwynn all filed bankruptcy after careers that netted them hundreds of millions of dollars.[i] How is that possible?

Ex-athletes and soldiers struggle with life after the playing field and battle field for the same reason: their careers afford them a sense of individual and collective purpose that is difficult to replace.

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