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

covid-19

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. Jesus Wasn’t Born in a Stable—and That Makes All the Difference: Ian Paul explains how we misunderstand the inn, stable, and manger in the Christmas story. He suggests the importance is found here, “Instead, if Jesus comes to us, rather than us coming to him, if he visits in our very homes and comes as a surprising, disruptive, but ultimately welcome presence, one who will turn our world upside-down and change it forever, then that makes all the difference.”

2. Are Masks a Conscience Issue? Erik Raymond frames this delicate issue, “Is it accurate to say that wearing a mask is a conscience issue? By now, you realize the importance of the answer. If “yes,” then churches requiring church members to violate their conscience is a serious concern. If the answer is “no,” then Christians should stop using conscience as a reason for refusing to wear a mask.”

3. Nobody Like Him: Darryl Dash asks the question: what is it about Timothy that makes Paul say, “I have no one like him.”

4. Temptation is No Simple Enemy: Marshall Segal considers simplicity through the lens of Samson. He begins, “We expect temptation will march through the front door, dressed like a wolf, announcing itself loudly as it comes. But temptation often prefers the back door, and the bedroom window, and that crack between the floorboards.”

5. A Visiting Dawn: My friend Chris Thomas considers what it means to live in the dawn. “This is the dawn that gave birth to every dawn since. This is the dawn from on high, the eternal light that shines in our truest home. The dawn that banishes any need of lamp or torch to light our way. This dawn will know no end, nor will it reach the Zenith of existence to fall and fade away. This is the dawn that visits us in that first Advent, and the one that dwells with us ever since.”

6. How Does that Annoying Fly Dodge Your Swatter? Wow. God’s creation is amazing.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. How to 'Disciple' Your Kids into Church Dropout Status: Jared Wilson shares six ways that, by going along with cultural Christianity, we de-church our kids. His fifth way is by church hopping, He explains, "But families that hop from church to church as kids grow or tastes change or disappointments accumulate train their kids to treat church not like a family one commits to through thick and thin but like a consumeristic product one can always throw away for a perceived upgrade. And this is just one step away from deciding church in general isn’t useful."

2. Why the Current Loneliness Epidemic is a Gospel Opportunity: Sam Kim wonders, "Perhaps our culture’s current crushing opioid crisis, porn addiction, and the rise of Tinder are all part of this holy searching gone horribly wrong."

3. The Celebrity Pastor We've Never Known: Tim Challies helps us open our eyes to another kind of pastor who ought to be famous, "When we remember those men who most faithfully pastored us, we probably think of more than their sermons. And there’s a reason for that. The faithful pastor serves his people faithfully not just in the most public element of his ministry, but also in the most private."

4. 4 Theological Questions Your Church Has About Regathering: Kent Annan and Jamie Aten ask four timely questions: “1) Is not going back to church asking out of fear instead of faith?” “2) If I wear a mask, am I acting out of fear than faith?” “3) Is it rude to ask people to wear masks to church?” “4) Should we stay united in Christ even when we disagree?”

5. A #2020 Confession: Molly Montana’s prayer is simple and poignant.

6. One of the Most Misused Words Today: Craig Troxel tells us how we misuse the word heart today.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. How Early Christianity Was Mocked for Welcoming Women: Michael Kruger reminds us that while only one-third of Rome’s citizens were women, women comprised two-thirds of the early church, “And it is this reality that sets the stage for the critics of early Christianity. If they were looking for a way to undermine this new religious movement (and they were!) then the involvement of women is an easy target.”

2. God is Not a God of Second Chances: Provocative article by Aaron Wilson. He begins by explaining, "A second-chance gospel reveals half of the good news—the half that says Jesus died for sins. The fact that God is merciful is a beautiful truth. But if Jesus only died to forgive sins, humanity is still in trouble."

3. Why Procrastination is About Managing Emotions, Not Time: Do you struggle with procrastination? You'll find this helpful. New psychological studies are revealing that, "The task we’re putting off is making us feel bad – perhaps it’s boring, too difficult or we’re worried about failing – and to make ourselves feel better in the moment, we start doing something else, like watching videos."

4. Homeschool Surge: Given the difficulty of online education, I’m not surprised that there is a big surge in homeschooling during this strange year. Esther Eaton at World reports, “A May survey found 40 percent of parents compelled to school at home because of COVID-19 said they’d be more likely to homeschool in the future.”

5. Who is Most Generous? Not Who You’d Expect: John Lee reflects on Barna findings that the three most generous cities in the US are located in one state. What state do you think it is? “Christians in these cities give on average $17,977 to charity annually.” Meanwhile, other cities give just over $3,300 a year. Lee then dives deep into what most powerfully motivates us to give.

6. How Presidential Debates Have Changed: A lot is packed into this six-minute video.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. Kids Spending 500% More Time in Front of Screens During Quarantine: James Lang suggests that, “The trouble with excessive screen time is that it eclipses healthy behaviors that all children need.”

2. Will Hell Really Last Forever? This is a thoughtful and thorough response by Greg Morse. I find this part of his argument most persuasive: "The answer is clear enough in Revelation 16:8–11, where people under God’s judgment 'gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.'”

3. 4 Disturbing Trends in Global Persecution: Please pray for Christ's church. The fourth in Aaron Earls's report is, "Christianity is on the verge of disappearing in Iraq and Syria. The presence of terrorist groups and conflicts in both Middle Eastern countries have led to the rapid decline of the Christian populations. Before the extended conflicts began, Iraq and Syria had 3.7 million Christians. Now that has dropped to around 946,000, according to Open Doors."

4. Here come the Skinny Cows: Mark Deymaz and Harry Li with a disturbing forecast of dramatically decreased giving to churches in the coming years. They explain four factors that might lead to a decline of up to 30% drop in giving. One of the four factors is a decrease in giving to religious institutions, "Individual giving in general is trending down, the report said, but religious giving is being hit by other factors like the growing disaffiliation of Americans with religious groups."

5. 4 Principles for Talking to Your Kids About Sex: Julie Lowe’s short article is on point. Her final point is, “Fourth, talk soon. Be the one who shapes your child’s view on sex and sexuality. It is far better to proactively inform your child’s view on a subject, than to have to go back and debunk an inaccurate view.”

6. Hawaii's Forest Eater: Stunning up close footage of the devastating 2018 volcano in Hawaii.

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