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

repentance

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Your Marriage Doesn't Need Better Communication

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Your Marriage Doesn't Need Better Communication

“The biggest problem in our marriage is our communication.” It’s perhaps the most frequent issue that is brought to the table when Angel (my wife and counselor) and I meet with couples. At the core of many marriage seminars and conferences is the issue of how to improve the communication in your marriage.

I don’t buy it. Your marriage doesn’t need better communication.

Alright, alright. I’m overstating that for dramatic effect. Communication is important and often needs work. There are some helpful things you can do to improve communication in your marriage. But the fact remains: I’ve yet to encounter a marriage that the fundamental issue is communication. More serious issues always lurk beneath the surface.

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Why Do I Have To Keep On Forgiving?

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Why Do I Have To Keep On Forgiving?

Why do I have to keep forgiving him?

I’ve heard it many times as a pastor. It’s said with weariness and hurt, or bitterness and anger, or confusion and longing. It can mean at least four things.

  • “It hurts too much to keep forgiving him for repeated sins.”

  • “Can’t I just overlook her sin against me?”

  • “He hurt me so deeply that he doesn’t deserve forgiveness.”

  • “Why am I still hurting over an offense when I said I forgave her?”

What does God’s Word have to say about each of these situations?

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Which Sins are Feeding Your Sin of Lust? David Powlison talks about how important it is to press into the sin behind the sin of lust. He shares a breakthrough with one client, “Look what we just found out: another movie was playing in a theater next door. Suddenly we were not only dealing with a couple of bad behaviors: viewing pornography and masturbating. We were dealing with anger at God that was driving those behaviors. What was that about?”

  2. How to Give (and Receive) Repentance: Blake Glosson begins with this fun question, “Imagine you’re on Family Feud and Steve Harvey gives the following prompt: “We asked 100 sinners, ‘Name one reason why you do not repent of your sin to one another.’ The top seven answers are on the board.” What do you think the most common answers would be?”

  3. Don’t Always Be Efficient: If you’re like me, you might need this word from Seth Lewis. He asks, “Who wants an efficient friendship? Or marriage? Who would want to visit an efficient park, or art museum? Who prefers drive-through fast food to a slow evening meal where the conversation lasts longer than the courses? It’s great to be efficient, but it’s not always great.”

  4. Even the Darkness: Meredith Beatty shares, “As a child I was afraid of the dark, afraid that something sinister lurked under my bed just waiting to grab the stray toe hanging off the edge. But as an adult there’s a different kind of darkness, not literal, but just as scary. It’s one no one seeks and can descend upon us at any time. An uninvited blackout that clouds our hearts and brings despair.”

  5. Naturalism is Nonsense: The late RC Sproul doesn’t mince words in this short clip.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. 6 Ways Christians Can Respond to Our Strange New World: Carl Trueman begins, “The world has shifted under our feet. New notions about selfhood challenge Christians’ views, and we’ve found ourselves in a hostile place where it’s dangerous to challenge the new status quo. To object to same-sex marriage, for example, is in the moral register of the day not substantially different from being a racist.”

  2. Four Questions to Help You Examine Unwanted Thoughts: Esther Smith asks, “Do you experience thoughts you don’t want? Do you ruminate on beliefs about yourself, the world, or God that feel true even though you know they are not? Do you feel tormented by depressed, anxious, or intrusive thinking? Are you uncertain about what to do with some of the thoughts that enter your mind?”

  3. The Difference Between Repentance and Self-Hate: Lara D’Entremont starts, “If self-hate could change a person, I would have reached perfection by now—at least, that’s what my therapist told me.

  4. When It Seems the Lord is Sleeping: James Williams concludes, “When the wind is howling and the waves are overbearing, remember our Lord promised he would always be with us, even if it seems he’s asleep on the boat. He doesn’t always work according to our timing, but he is always at work. Our trust is not in ourselves or the circumstances we see around us, but rather in the one whom even the wind and sea obey.”

  5. Comedy Pet Photography Awards: Sure to make you smile.

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Fighting for Victimhood

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Fighting for Victimhood

As a boy I was fascinated with pain. I often wondered how the pain I felt compared to pain others felt. I mostly kept this to myself, but there was at least one occasion I got into an argument with friends about who had experienced the most pain.

We all shared our stories: fractured limbs, concussions, road rash, and a hernia (that was my best card). As each story concluded the storyteller would lean back, content with his story, expecting white flags to be raised in defeat. But, in fact, each of us was disappointed with the reception of our tales of woe as the next storyteller would jump in, one-upping the last teller’s story of pain with his own.

I look back with embarrassment at the immaturity and narcissism this pain one-upmanship revealed in me. And yet, is this not the culture we live in today: a culture of victimhood?

The Royal Flush of Victimhood

There is nothing more powerful in today’s culture than playing the card of victimhood. And there appear to be more playing that card than ever before.

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The Robbery of Victimhood

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The Robbery of Victimhood

As a boy I was fascinated with pain. I often wondered how the pain I felt compared to pain others felt. I mostly kept this to myself, but there was at least one occasion I got into an argument with friends about who had experienced the most pain.

We all shared our stories: fractured limbs, concussions, road rash, and a hernia (that was my trump card). As each story concluded the storyteller would lean back, content with his story, expecting white flags to be raised in defeat. But, in fact, each of us was disappointed with the reception of our tales of woe. Our friends seemed unmoved by our ghastly pain and then would jump in with their own story, believing they could one-up the pain the last storyteller experienced.

I look back with embarrassment at the immaturity this pain one-upmanship revealed in me. My lack of empathy revealed a narcissistic heart. Thinking that my own pain was greater than anyone else’s only demonstrated my ego. Today’s culture of victim reveals similar truths about our collective hearts.

The Wild Draw Four Card of Victimhood

There is nothing more powerful in today’s culture than playing the card of victimhood. Like a kid holding onto the Wild Draw Four card in Uno, we hold tight to our victim card, pulling it out at just the right moment, expecting it to guarantee our victory.

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Our Story: Restoration

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Our Story: Restoration

The week following Angel’s (her words will be italicized) confession of adultery I was in a state of shock. I was still trying to navigate the situation with my identity as a pastor intact. Even when we came to our Senior Pastor, I said that I could still preach Sunday (just a few days away) as I was scheduled. Fortunately, wisdom prevailed.

I was asked to take a leave of absence, which was difficult for me to accept. The next six months would be the most difficult months of my life. Angel’s confession of her affair would be peeled back. Her confession of one affair became confession of a series of affairs and I would have to come face to face with the ugliness of my own heart. From the time I was ten, my understanding of my identity was inextricable from my calling as a pastor. I was about to not be a pastor any longer.

Days after we met with our Senior Pastor, we met with the Ministry Director at the ministry where Angel was working. They graciously allowed her to shift her job and stay on as their book store manager.

Our church’s leadership was not only generous enough to support us with counseling, but they also brought in a conciliation ministry called Live at Peace. The partnership would initially be difficult for me, in particular, as our conciliators recommended that my leave of absence become semi-permanent, with a two-year reconciliation period. “How is that fair?” I questioned. “Why am I being punished for what my wife did against me?”

Counseling was really rocky as well. I thought we would be working to repair our relationship and work through the damage, but what our counselors quickly became aware of is that Angel had compartmentalized a significant amount of the previous two and a half years. Every session peeled back more hurtful layers.

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Our Story: Confession

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Our Story: Confession

The only thing that was left of our picture perfect marriage was glass shards. The seemingly petty heart issues that we entered marriage with had destroyed us. A week before Angel (her words will be italicized) confessed her infidelity, she contracted the flu, bronchitis and then walking pneumonia. Picking up on the language of James, the Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard calls sin “the sickness unto death.” God’s hand was heavy on Angel. She had beat her fists against his chest, but he would not stop pursuing her. That January he laid her out. Her spiritual sickness was manifested physically. God would not relent.  

Unable to get out of bed, I just so happened to pick up John Piper’s ‘This Momentary Marriage’ to look for answers. It was yet another means of sweet conviction God used to pursue my heart. Against my better judgment, I was serving as a ministry fellow for a campus ministry at Princeton University. They were on their winter retreat in upstate New York. We received a call from my Director who was concerned by my sickness. He asked if we would be able to come up, even just to have them pray over us. There was no reason for him to ask us to do that. There was no reason for us to say yes. We said yes.

We got our kids in the car and drove, Angel nearly comatose next to me. We pulled in and walked straight into the back of the main room where the evening session had just begun. After a few minutes Angel was shaking and sweating next to me. Then tears began to flow.

I knew I had to break the power the lies held over me. I felt compelled by God to live in truth. I had been trapped by the fear of losing John and our kids. But my fear of God ultimately trumped my fear of losing my family. With all of my being, I realized that my only hope was in trusting God with everything while being willing to lose it all. I was broken.

 “Are you okay?” I asked.

“No” I mouthed. “I’ve been having an affair.”

My body went numb.

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A Culture of Victimhood

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A Culture of Victimhood

As a boy I was fascinated with pain. I often wondered how the pain I felt compared to pain others felt. I mostly kept this to myself, but I remember at least on one occasion getting into an argument with friends about who had experienced the most pain.

We all shared our stories: fractured limbs, concussions, road rash, and a hernia (that was my trump card). As each story concluded the storyteller would lean back, content with his sharing of the story expecting arms to be raised in defeat. But, in fact, each of us was disappointed with the reception of our tales of woe as the next storyteller would jump in, one-upping the last teller’s story of pain with his own.

I look back with embarrassment at the immaturity and narcissism this pain one-upmanship revealed in me. And yet, is the behavior of so many today any better?

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