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

shepherding

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The top 100 brands by value: Interesting infographic from visualize. Most surprising to me was that US companies made up half of the 100 brands. Unsurprisingly, China has a lot of companies represented as well.

  2. Thirteen years of coming back: I just love this post from Brianna Lambert. “Thirteen years of marriage, and Lord-willing many more ahead. I look back, and I see the beauty of a promise that won’t let go. I see two people, linked by an invisible cord. Though trial, sickness, and sin stretches it taut, the Lord won’t see that it breaks. Instead, the cord leads us back together, as we slowly pull ourselves nearer. Back to rest, back to forgiveness, back to joy, back to the hand I love to hold, and back to the love that started it all.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. Most Americans Embrace Spirituality and Religion, Even Atheists: Also of note is the large gap between spirituality and religion. Aaron Earls reports, “Yet even among the quarter of Americans who do not identify with a religion (atheists, agnostics, and those who say they are “nothing in particular”), most still describe themselves as a spiritual person.”

2. Characteristics of Churches That Keep Young Adults: This is a great addition to the two posts I recently wrote on raising teens to love the church. Aaron Earls begins with the importance of sincerity. He says, “When teenagers see church members as insincere, they are more likely to drop out. Relatively few young adults say the church they attended as a teenager was insincere, but dropouts say this more often.”

3. One of the Ugliest Sights in the World: Tim Challies begins with a scene we’ve all witnessed, “One of the ugliest sights in the world is that of a child who rules over his parents. We have all seen it, I’m sure. We have seen parents who tiptoe around their child’s cries, their child’s demands, their child’s outbursts of anger. They will do whatever he dictates, give whatever he commands. We look on with horror, knowing they have set their child on a path to destruction.”

4. Brothers, We Should Stink: Thabiti Anyabwile explains that godly pastors live among the sheep. He says, “Do you know how to tell the difference between sheep and wolves in sheep’s clothing? Sheep eat grass; wolves eat sheep — it doesn't matter how prettily they are dressed.”

5. What is Christianity? This is a simple and clear three-minute visual presentation of the gospel.

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How Jesus’ Birth Foretells His Death: the Shepherds

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How Jesus’ Birth Foretells His Death: the Shepherds

Jesus’ story begins with shepherds coming to him, the lamb of God. It ends with the Shepherd being struck down and the sheep scattering. And then there is a final twist.

The story begins with sheep being drawn to the lamb:

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. [Luke 2:8-20]

God loves shepherds. Abel, Moses, David, and Amos are all shepherds. In Psalm 23, God refers to himself as a shepherd. It’s no surprise that God would allow these nameless shepherds to be the first witnesses of the birth of Emmanuel.

To top it off, God promised that the Messiah would be a Shepherd-King.[i]

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Would you Extend Grace to Your Pastor?

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Would you Extend Grace to Your Pastor?

I may or may not know your pastor. But I know one thing: your pastor is tired.

I have the blessing of being a part of a couple of local pastors’ groups and am friends with a number of pastors outside of those groups. While we come from a broad spectrum theologically and denominationally, we all share the same experience of leading a church through COVID-19. We are worn out.

I know you’re tired as well. This has been an exhausting stretch for all of us. My heart with this post isn’t to have you pull out your violin for pastors, nor is it to diminish the challenges of non-pastors during this time. My heart is to give you a peek behind the curtains so that we might grow in grace with one another.

I will first explain six reasons why this season has been so hard for your pastor, and then I will share six ways you can show your pastor grace.

Why has this season been particularly trying?

1. COVID-19

Pastoring the sick when you can’t visit a hospital is frustrating. Pastoring those who are at risk and are fearful has been a challenge, especially when you can’t meet with them face-to-face.

2. Masks

Whatever decision you make as a church about wearing masks will meet heavy criticism from some contingent. We’ve lost several people (we know of) from our congregation over our decisions around masks. It’s heartbreaking.

3. Politics

Everything seems to be viewed through the lens of politics: masks, race, decisions to open your church facility or not. Data tells us that Americans are consuming massive amounts of news coverage. Many view the world through red or blue-tinted glasses. One of my pastor friends recently texted me, “Polarization tells people to bundle every possible statement as part of some partisan agenda, which makes saying anything a losing position. The bind I wrestle with is how to simultaneously be a human (who has my convictions and thoughts on everything), a pastor, and non-polarizing.” Most pastors believe that the Bible speaks in contradistinction to both American political parties. Both are out of step in their own way with a biblical vision of governance and justice. But to speak as a follower of Jesus, not the Republican or Democratic party, sets your pastor at odds with both.

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Why I’m a Better Pastor (for you) than… (Rick Warren, Tony Evans, Tim Keller, Alistair Begg, Albert Tate, Matt Chandler, Joel Osteen, John Piper, or Andy Stanley)

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Why I’m a Better Pastor (for you) than… (Rick Warren, Tony Evans, Tim Keller, Alistair Begg, Albert Tate, Matt Chandler, Joel Osteen, John Piper, or Andy Stanley)

You have access to the best pastors in America.

You have at your fingertips access to a trove of virtually endless content by some of the wisest and most powerful thinkers and speakers on the planet. As soon as you finish this post you can have them piped into your office, car, or living room and be impacted by their words. And I hope you do!

What a ridiculous gift we have! If you were born five hundred and fifty years ago in Europe, in all likelihood not only could you not read the Bible, but it was likely that your parish priest didn’t own a whole copy of the Latin Bible and since he knew only a handful of Latin words, he couldn’t even read the Bible. Fast forward a few decades to the Reformation and now, for the first time, you would hear the Bible read in your own language and its words applied to your life.

Fast forward five centuries to today and not only do we (in the West) have unfettered access to the Bible, but we have almost limitless access to some of the very best Bible teaching. What a gift we have!

And yet, that begs a question: how is a normal pastor like myself supposed to compete? Why should you even bother with attending your local church? Why settle for the best I can offer when you can watch the best that Tim Keller and Albert Tate and (fill in your favorite preacher here) can offer?!

The truth is that I can’t compete. I’ll never be on an “America’s Best Preachers” list like this. And frankly, I have no aspirations for that.

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