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

wife

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.        How the West Became Self-Obsessed: An intriguing interview with William Storr, a book on the history of Western Individualism: "This tendency to focus on the self, on the individual, runs deep in our cultural history, and it’s not something we can easily escape."

2.       Americans Believe in God, Psychics, and Crystals: In Pew Research's recent study, they found, "Four in 10 Americans (42 percent) believe spiritual powers rest in physical objects like mountains, trees, and crystals... A similar number (41 percent) believe in psychics. A third (33 percent) believe in reincarnation, while 29 percent believe in astrology."

3.       6 No-No's for Relating to Your Husband: The whole of Robert Lewis's list is good, but I particularly appreciate #6: "Never fall more in love with your kids than with your husband. That’s easy to do as the years go by. I call it “the great swap.” You get caught up in all the things the kids are doing, often seeing more of them than you do your husband. What you don’t notice is the growing distance developing between you and the man you vowed years ago to give your life to."

4.       6 No-No's for Relating to Your Wife: Mary May Larmoyeaux's list is also good, especially #2: "Don't tell your wife how to feel: ...please don’t say, “You shouldn’t be afraid or worried about that.” The fact is, we are afraid or worried about that. Just acknowledge our feelings. Tell us that you will pray for us. Ask us what you can do to help us not be afraid/worried, etc."

5.       Dealing with Your Anger: Ed Welch is my favorite writer on the topic of anger. He reflects, "Some counselors notice that people get tied up in knots when they hide or stuff their anger. They will tell you to deal with your anger by getting in touch with how you feel and then expressing it. “Get it off your chest. Say exactly what you think. Give ‘em a piece of your mind.” Other counselors have noticed how destructive people become when they express anger. They will counsel you to control your anger. Psychotherapy, medication, exercise, and meditation are just some of the different ways they recommend for defusing your anger and calming yourself down. So which is it, venting or calming? Actually, God has a different way for you to deal with your anger."

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      The Lie of "Happy Wife, Happy Life" Greg Morse picks apart this oft-told piece of advice, "In the end, a nearsighted “happy wife, happy life” mentality throws the toys in the closet to go outside and play. Happy wife, easier life does not lead to happiness, but to a closet full of regret, bitterness, and selfishness, which we all must open eventually."

2.      Yale and Stanford Psychologists say, "Find Your Passion" is Bad Advice: Quartz reports, "The answer to these questions, it turns out, hinges on our approach to interests. Based on the latest findings, people who have a fixed mindset—the almost mystical belief that passions are revealed to us magically—seem to be less curious and motivated than those with a growth mindset, who understand interests unfold as a process."

3.      Her Name is Monroe Christine: Brandon McGinley reflects on the disgusting saga around the birth of a beautiful girl to a surrogate mom while her reality television star dads watch, "Her name is Monroe Christine. She is a little girl who was paid for by two men. Her mother was picked out of a catalogue; the woman who gave birth to her was a contractually obligated guest star on a television show who was publicly humiliated by her father."

4.      God Wants You to Ask Him Again: Marshall Segal encourages us to pray the prayers we've stopped praying, "But in Christ our trials are not trivial in his eyes. Our burdens are not small or irrelevant to him. His global purposes do not draw him away from us. Our prayers are not peripheral in his priorities, because our trials and prayers are deeply and intimately connected to his greatest burden as a good Father: his own glory."

5.      Revisionist History: All three series of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast have been excellent, but I think his most recent third season is best. His episodes on Elvis, Brian Williams, and Sammy Davis are particularly interesting.

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The Drama of Marriage

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The Drama of Marriage

In pre-marital counseling, you can almost see couples wince when I bring up Paul’s admonition to wives in Ephesians 5. Paul’s instructions to married couples begin with those fated words, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” That phrase has bothered many modern Christians. Those are words that denominations have divided over. And they are words that have been misunderstood by most.

Recently we were studying Ephesians 5 in our connection group. We had a rich conversation about the passage that hinged on the two most important truths in the passage. Each of those truths is grossly neglected in contemporary conversations around Ephesians 5 and each deserves to be re-examined.

First: Paul argues in Ephesians 5 that marriage is a God-ordained drama that points to something bigger than us. Again and again in the passage, Paul tells us that our marriages are a play that God has designed to point to his relationship with the church. Would you re-read the passage with me and look for all the times Paul likens the wife to the church and the husband to Jesus in this drama?

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

Happy Thanksgiving friends! 

I am thankful for you. I echo Paul's prayer in Philippians 1:3-5, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now."

It is a gift to walk with you as we grow in faith, in love, and in hope. 

With gratitude,

John

 

1.      Dads, We Have a Powerful Influence in the Lives of Our Daughters: Charlotte Andersen reports, "'I see too many men buy into the idea of 'that's a girl's issue' or 'only a woman can understand another woman' and avoid talking to their daughters about sex, dating, or other 'girly' topics. They may assume their daughters should automatically fit into preconceived gender roles,' Dr. Brown says. 'I also see men who are locked into their own narrow view of what it means to be a father to their daughter. They believe that their only role is as a provider and protector, and they end up working too much and missing out on those wonderful father-daughter bonding moments. It doesn't have to be that way at all.'"

2.     The Worst Consequence of Skipping Church: Tim Challies reminds us that "Gathering with God’s people is not first about being blessed but about being a blessing. It’s not first about getting but about giving."

3.     5 Truths About the Holy Spirit: Alastair Begg on five important truths about the Holy Spirit. 

4.      Do You Love Your Wife Out of Obligation? The close of Brian Goins article shifts how we so often think about marriage: "In Scripture, God’s bride blossoms after the wedding day and becomes more beautiful and splendid over time, not because she “worked out” or “aged gracefully,” but because God loved her into radiance. If a man views the wedding day as the height of his bride’s beauty, then he will never love like Jesus. He’ll constantly be comparing what was rather than anticipating his role in what it could be. For Jesus, the wedding day was simply the start of a lifelong extreme makeover designed to advance His bride to royalty.

5.      We Are Sinking! This Berlitz commercial still makes me laugh out loud.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Does Your Pastor Need Swag Seminary? Is your pastor out of style? Old? Outdated? Jon Crist takes his pastor to Swag Seminary. The results speak for themselves.

2.       What Learning Myths Do You Believe In? Illuminating quiz on learning myths. One helpful nugget: "Praising effort, rather than ability, is far more likely to motivate students to work hard and improve."

3.       When We Work and Rest: A mesmerizing infographic on how different industries work and rest during the day. 

4.       Things Your Wife Wishes You Knew: Courtney Reissig on what stay at moms want you to know.

5.       This American Life: Fermi’s Paradox: This American Life is always good. The last story on this episode asking the question “Are We Alone?” choked me up.

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