Easter, Death, Heaven, Hell
John Beeson
The Crucifixion of Jesus: An Eyewitness Account

On this Tuesday of Holy Week, we consider the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. What follows is a compilation of the eyewitness crucifixion accounts of Jesus Christ as told by the four authors of the gospels. They have been edited together to maintain the flow of the narrative. The accounts are framed by the words of the 8th century BC prophet, Isaiah. On Sunday I will share the resurrection account of Jesus from the eyewitnesses.

The Crucifixion of Jesus: An Eyewitness Account
Christian Living, Church, Finance, Generosity
John Beeson
Why We Should Give to Financially Mismanaged ...

In 2007, the House Committee on Oversight investigated the “Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes and Help Hospitalized Veterans.” Something was seriously wrong with CEO Roger Chapin’s leadership (and it wasn’t just the absurdly long name of the charity). Chapin had raised nearly $170 million between 2004 and 2006, but only 25% of the money reached veterans. Over $125 million was funneled to Chapin and his cronies.

 

Whether at a national or local level, we don’t have to look long and hard for mismanagement of donations. There is nothing that breaks the trust of a donor more than seeing their hard-earned dollars misspent. We should care about where our giving goes. Churches ought to lead the way in financial transparency and accountability.

Why We Should Give to Financially Mismanaged Organizations
Recommendations, Nature, Evangelism, Parenting
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. 6 discouraging trends in global Christianity: Aaron Earls reports, “While Christianity continues to grow, Islamic growth continues to outpace the church’s growth. Christianity slightly outpaced the global rate of population growth (0.98% v. 0.88%), but Islam grew even faster (1.67%).”

  2. Wikipedia founder embraces Christianity: Trevin Wax reflects on Larry Sanger’s conversion, “Considering how many people are curious about the Bible these days, the increase in Bible sales, the interest in various philosophers and commentators providing their takes on the Scriptures,

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Spiritual Growth, Wisdom
John Beeson
Don't Avoid the Dark Room

As I sit at our dining room table, a black-and-white photograph of bananas hangs next to our fiddle leaf fern. My wife shot and developed the photo for a college photography class. Angel didn’t know it then, but she was in the waning years of film photography. Much of her class was spent teaching students to develop film properly.

Developing film required the use of a dark room. One would go into a room that had no light. Even the most negligible levels of light can destroy a negative. The film cassette was opened, the film was removed and placed into a reel. That reel was placed into a film tank, covered with liquid film developer at just the right temperature, and agitated periodically.

Don't Avoid the Dark Room
Leadership, Vocation, Wisdom
John Beeson
A Career of Leadership Lessons

Nearly two years ago my mom retired as Department Head of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the University of Arizona.. My mom is one of the most skilled leaders I’ve had the chance to learn from.  Here is my interview with her on leadership lessons she learned over the decades.

When did you first think of yourself as a leader?

The first leadership position I had was serving in student council in junior high. I didn’t think of it as much as leadership as the fact that I got involved. I cared.

A Career of Leadership Lessons

Biblical Studies

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Can We Trust the New Testament Documents?

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Can We Trust the New Testament Documents?

The last two weeks we have considered whether it might be plausible to trust the Bible audacious claim, that it is the word of God.

The final response to the challenge is to address the reliability of the manuscripts. Can we trust that the Bible we have in our hands resembles the original writings of the disciples? Is it true as Bart Ehrman said that there are 400,000 errors in the early biblical manuscripts?

Let’s respond to this important challenge.

Let me provide some explanation: the Bible was written by hand and then sent to the intended recipients via the Roman mail system. Let’s take the gospel of Luke, since we’ve previously read from the beginning of his gospel. Luke wrote out his account of Jesus’ life and then sent it to a man named Theophilus. Theophilus then read the gospel and was likely so amazed that he decided to have a scribe make copies of the letter to send to his friends so he could share the story with them. Copies of those manuscripts were made and then copies of those copies and so on and so forth. We don’t have in our possession any of the original manuscripts of the New Testament. We don’t have the first gospel that Luke wrote. But what we do have are many of the copies of a copy of the original.

How in the world can we trust the documents we have, then?

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What Reasons are there to Believe the Bible?

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What Reasons are there to Believe the Bible?

Last week we began considering whether it is possible to believe the Bible is true.

The outspoken atheist and author Sam Harris once said,

“Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else… Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever.”[i]

Can we trust the Bible? Do Christians believe the Bible with “no evidence whatsoever”? What is the evidence that it is trustworthy?

The challenge that is made against the Bible is that it isn’t a trustworthy historic document. We can’t trust that the history the Bible purports to tell is accurate.

These are serious questions and they deserve thoughtful responses.

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Why Should I Believe the Bible?

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Why Should I Believe the Bible?

Let’s not soft-pedal this. Christianity’s claims about the Bible are patently absurd.

Let’s pause and consider Christianity’s claim. Christians claim that we have in our possession a book that contains a message from the Creator of the universe to us. The book we are talking about was written in a time period roughly between 4,000 and 2,000 years ago. To claim such an ancient book has any relevance whatsoever for a modern reader is an absurd enough claim, but to claim it is the word of the source of all life itself? That is hard to believe.

Isn’t this book written by human beings full of legends? Isn’t it full of contradictions? Hasn’t it been proven false?[i] How can we possibly trust that it is the message God has for us?

Let me make the stakes of this conversation completely clear. If we can’t trust the Bible, then it’s a book that might have use for historians or perhaps to be read alongside Aesop’s Fables. But if it is the Word of God, we ought to devote ourselves to this book. If God really wrote a message to us, then every person is duty-bound to take this message seriously.

The skeptic’s challenge is that the Bible is a story, it is not reliable history. I’m going to respond to this challenge with seven responses. The first will be shared in this post, the following six in the next two weeks.

The most important question regarding the trustworthiness of the Bible is whether or not there was a man named Jesus Christ who lived in the first century in Palestine, who claimed to be the Messiah, who died on a cross and rose again. The trustworthiness of the Bible stands or falls on its claims about Jesus of Nazareth.

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Isn't the Bible Full of Contradictions?

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Isn't the Bible Full of Contradictions?

Atheists.org begins its post on Biblical Contradictions[i] with this statement: “It is a central dogma of all fundamental Christians that the Bible is without error. They teach this conclusion by “reasoning” that god cannot be the author of false meaning and he cannot lie. Is this true? If written by a perfect being, then it must not contradict itself, as a collection of books written by different men at different times over many centuries would be expected to contradict each other.”[ii]

It’s a well-stated premise. I heartily agree. If the Bible’s forty authors who wrote the Bible over a span of approximately 1,500 years and three continents contradict one another (and let’s be honest, how could that kind of motley collection of authors not contradict one another!) it would be a sure sign that the Bible is a human, not divine document. The Atheists.org post goes on to list its top 15 contradictions in the Bible.[iii] Those are:

1)      The Permanence of Earth: we are told “the earth abides forever” and that it will be “burned up.”[iv]

2)      The Holy Lifestyle: should we celebrate “with a merry heart” or be sober-minded in our living?[v]

3)      Seeing God: have some seen God face-to-face or have none?[vi]

4)      The Sabbath Day: we are told that the Sabbath day is to be kept holy and later that “every day is alike.”[vii]

5)      Personal Injury: is “eye for an eye” punishment the rule, or non-retaliation?[viii]

6)      Circumcision: are we to be circumcised or not?[ix]

7)      Family Relationships: are we to honor our parents or to hate them?[x]

8)      Incest: is incest blessed or disallowed?[xi]

9)      The Power of God: is God all-powerful or is his power limited?[xii]

10)   Trusting God: does trusting God bring us blessing or difficulties?[xiii]

11)   Human Sacrifice: are human sacrifices encouraged or forbidden?[xiv]

12)   Punishing Crime: does the punishment of sin fall upon the children of the offenders or not?[xv]

13)   Temptation: can God tempt or not?[xvi]

14)   Resurrection of the Dead: can those who die be resurrected or not?[xvii]

15)   The End of the World: was God supposed to return quickly when the New Testament was written or not?[xviii]

Let’s deal with these apparent contradictions with three responses.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       3 Lies Our Life Online Tells Us: Samuel James digs beneath the surface to three lies that a life of constant connectivity speaks to us. The third is "I have to say something!" James explains, " Because digital space is without any embodied presence, people tend to be reduced to their input — who they are is what they post. This means that a major liturgy of online culture is that silence is a problem."

2.       52 Things I Learned in 2019: This is a cool list by Tom Whitwell. There are lots of fun gems like this one, "Harbinger customers are customers who buy products that tend to fail. They group together, forming harbinger zip codes. If households in those zip codes buy a product, it is likely to fail. If they back a political candidate, they are likely to lose the election."

3.       How Do You Face Crippling Anxiety? My friend Brie Wetherbee with five pieces of practical and hope-filled advice.

4.       Is God Guilty of Genocide? What do we with the conquest narratives in the Old Testament? Michael Kruger begins, "When the Israelites entered the land of Canaan, was it not God who commanded them to wipe out all the indigenous people (Deut. 20:17)? Is God not guilty of genocide? It makes me think of the famous bumper-sticker quote, 'The only difference between God and Adolf Hitler is that God is more proficient at genocide.'"

5.       The Size of Space: You won't want to miss this awesome interactive site. Our Creator is inconceivable!

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Modern Research About Happiness Repeatedly Reflects Biblical Principles: Randy Alcorn walks through eight findings about happiness from psychological research and their eight biblical parallels.

2.       The Top 50 Countries Where It’s Hardest to be a Christian: Of particular interest to me is India not only remaining #10 on this list, but unfortunately taking the top place in a new designation. Jayson Casper explains, “India ranks first in the new category of physical or mental abuse, which includes beatings and death threats. The continuing rise in the subcontinent of a militant Hindu nationalism contributed to 1,445 of the reported 14,645 cases worldwide.”

3.       Patrick Lencioni's Personal Leadership Crash: This Carey Niewhof podcast is gold. It's loaded with helpful leadership insights about a leader's health.

4.       National Giving Trends: Lifeway recently published a report on national giving trends. A few takeaways: the national giving percentage has remained at 2% for decades. Diving deeper, "giving to religious causes receives the largest amount of gifts when compared to other sectors. It is at 31%. However, in the 1980’s, religious giving received 58% and has been on a steady decline every year. This is not good."

5.       Can The Cosmic Crisp Live Up to Huge Expectations? You might have heard of the new breed of apples that just hit store shelves. But can the apple pay back the huge investment that has been made in it?

6.       What Does the Bible Say About Divorce and Remarriage? Tom Schreiner answers this difficult question.

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Christmas Recommendations

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Christmas Recommendations

1.      Five Misconceptions About the Christmas Story: Michael Kruger sets the story straight. How many did you know?  He says, “These five misconceptions remind us that sometimes our picture of scriptural stories is shaped more by popular perceptions and modern retellings than by the text itself. But when we take a closer look at the biblical clues, a wonderful—and hopefully more accurate—picture emerges of what happened that night nearly 2,000 years ago.”

2.      What One Pastor Got Wrong About the Magi: Colin Adams shares a preaching misstep he made at Christmas and what the Magi’s gifts actually tell us about Christmas.

3.      Merry Christmas from Genesis 3: Eric Geiger reminds us, “The Christmas story does not begin in a manger; it begins in a Garden.”

4.      Young Adults Feel Isolated and Anxious: Aaron Earls reports, “Barna classified young adults as anxious If respondents say they feel at least three of the following: anxious about important decisions, sad or depressed, afraid of failure and insecure in who they are. Among those surveyed, 1 in 5 (20%) qualified as anxious according to that definition. Those young adults are more likely to experience other negative emotions asked about in the survey. Almost 3 in 5 in that group (59%) report a sense of isolation. Those who attend a worship service weekly are less likely to say they are experience anxiety (22%) compared to others (33%).”

5.      What Happened When I Showed Vintage Mr. Rogers to My Kids: I love the story of the power of the ageless kindness of Mr. Rogers.

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My Favorite Books of 2019 and What I’m Looking Forward to Reading in 2020

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My Favorite Books of 2019 and What I’m Looking Forward to Reading in 2020

2019 was a heavy reading year for me. This year I read 101 books: almost two a week. I love learning and reading is of my favorite forms of learning. If you’re wondering how I read that many books, I’m going to reflect on that next week.

This year you could divide my reading into six (plus one) categories: Christian Living, Theology, Apologetics, Pastoral Ministry, Leadership, and Fiction. The plus one is in the fiction category. I got on a John Steinbeck kick, so I pulled out an extra Steinbeck category. If you’re interested in tracking my reading, getting fuller reviews (I review every book I read), and sharing with me your favorites, I use Goodreads and would be happy to have you friend me there. Here were some highlights for me in 2019:

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Grumbling to Gratitude

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Grumbling to Gratitude

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a time where God’s powerful and miraculous hand was impossible to deny? Such were the days of the Israelites who lived during Moses’s lifetime.

The books of Exodus and Numbers track God’s miraculous rescue of Israel out of the clutches of centuries of Egyptian enslavement. God isn’t only going to rescue his people; he is taking them to the long-awaited Promised Land.

There is only one obstacle preventing Israel from escaping from Egypt and seizing the Promised Land. That obstacle isn’t Pharaoh and his massive army. It isn’t the imposing Red Sea. It isn’t even the entrenched Canaanite forces.

The only obstacle is the grumbling hearts of the Israelites.

The two words in Hebrew that are translated “grumble” are lun and ragan. Lun has the connotation of growling. Ragan has the connotation of whispered rebellion. The word in Greek that is translated as grumble is a fun word to say: gogguzo. The word sits in the back of your throat and you have to spit it out. Just for fun say it out loud now (a nice scowl makes it even better).

Each of these three words captures the state of each of our hearts in the midst of our grumbling. When we grumble we growl against God. Recently a congregant showed me the 22 stitches he received when a dog thought he was a threat. Like an angry dog who misperceives your kind intentions to pet it, we growl against our gentle and kind Heavenly Father wanting to love and care for us. When we grumble, we rebel against God’s rule. Our grumbling declares our distrust of God’s sovereign rule over our lives. “Not good enough!” we spit at the Almighty.

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Things Not to Say About Science

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Things Not to Say About Science

My kids just got into the Jubilee channel on YouTube. Each episode of Jubilee brings people who have disagreements together to try to hash out their opposing opinions. They have shows about everything from abortion to immigration to everything in between. On one of the episodes, two sides debate whether the earth is flat or not. Of the three proponents that the earth is flat, two of the three were Christians. The three opponents were all scientists.

How did we get here?

Christian friends, we’ve got to do better.

A Rich History

For many today, the perception is that you must choose between Christianity and science. How sad. Christianity used to be the leading institution on earth for scientific inquiry.

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