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

Book Reviews

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Do You Want to Be Wise?

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Do You Want to Be Wise?

I confess: I was never the biggest fan of the book of Proverbs. The 31 chapters chalk full of aphorisms always felt a little too self-helpy for my taste. I struggled with the lack of grace in the book, the apparent void for the need of the redeeming work of Christ. It felt like it bordered on the prosperity gospel: big promises without nuance. I found myself scratching my head in response to verses like “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (Prov 10:4), and asking, “But what about the diligent born in Venezuela?”

But now I get it! Here is how my perspective on the Proverbs has changed.

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The Blessing of Praying Together

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The Blessing of Praying Together

Every Sunday at 7:30 am I join a small group for prayer before the day’s activities begin. It’s such a great way to start a Sunday morning. There is something special about praying together. I love praying on my own, but I have found that in the presence of others, God often blesses me with focus that I lack on my own, with a sense of his presence that I sometimes miss on my own.

Many have had negative experiences with corporate prayer. Perhaps people droned on about distant relatives’ needs, and little time was spent in prayer. Or maybe you experienced an emotionally manipulative prayer gathering.

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Wrestling With Rest

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Wrestling With Rest

God made Adam and Eve to have dominion over his creation (Gen. 1:26-27). Plants were planted, cultivated, trimmed, and harvested. Delighted in his work, God rested on the seventh day “and made it holy” (Gen. 2:3). This is God’s rhythm: we are invited to work with him for six days and then rest on the seventh. Which is harder for you? Working the six or resting on the seventh?

Rest has been a consistent challenge in my life. As a type A overachiever, the do’s of Christianity come more naturally than the invitation to rest. Our culture struggles with rest. What passes for rest is usually recreation and entertainment. Good things, but not rest.

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Do You Want to Be Inspired to Pray?

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Do You Want to Be Inspired to Pray?

I don’t know a Christian who hasn’t struggled at one time or another in their life with prayer. We long to experience God as others seem to in prayer. But prayer itself can feel like a massive challenge. In this hare-world of notification and hustle, prayer represents a tortoise reality. We know it’s the better way, but how do we live like that?

I still feel like a toddler in my prayer life, but I long to grow into someone with a rich prayer life. Below are five books that have encouraged me in my prayer life. They are very different. Pick up one that you think will help you the most and dive in.

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The Long Journey of Self-Knowledge in a Culture of Confusion

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The Long Journey of Self-Knowledge in a Culture of Confusion

“We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. It is greater than the First and Second Great Awakening and every revival in our country combined...but in the opposite direction.” This is the conclusion of the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America by sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe. In The Great DeChurching, pastors Jim Davis and Michael Graham unpack why and how over the past twenty-five years, forty million of those who formerly attended church no longer do so.

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Of Mice and Men’s 3.9 Goodreads Rating and Handling Criticism

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Of Mice and Men’s 3.9 Goodreads Rating and Handling Criticism

One of my favorite all-time books is the great American novel Of Mice and Men. A couple of years back, I  went on a bit of a John Steinbeck binge. I picked up some of his classics that I enjoyed in years past, and I’ve picked up a couple that were new to me. I picked up Of Mice and Men for the first time in twenty-five years and dropped myself into the world of George and Lennie. It was just as immersive and heart-wrenching as the first time I read it as a fifteen-year-old. No, it was better. It is as perfect a novel as has ever been written.

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A Nail Driven Out by Another Nail

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A Nail Driven Out by Another Nail

Habits can be the worst. I grew up eating a bowl of ice cream after dinner every day. I kind of thought that’s what everyone did. As a skinny-as-a-rail kid engaged in all types of sports, that habit didn’t catch up to me until my freshman year of college when, with free access to a frozen yogurt maker and an assortment of unfairly delicious baked goods, I began to pack on the pounds.

 

Habits can be the best. Waking up every day by opening your Bible, going to the gym after work, or sharing family meals can be formative of a healthy life. They set on auto-repeat the beneficial things you want to be doing. They create productive ruts that can even reshape your desires.

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What I Read in 2023 (and perhaps some books you might want to read in 2024)

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What I Read in 2023 (and perhaps some books you might want to read in 2024)

This year, Angel and I celebrated the release of our first book, Trading Faces. Any author knows how much of their heart they pour into writing and the blessing it is to have people interact with what you’ve crafted on the page. We’ve been so encouraged by those who have written us to share ways the book has impacted them. Laboring over the art of writing has made me a more charitable reader. I know how easy it is for my writing to become aimless, for ideas in my mind to become muddled on the page.

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Will You Forgive Me for My Cowardice?

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Will You Forgive Me for My Cowardice?

.In the last post I confessed my sin of narcissism. It’s true, I can be a selfish and self-serving leader.

 

If it were only so easy to defend ourselves against sins from one direction. One of my favorite little leadership books to come out in the past few years has been Trevin Wax’s The Multi-Directional Leader. Wax’s thesis is simple: most leaders are only concerned about threats that come from one direction, but any shepherd knows that threats come from all sides. A wise leader is aware not just of one threat from one direction, but many threats from many directions.

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Grieving Over the Holidays

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Grieving Over the Holidays

Was there an empty seat at your table this Thanksgiving?

This has been a hard stretch for our New Life family. Several church members have recently passed away over the last several weeks. In addition, several more have lost friends and family members.

Loss comes unbidden and with it arrives grief.

Grief is difficult during any season, but the holidays have a way of stoking the embers of grief.

How do you survive grieving the death of a loved one? There is no recipe, no quick fixes. You will need the presence of God, the comfort of community, and time. David promises that, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). God’s goodness and grace don’t stop there: God heals the brokenhearted and those crushed in spirit.

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