Biblical Studies, Spiritual Growth, Theology, Wisdom
John Beeson
David's Worst Sin

What was David’s worst sin? Every Sunday School child knows the answer to that question: his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband Uriah (2 Sam. 11-12).

There’s no doubt that David’s double sin against Bathsheba and Uriah is heinous. Following David’s sin, his family begins to implode. David’s son Amnon rapes his daughter, Tamar, Absalom murders Amnon in response and then attempts to overthrow his father and is ultimately killed. David’s sin was a direct violation of two of the most sacred moral laws: adultery and murder, and his family or reign would never be the same.

David's Worst Sin
Recommendations, Family, Marriage, Relationships, Religion
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Faithfulness in an inside-out world: This is a good one from Andrew Noble, In today’s age, people are to find out what’s inside first, and then they are to express it outward. Charles Taylor describes this as “a culture of authenticity.”

  2. Fight brain rot by reading books: This one is written to Gen Z, but applies to everyone. Luke Simon writes, “What surprised me most was how different reading was from scrolling. My phone had trained me to skim, to consume quickly, and to expect instant gratification. Books demanded something deeper: focus, patience, and the willingness to sit with ideas that don’t immediately resolve.”

This Week's Recommendations
Forgiveness, Relationships, Wisdom
John Beeson
Aslan Was Wrong

Like so many others, The Chronicles of Narnia is one of my favorite fiction series of all time. CS Lewis masterfully gives us insight into the heart of Christ and our relationship with him through the figure of Aslan. The tales teach us unforgettable truths about us about friendship, courage, and redemption.

Lewis brilliantly captures the weight of our sin against God. The figure of Aslan helps us see the price Christ paid to atone for our wrongdoings. Near the conclusion of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe we watch an interaction that gives us insight into the cost of our sin.

Aslan Was Wrong
Christian Living, Forgiveness, Relationships, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
How to Apologize

We live in an apology-averse culture.

We are allergic to repentance and forgiveness alike.

Think about it. When was the last time someone repented to you? I mean, truly repented?

The last time a congregant apologized to me, the email began this way (I’ve tweaked it only to protect the one who sent it), “I might have been a little harsh in my email.. I had a very bad week…” In further communication, the individual referenced their apology. I scratched my head. “When did they apologize?” I dug back through the email thread and saw those phrases. That is what they were referencing.

How to Apologize
Recommendations, Identity, Marriage, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Three lies that separate spouses: Dave Harvey’s first lie is, “I can’t forgive you until you confess all the sin I see.”

  2. How the gospel answers shame in college students: Connie Leung Nelson explains, “For a long time, when I noticed students withdrawing or heard them voice a sense of shame, my first impulse was to reassure them there was nothing wrong with them. I’d direct them to their accomplishments in an attempt to counteract shame with honor. But pointing students to their work and successes doesn’t un-shame them.

This Week's Recommendations

Book Reviews

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Digging Deeper into Rest

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Digging Deeper into Rest

We have been navigating a sermon series that has been a while in the making here at New Life. It is called Rest. If you’re interested in digging into the sermon series, you can find it here. Sabbath has been an interest of Greg’s for years. In fact, growing up Jewish, understanding a Christian perspective on Sabbath was a stumbling block to Greg’s conversion.

As a type A overachiever, rest has been a very personal challenge to me. 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.

If you want to dig deeper into rest, here are some books that have helped me in growing in what it means to follow the way of Christ. I hope they help you as well

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The Dividing Wall of Hostility

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The Dividing Wall of Hostility

I hope you had a meaningful Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Among the many challenges in 2020, the issue of racism reared its ugly head again. Sparked by the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and others, the conversation around racism heated to a boiling point.

As citizens of the Kingdom of God, the issue of racism ought to be personal to each one of us. The early church struggled over the issue of racism between Jews and Gentiles. We can trace the challenge through the book of Acts as well as Paul’s letters. Paul tells us that in Christ, the “dividing wall of hostility” has been “broken down” in Jesus Christ, who is “our peace” (Eph 2:14). John shares with us a multi-racial picture of the new heavens and the new earth, where those “From every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” gather in worship at Jesus’ throne (Rev 7:9). Our ethnicity will not dissolve in heaven, but rather, God will delight in our ethnic diversity gathered before him in praise.

The events of 2020 challenged me to consider how I can participate better in Christ’s reconciling work. With a heart toward growing in understanding and empathy, I spent a significant amount of time listening to various voices: some Christian, some not. While I learned from everyone, I was particularly grateful for Christian brothers and sisters who have written on this area.

What I have discovered traces the following path: learning, navigating hurt, creating gospel friendships, and working to undo injustice.

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What I Read in 2020 (and What You Might Want to Read in 2021)

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What I Read in 2020 (and What You Might Want to Read in 2021)

In 2019 I read 101 books, which was a personal high for me, at least since I’ve been keeping track. I expected to tail off that number in 2020. And then COVID-19 struck. With fewer social gatherings than ever and more quiet nights at home, my reading actually increased. A new high-water mark for books resulted: 115.

2020 was also a year that provided plenty of internal reasons to need the companion of books. I read loads from other pastors and leaders on how they were navigating leading through COVID (given the immediacy of the issue, most of that was by way of blogs, not books). The fracturing of the nation over issues of race and racism had me diving deep on that topic. I’m still processing much of that, but I do plan on sharing more about what I’m learning about race and racism on my blog in the future.

2020 also saw the publication of my first book (co-authored with Benjamin Vrbicek), giving me a new appreciation for the labor of love every author has in bringing a book into the world. Thank you to those who read Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World. I’m grateful you let Benjamin and I spend several hours with you.

Let me start with my three favorite books of 2020.

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Words of Wow

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Words of Wow

Any writer knows that sending something you wrote into the world makes you feel pretty naked. “Did anyone find it helpful?” “How many typos did I overlook?” “Did I glorify God?”

For some reason publishing something in book form only heightened that feeling for me. Last week Benjamin Vrbicek and I released Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World. The response has been overwhelming. I am so grateful that the book has been a source of encouragement and help to fellow writers.

Here is how some readers have responded:

“I’ve longed for voices like Benjamin and John’s, filled with seasoned wisdom and an unwavering resolve to elevate the glory of God over all other aims. Forged out of the hard hours of reading carefully, working the keyboards, and humbly connecting with other writers, this book proves that Benjamin and John are fast becoming two voices to heed in whatever lies ahead.”

++Chris Thomas, ploughmansrest.com

“As a blogger who has been writing for over five years now, I found tips I hadn’t known about and was bolstered in my purpose as a writer.”

++Brianna Lambert, lookingtotheharvest.com

“John and Benjamin are reliable guides to how you can still blog to the glory of God.”

++Collin Hansen, thegospelcoalition.org

“Immensely practical and engaging, this book is for bloggers of every age and stage.”
++Glenna Marshall, glennamarshall.com

“With this book Benjamin Vrbicek and John Beeson create a needed community.”
++Jen Oshman, jenoshman.com

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How to Find Your Purpose as a Writer

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How to Find Your Purpose as a Writer

About four years ago, my co-author, Benjamin Vrbicek, helped me think through what it would take to launch a blog: navigating me through the logistics, the challenges ahead, and my reasons for blogging.

Today, Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World releases. The seeds of this book were in those conversations. Our hope is that the book would serve as a guide for other writers and aspiring Christian writers. Have you ever considered blogging? I think this book will serve you well.

Below is the first chapter, a chapter that addresses these questions: why am I blogging, and who am I trying to reach?

Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World

CHAPTER 1: PURPOSE

I got the itch to write when I was a fourth grader in Ms. Reeves’s class. We had free writing time and once a week we read our creations to the class. I was reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit for the first time and had a serious case of Middle-earth-itis. Another boy in my class had caught the Middle-earth bug as well.

We were off, each of us writing facsimiles of The Hobbit. Only, he had the imaginative horsepower to create something that could stand on its own two feet. He wove into his story students in our class, our teacher, and our principal. When he took the storytelling stool, he sat up straight, his eyes sparkled, and the class leaned forward in anticipation.

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What is the Shape of Jesus' Heart?

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What is the Shape of Jesus' Heart?

Do you know Jesus’ heart? How do you think his heart is inclined toward you? Does that thought make you flinch?

In Gentle and Lowly Dane Ortlund wants us to get to know God’s heart. Ortlund believes that many of us misunderstand God’s heart. We think he’s frustrated and disappointed with us, irritated with our lack of obedience.

Ortlund takes us to Matthew 11, where Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Here Jesus tells us about his heart. In fact, Ortlund tells us, it’s the only time he speaks about his heart in the Bible. And what does Jesus say characterizes his heart? That he is “gentle and lowly.”

Is that how you think about Jesus’ heart in relation to you? Jesus’ heart is gentle and lowly. It is love incarnate. Thomas Goodwin said, “Christ is love covered over in flesh.”

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Precedented Leadership

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Precedented Leadership

“Unprecedented.” If you’ve heard that word once in the past six months, you’ve heard it a thousand times. We are living in unprecedented times. It’s true. As a leader these times have had me listening even more attentively to other contemporary leaders I trust.

But perhaps the book that has offered me the most encouragement over the past six months has been J. Oswald Sanders’s fifty-year-old Spiritual Leadership. Sanders’s book is truly timeless, its profoundly simple wisdom is well worn.

Tucked in Sanders’s book are a series of questions asked by a leader who lived a century earlier than Sanders. Below are a series of one hundred- and fifty-year-old questions that Edward Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury offered for self-reflection.

I’ve left the statements largely untouched (except exchanging “correspondence” for email inbox). The fact that we can pick up one hundred-and-fifty-year-old questions and find them so relevant for us today reminds us that while circumstances might be unprecedented, the heart of leadership wisdom remains timeless. The core leadership challenges we face are precedented. Thank God for that.

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Do You Want to Be Inspired to Pray? Try These Three Books

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Do You Want to Be Inspired to Pray? Try These Three Books

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 two books have encouraged and strengthened me in my prayer life this year. A third book encouraged me years ago and still inspires me today. I commend all three to you. They are very different. Pick up one that you think will help you the most and dive in. My prayer for you (and me) isn’t for knowledge about prayer, but for a revitalized longing for Christ and communion with him.

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Summer Reading Recommendations

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Summer Reading Recommendations

Summer is upon us. Our summers are going to look very different this year, but I hope yours includes reading. I’ve included a more serious non-fiction work (Larry Crabb's Shattered Dreams) and a fun fiction series (Andrew Peterson's The Wingfeather Saga) that all ages will enjoy below. If you’ve read either, I would love your feedback. And let me know what you’re reading this summer!

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Leading in Unknown Times: A Review of Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal

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Leading in Unknown Times: A Review of Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal

There is no map for leading in the 21st century in the middle of a global pandemic. Every leader has felt their inadequacy over the past month. How do we lead through an environment with so few answers at our disposal?

General Stanley McChrystal’s Team of Teams might be the best book I’ve read for providing us a roadmap for what leadership in this fluid environment ought to look like.

General Stanley McChrystal is humble, smart, and well-read. That’s quite a combination for a general. In Team of Teams, McChrystal shares his journey in leading the US Military from a top-down organization to a team of teams, an empowered community of leaders.

McChrystal argues that not only is this the best style of leadership, it is necessary in today’s landscape. McChrystal led the US Joint Special Operations Task force in the early 2000s in Iraq. That force was confronted by an opponent in Al Qaeda, whose strength was their nimbleness.

McChrystal argues that much of our organizational management has been passed down to us from the Industrial Revolution, where managers maximized an employee’s every movement on the assembly line. McChrystal refers to these as complicated systems: systems that may involve a lot of components, but those components are fundamentally predictable. Today’s reality is fundamentally different, McChrystal says. We live in complex systems. Complex systems are fundamentally unpredictable. Do you remember Dr. Malcolm explaining the butterfly effect in Jurassic Park? Weather systems are complex: even the tiniest variation in the environment can lead to completely different outcomes.

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