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

Family

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Trauma asks, “Lord, have you forgotten about me?” Darby Strickland shares, “Trauma sufferers tend to ask things like, “How did God let this happen to me?” “Does He hear me?” “See me?” “Or even care about me?” It is important to note that these faith questions are highly personal.”

  2. Let’s stop the kid jokes: Moriah Lovett begins, “Recently, as my husband and I chatted with a newlywed couple, the wife remarked, “We need to hang out with your family soon as a form of birth control for us!” She was referring to our four kids, and despite the discomfort I felt at her words, I laughed. Looking back, I wish I’d said, “I hope hanging out with us would do quite the opposite—kids are such a blessing!” I missed the opportunity.”

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Impossible Forgiveness

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Impossible Forgiveness

I can still remember the slightly musty smell of my childhood church’s cramped library. It was there I discovered World War II memoir of Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch watchmaker, The Hiding Place. In ten Boom’s memoir the reader has to wrestle with the question, “how can we forgive?”

If you know ten Boom’s story, you’ll likely remember how God brought ten Boom face-to-face with a Nazi guard years after her imprisonment. If you haven’t heard this story, it’s worth your time and ten Boom’s account is posted below.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. More toddler screen time brings more tantrums, study finds: Ernie Mundell reports, “The bottom line, according to the researchers, "Tablet use in early childhood can disrupt the ability to manage anger and frustration and lead to increased outbursts in young children." And I would add—it’s unlikely to be confined to just toddlers!

  2. His faithfulness outweighs our faithlessness: Sarah Walton begins, “I cried out in desperation – “Lord, where are you? Why do you seem silent to our pleas when we are so desperate for your help?”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

    1. What does the Bible teach about divorce and remarriage? Jim Newheiser says, “Due to our increasingly therapeutic culture and its expansive definitions of “abuse,” the pendulum has swung in our day from protecting marriage at the expense of not protecting victims of abuse to protecting alleged victims at the expense of not adequately protecting marriage.”

    2. Fewer want children: A sobering poll from Pew reveals that “Adults younger than 50 without children who say they are unlikely to ever have kids rose 10 percentage points between 2018 and 2023 (from 27% to 47%).

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Mom & Dad: Show Your Need

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Mom & Dad: Show Your Need

“I have one regret of how I parented,” my friend told me. I leaned forward. My friend is a godly man married to a godly wife. He’s kind and gentle and wise. As an educator, he’s witnessed a lot of parenting, good and bad, in his day. His adult children have had their struggles but are good people. I would ask him for parenting advice in a second. What was his greatest regret?

“I wish I would’ve shown my kids my need for Christ more. I worked so hard to show them my godliness that I didn’t show them my need. I should have been more transparent. I should have shown them just how much I needed Jesus.”

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The Enemy Speaks To You In Your Father's Voice

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The Enemy Speaks To You In Your Father's Voice

Have you ever felt forsaken or rejected by a parent like one of Joseph's brothers? Could you imagine the claws of envy that would clutch at your heart wanting to be loved as deeply as your sibling? Do you hear negative scripts play in your head? "You'll never be as good as him." "Father will never love you like that." Even the names of their moms likely played into the trap of jealousy. Rachel (Joseph’s mother) was the "ewe lamb," but Leah was the "wild cow," and the two maidservants' names also spoke diminishment: Zilpah the "drop," and Bilhah, "trouble."

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If Only I Had More Time...

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If Only I Had More Time...

Today I hand the reins over to Josh Barella. Josh is a friend and our Worship Director at New Life. Every Sunday morning, I wake up to a devotion that Josh sends to the worship team to prepare them for the day. Here is a recent devotion Josh shared.

My wife Lauren and I are fond of the niche science fiction film In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried.  Set in a future Ohio, the currency is time, and it’s also everyone’s life force.  Once born, you age until your 25th birthday, and that’s when “your clock” starts and you have one year to live.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. I will not forget you: Kathryn Butler offers hope in the midst of dementia, “Walking alongside Violet feels like watching death in slow motion. As the quirks and values and personality traits I’ve come to love about her fade away one by one, it’s as if I’m watching Violet herself dwindle and vanish.”

  2. Critical dynamics of criticism: Nick Batzig begins, “It is probably fair to draw the conclusion that there is a universal dislike for personal criticism and correction. Nothing reveals the pride that resides in each one of our hearts so much as being on the receiving end of criticism.”

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The Danger of Nostalgia

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The Danger of Nostalgia

What’s your favorite family memory? What is your favorite memory of church? What is your favorite holiday memory? Recollecting can bring warm feelings toward people and fond memories of places. Nostalgia can stoke gratitude. It appears that God rejoices in godly nostalgia. Take a look at Psalm 78 or Psalm 105, where God takes his people on a tour of their past, and we see his faithfulness on display.

Last week we enjoyed time together on a family vacation: we ate good food, laughed, and played lots of games. I lingered on each moment. Angel and I have been holding tightly memories these days. Our son (18) and daughter (20) are home for the summer.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Young women are leaving church in unprecedented numbers: Daniel Cox and Kelsey Eyre Hammond report, “For as long as we’ve conducted polls on religion, men have consistently demonstrated lower levels of religious engagement. But something has changed. A new survey reveals that the pattern has now reversed.”

  2. Advice for the anxious generation: Jonathan Haidt offers loads of wisdom to parents  in his new book The Anxious Generation. “As for your own interactions with your child, they don't have to be "optimized." You don't have to make every second special or educational.”

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