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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What I Read in 2022 (and perhaps some books you might want to read in 2023)

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What I Read in 2022 (and perhaps some books you might want to read in 2023)

How much would you pay to meet your favorite celebrity? $100? $1,000?? $10,000??? The number isn’t insignificant, is it? Listening to the stories and wisdom from those we trust is worth quite a bit, isn’t it?

This year Angel and I worked hard to bring our first co-written book entitled Substitute Identities to publication. Right now it is in the hands of our publisher’s copy editor, and we can’t wait to share it with you. The process of pouring our hearts into this book makes me reflect on just what gifts books are. While we might be willing to pay exorbitant sums to sit at the feet of the world’s best thinkers, it only takes $10-$20 to listen to these spinners of tales. Isn’t that amazing?

So, however many books you read in 2022, maybe you might be blessed to read a few more in 2023, and perhaps some of my favorites might point you to a few gems.

In 2022 so far, I’ve read 110 books and hope to read a handful more before the year closes. I’ve been blessed to read a wide variety of good books this year. I’ll begin with my four favorite books of 2022, followed by the entire list of books I read. I hope you find some gems for you in this.

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Forgiving Like a Child

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Forgiving Like a Child

A transformation happened nearly every night we put our sweet foster boy down for bed. Minutes after the cherubic toddler was happily reading books with me, and seconds after he sweetly swayed in my arms as I sang to him, he transformed. The moment of metamorphosis occurred as I placed him in his crib. He would roll over and, with big tears rolling down his fat cheeks, wail. As I left the room and closed the door, he would stand in the crib, looking at me with pleading eyes. “How could you abandon me?” his eyes would ask.

The sun would set, the moon would rise and set, and the sun would rise again. I open his door to find him sleeping. I turn off the sound machine and open the window shade. He hikes up his cute bottom in the air, rolls over, pulls himself up, and greets me with the biggest smile you’ve ever seen. I smile back and he giggles.

Forgiven.

Fast forward several hours, and a couple sits on my couch in my office. He can’t move past the fact that she won’t make love to him. She can’t move past the fact she caught him watching porn.[i]

Not forgiven.

The claws of unforgiveness are sharp and relentless.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. Decline of Christianity Shows No Sign of Stopping: Daniel Silliman reports, “Currently, 64 percent of people say they are Christian, but nearly a third of those raised Christian eventually switch to “none” or “nothing in particular,” while only about 20 percent of those raised without religion become Christian. If that ratio of switching continues at a steady pace, then in roughly half a century, only about 46 percent of Americans will identify as Christian.”

2. Who are the 144,000 in Revelation 7? Tom Schreiner answers. “Here we have the number twelve representing the people of God from the twelve tribes in the OT, and the number is squared and then multiplied by 1,000. Hence the number should be understood as a symbolic way of designating the entire people of God.”

3. Five Truths About Suicide and the Church: Kathryn Butler reports, “As stewards of the greatest message of hope in history, churches are uniquely positioned to minister to those grappling with thoughts of self-harm. However, leaders can struggle with knowing how to help and may worry their words or approach will only bring more anguish.”

4. Say the Quiet Things, Out Loud: Kristin encourages us to not withhold encouragement. “Our children, regardless of their age, are not our parents. We are theirs–so let us be about the business of seeking and loving them well–unselfishly with our time, full gaze, and devoted words.”

5. Getting America’s Most Famous (or Infamous) Sermon Right: Travis Hearne sets right the many who have a distorted understanding of an infamous sermon. He begins, “In the Summer of 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God—the most famous or infamous sermon to land on what would soon be American soil.”

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Living on a Single Income with No Mortgage

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Living on a Single Income with No Mortgage

I respect my sister and brother-in-law for many reasons. One of those reasons is their wise financial stewardship. With eight kids (you can read the story of why they have eight kids here), they are able to live on a single income, and they managed to pay off the mortgage on their previous house several years ago. That financial flexibility allowed them to purchase a home with my parents two years ago so they could help my dad whose mobility suffered after a series of strokes. There are many who would like to be mortgage-free. Below is the story of how by sister and brother-in-law learned to faithfully care for the finances God has blessed them with. In my interview, I hope you hear how often Sarah and Anders come back to a desire to be generous.

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To My Freshman Self

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To My Freshman Self

Hi high school freshman me! It is future college freshman you, writing to encourage you in hard truths that you're going to wrestle with over the next four years.

As I begin college, I am borderline-overwhelmed with the repercussions and magnitude of my sin patterns. On many occasions I have found myself giving in to my urge to please people, adapting who I am to a “better” version of myself so that people can only see the side of me that best fits my surrounding environment. I have found myself tempering my boldness. I have suppressed my passion, my ambition, and most of all, my relationship with Christ.

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Who Wants to Play?

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Who Wants to Play?

“I’ll sleep when I die,” a type-A friend of ours joked. They laughed. I pondered.

The joke squirreled its way into my heart. I was 21 and already had tasted the first fruits of my labor. It was sweet. My professors welcomed me as an interlocutor in class and on paper. The fruit of my hard work? Respect.

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Jesus and Family

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Jesus and Family

For many Christians the idol that goes unchallenged is family.

This can be the case in my life, and for good reason. I love my family. No family is perfect, but I couldn’t be more grateful for my family: a mom and dad who love me well and celebrated 47 years of marriage this year, a sister who I love spending time with, and in-laws I genuinely enjoy.

And I overflow with thanksgiving for my wife and two children, who are a constant source of love and joy in my life.

Jesus’ relationship with his family is much more complicated. At times it seems strained and unhealthy, even. Is that the case? And how should Jesus’ relationship with his family influence our relationship with our family?

The Hard Edges

Let’s examine four scenes in Jesus’ life that involve family. The first three of these scenes have some pretty hard edges regarding Jesus' teaching on family.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Why Do Billionaires Want to Live Forever: Tim Challies begins a deep reflection with this question, “Why is it that billionaires always seem to want to live forever? Why is it that the 1% of the 1% almost always seem to veer from their core businesses into attempts to prolong their lives indefinitely?”

  2. Why Mainstream Scholars often Differ with Evangelical Pastors on the Gospel: Having attended a mainline seminary, I resonated with George Sinclair’s reasoning here. Near the end of the post he shares, “There is a rich, thick, deep history and literature of Christian thought which shows not just the truth and reasonableness of miracles, but the importance of them for a wide, humane, and beautiful understanding of the world—one which leads to human flourishing.”

  3. Fertility is Not a Disease: D Eaton writes, “This desire to have sexual pleasure without constraint has culture suppressing the truth of not only biblical revelation but also science. To justify the extermination of the child, we must classify the child in the womb as either not a human in its natural course of existence or not alive. It is impossible to deny either scientifically, yet logic and truth must be sacrificed on the altar of sexual autonomy.”

  4. The Last Gift My Father Gave Me: This is an excellent piece from Mike Cosper. He shares how his father’s death allowed him to finally experience the gift of grief.

  5. Your Money Will Trick You: Trevin Wax reminds us, “Jesus says ‘Watch out!’ and ‘Be on guard’ as if there’s a silent, stealthy enemy creeping up on an unsuspecting person, ready to pounce. We like to think of wealth and possessions as inanimate objects, helpful to us if we use them correctly, but basically neutral.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Why Do Billionaires Want to Live Forever: Tim Challies begins a deep reflection with this question, “Why is it that billionaires always seem to want to live forever? Why is it that the 1% of the 1% almost always seem to veer from their core businesses into attempts to prolong their lives indefinitely?”

  2. Why Mainstream Scholars often Differ with Evangelical Pastors on the Gospel: Having attended a mainline seminary, I resonated with George Sinclair’s reasoning here. Near the end of the post he shares, “There is a rich, thick, deep history and literature of Christian thought which shows not just the truth and reasonableness of miracles, but the importance of them for a wide, humane, and beautiful understanding of the world—one which leads to human flourishing.”

  3. Fertility is Not a Disease: D Eaton writes, “This desire to have sexual pleasure without constraint has culture suppressing the truth of not only biblical revelation but also science. To justify the extermination of the child, we must classify the child in the womb as either not a human in its natural course of existence or not alive. It is impossible to deny either scientifically, yet logic and truth must be sacrificed on the altar of sexual autonomy.”

  4. The Last Gift My Father Gave Me: This is an excellent piece from Mike Cosper. He shares how his father’s death allowed him to finally experience the gift of grief.

  5. Your Money Will Trick You: Trevin Wax reminds us, “Jesus says ‘Watch out!’ and ‘Be on guard’ as if there’s a silent, stealthy enemy creeping up on an unsuspecting person, ready to pounce. We like to think of wealth and possessions as inanimate objects, helpful to us if we use them correctly, but basically neutral.”

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Praying for Women with Unwanted Pregnancies

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Praying for Women with Unwanted Pregnancies

Several weeks ago I offered a prayer in the wake of the leaked decision that will likely overturn Roe v. Wade and send the determination of the limitations of abortion back to each state. I also pray for the many women who are fearful as they navigate unexpected and perhaps unwanted pregnancies. I pray for men who selfishly coerce their girlfriends and wives to have abortions. I pray for abusive men to repent and seek help. I pray for protection women who are in abusive relationships. Below is a slightly amended prayer for women who are struggling right now with these types of pregnancies. Would you continue to join me in prayer?

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