Christian Living, Culture, Politics, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Vulgar Authenticity

Who is your favorite celebrity? Your favorite political pundit? Your favorite politician?

Why are you drawn to these individuals? Maybe it is their personality. Perhaps it is because you respect their convictions. Possibly, it is because of their unique style.

Taylor Swift might be the most beloved celebrity in the world. Many have commented that one of the reasons that Swift has cultivated such a devoted following is her accessibility and down-to-earth qualities, from what she wears to the love stories she writes about in her music.

Vulgar Authenticity
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

Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.     This is About That: That Great video on the true meaning of marriage by Andrew Wilson.

2.     What Does Evangelism Look Like in Your Day-to-Day Life? Phil Miglioratti with a call to show and tell the gospel as we go.

3.     12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You:  Excerpt from Tony Reinke’s new book.  

4.     Coptic Christians Do the Unimaginable: The incredible testimony of the forgiveness of the Egyptian Christians.

5.     Marriage Wounds: Melissa Edgington with a compelling reflection on marriage, scars and beauty: "But, a few days ago I looked down and realized that somehow in the course of my work, my ring had gotten knocked against my finger and had left a small cut there, hidden underneath the beautiful gold, a scar on the delicate-looking redhead’s fair flesh of my left hand. I was surprised to see it there, because in all of these years of dealing with babies and a mother’s work, I never remember my ring doing such a thing. But, there it was. A wound inflicted by the very symbol of never-ending love between a man and a woman."

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.     Misspellings by State: What word does each state struggle to spell? Rhode Islanders struggle with liar. Four struggles struggle with pneumonia. Louisiana and Arkansas struggle with animals: the chihuahua and the giraffe. New Hampshirites concern me with their need know how to spell "diarrhea” frequently (note to self: next time, bring immodium) Most hilarious is perhaps the south, not doing itself any favors, needing help with the very difficult words: "angel," "gray," and "nanny."

2.     The Pervasive Selfie: Phil Cooke shares, "Teen Vogue magazine reports the average millennial focuses about one hour of every week to selfies. (Shooting them, editing them, retouching them.) Writer Matt LaBash reports that, “In 2015, the social scientists at Luster Premium White, a teeth-whitening brand, calculated that at their current selfie rate, your average millennial will take up to 25,700 selfies in a lifetime. Considering that the average lifespan is only around 27,375 days, that amounts to taking nearly one selfie per day, no small feat when subtracting all the years that people are too young or too old to operate a camera phone.”...The advertising magazine Adweek, indicates: 74% of all photos on Snapchat are selfies."

3.     If only I had been saved by merit! Tim Challies exposes our hearts, "If I had earned my salvation, I could negotiate with God for more favor, for more privileges, for more benefits. I could hold up my list of accomplishments and demand fair compensation. I could compare what has been given to others and make the case for why I am deserving of all that God has given them and more besides." 

4.     Six Things You Need to Know About God's Wrath: Colin Smith tackles this difficult but important topic: “At the core of the human problem is that we are sinners under the judgment of God, and the divine wrath hangs over us unless and until it is taken away.”

5.     The Shift in America's Morality: Christianity Today reports on a recent Gallup poll about America's ever-shifting morality: "Of the 19 issues queried about, Americans have become more liberal on 13 of them (with 10 hitting record highs) and stayed consistent on 6—most notably abortion, which 43 percent of Americans and 34 percent of Protestants deem morally acceptable."

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      Bob Newhart’s Six Minute Tutorial for Effective Counseling: This is an all-time family favorite, especially since my wife is a counselor. If you haven’t seen it, you’ve got to watch it. If you’ve already seen it, you can’t watch it too many times.

2.      More Than Mere Equality: Jonathan Leeman broaches the difficult topic of privilege, identity politics, and gospel peace. Leeman reflects the tension between justice and moral agency. On the one hand, “Biblical justice isn’t just a putting down of the oppressor. It is a lifting up of the oppressed and downtrodden.” On the other hand, "The bottom line here is: Identity politics, at its most careless, undermines moral agency."

3.      Disentangling Privilege: Andrew Wilson digs deeper into the topic of privilege and reflects on what he believes we should acknowledge is true about white privilege and what isn't.

4.      Check Your Privilege: Denny Burk also reflecting on Jonathan Leeman's piece says, "Obviously, these conclusions are squarely at odds with biblical teaching about guilt, justice, and reconciliation with God and with one another. And that is why we are going to have to give careful attention to the claims being made by proponents of identity politics."

5.      A Day in the Life of Americans: A mesmerizing infographic of how Americans spend their time during the day.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Cloud Inversion at the Grand Canyon: Breathtaking time lapse captures of wild cloud formations at the Grand Canyon.

2.       I Just Want Her to Be Happy: Leonard Sax speaks truth, " Today, I often hear American parents say, “I just want my child to be happy.” Unfortunately, when you let contemporary American kids do whatever makes them happy, the result is likely to be teenage girls who spend all their time on Instagram or Snapchat, and teenage boys whose favorite pastimes are video games and pornography... It is no use letting kids do whatever they desire unless you have first educated their desire. The first job of the parent is to educate the child’s desire... "

3.       What is Drawing People to Church? Gallup research surprisingly discovers the two biggest draws to church are biblical sermons and practical application in those sermons.

4.       The Type of Elder You Don’t Want: What is the most important attribute in an elder? Brian Dodd argues it is prayerfulness. 

5.       Embrace Your Purpose: Tim Challies with a similar reflection to my recent series “A Purposeful Life” " Men, this is your purpose: to bring glory to God by doing good for others. This means your life is not first about you. You’re not the point of your existence or the hero of your salvation. You were created by God and for God. You were saved to bring glory to God by doing good to others. This is your purpose." 

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Spring arrives at Central Park: perfectly orchestrated breathtaking short video.

2.       How to Raise Your Children as Best Friends: I was so grateful my sister was my best friend growing up and have been so blessed to watch our children grow up as each other's best friends. Jen Wilkin has a helpful reflection on how to cultivate that friendship.

3.       Living the Victorious Christian Life: Michael Bird on what victory in Christ looks like, "Remember, when Jesus hung upon that cross, he did not feel victorious, he felt abandoned, he felt betrayed, he experienced the full extent of human misery. And yet that is where we are told God has won his victory, his triumph, where he conquered the world, the flesh, and the devil."

4.       Schools Kill Creativity: this Ken Robinson TED talk has been watched over 45 million times and you should watch it too. I love his point that, because of our fear of being wrong, we grow out of creativity.

5.       Six Things You Need to Know About God's Wrath: Colin Smith tackles this difficult but important topic: “ At the core of the human problem is that we are sinners under the judgment of God, and the divine wrath hangs over us unless and until it is taken away.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Does Your Pastor Need Swag Seminary? Is your pastor out of style? Old? Outdated? Jon Crist takes his pastor to Swag Seminary. The results speak for themselves.

2.       What Learning Myths Do You Believe In? Illuminating quiz on learning myths. One helpful nugget: "Praising effort, rather than ability, is far more likely to motivate students to work hard and improve."

3.       When We Work and Rest: A mesmerizing infographic on how different industries work and rest during the day. 

4.       Things Your Wife Wishes You Knew: Courtney Reissig on what stay at moms want you to know.

5.       This American Life: Fermi’s Paradox: This American Life is always good. The last story on this episode asking the question “Are We Alone?” choked me up.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      Why Leaders Need to be Vulnerable: Patrick Lencioni with a great story of how to poorly ask for feedback and the benefits of real vulnerability. 

2.      Netflix’s Real Competitor: Tim Challies shares the haunting quote from the Netflix CEO that Amazon and HBO aren't their competition -- sleep is. “When you watch a show from Netflix and you get addicted to it, you stay up late at night. You really — we’re competing with sleep, on the margin. And so, it’s a very large pool of time.”

3.      A Word of Encouragement About Your Labor: Michael Kruger takes on an often misunderstood verse and explains that, then empowered by the Spirit, our good works are not "filthy rags."

4.      Don’t Spiritualize Ministry Mediocrity: David Prince on how some churches explain away their lack of excellence: "To put it another way, one who says that their commitment to the primacy of preaching, leads them to have little regard for the music, parking, greeting, signage, aesthetics, friendliness, hands-on ministry, evangelism, outreach, care-giving, announcements, and so on, is simply theologizing their laziness and apathy." 

5.      Darwin Was a Slacker and You Should Be Too: Long but thought-provoking article by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, which weaves anecdotes of prodigiously productive workers with scientific studies on productivity and concludes that schedules that include shorter, focused hours with time of rest make the most productive schedules.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      We’re Gonna Be Rich! This Snapple commercial makes me laugh out loud every time.

2.      The Five Biggest Little Ways to Improve Your Marriage. Shaunti Feldhahn shares ow the little things can transform your marriage.

3.      The Gospel in 140 Characters: My friend Benjamin Vrbicek shares the story of seeing a minivan with this message painted on its windows: "Heaven is for real, So is Hell! Jesus Christ is your only escape! Receive Him Today!!" He considers how that version of the gospel is deficient and suggests a better way to speak the gospel.

4.      I Don’t Think I Want to Be a Christian: How to talk to your teen who doesn't want to be a Christian any longer.

5.      The Pastor As Navigator: Stephen Calpine shares wise insights not just for pastors, but for Christians as well in walking through the tensions of extremes in the Christian life: “For just as Odysseus had to sail between the two great monsters, charting a course that minimised his losses, so too the pastoral task has to sail between competing extremes, that while good when sailed between, can threaten to crash ministry on their rocks if we sail too close to either side.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      How are Nature Documentaries Fake? What’s real and fake about nature documentaries.

2.      Is the Bible Good for Women? Wendy Alsup is a helpful guide: "Scripture first presents a story of humankind utterly dependent on God. Then it lays a foundation of male and female interdependence." 

3.      Reasons I’m Grateful to Have Married Young: Angel and I married at 21 and 19: with that came special joys and unique hardships. I resonated with Michael Kelley's reflections here.

4.      Who are these Unchurched Christians? According to Barna,10% of Americans love Jesus but not the church. Here is a capture of what this group looks like. 

5.    The Story Behind the Paper Bag: The woman who invented the underestimated paper bag.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      Barbarian Missionaries: When missions goes hilariously wrong. 

2.      Smart People Work Less: How not working more than 50 hours and not working on the weekends increases your productivity by Travis Bradberry. 

3.      Habakkuk’s Anti-Fragile Faith: Krish Kandiah talks about how God builds an anti-fragile faith in Habakkuk. 

4.      The Awkward Church: Richard Clark on why real community is awkward, and why that is good. 

5.      Get Rid of That Space: If you're still putting two spaces after a period, you're doing it wrong. Here's why.

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