Death, Easter, Heaven
John Beeson
The Resurrection of Jesus: An Eyewitness Account

Happy Easter!

Today we consider the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. What follows is a compilation of the eyewitness resurrection accounts of Jesus Christ as told by the authors of the gospels. They have been edited together to maintain the flow of the narrative and do not include Jesus’ multiple appearances following his resurrection. The accounts are framed by Paul’s extended reflection on the importance of the resurrection.

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

The Resurrection of Jesus: An Eyewitness Account
Recommendations, Easter, Death, Heaven, Nature
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Eagles, fowl, and a Savior with wings: Kevin Burrell’s post makes my heart sing, “And a living, risen savior is still our covering today, to all those who by faith trust in his wings. In fact, we are clothed in his righteousness. He is oh-so willing to gather us under his wings.”

  2. Even to death: Jamaal Williams invites us to consider Jesus at the Mount of Olives, “Jesus models what it looks like to stumble into the presence of God—hurting but hopeful.”

This Week's Recommendations
Easter, Death, Heaven, Hell
John Beeson
The Crucifixion of Jesus: An Eyewitness Account

On this Tuesday of Holy Week, we consider the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. What follows is a compilation of the eyewitness crucifixion accounts of Jesus Christ as told by the four authors of the gospels. They have been edited together to maintain the flow of the narrative. The accounts are framed by the words of the 8th century BC prophet, Isaiah. On Sunday I will share the resurrection account of Jesus from the eyewitnesses.

The Crucifixion of Jesus: An Eyewitness Account
Christian Living, Church, Finance, Generosity
John Beeson
Why We Should Give to Financially Mismanaged ...

In 2007, the House Committee on Oversight investigated the “Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes and Help Hospitalized Veterans.” Something was seriously wrong with CEO Roger Chapin’s leadership (and it wasn’t just the absurdly long name of the charity). Chapin had raised nearly $170 million between 2004 and 2006, but only 25% of the money reached veterans. Over $125 million was funneled to Chapin and his cronies.

 

Whether at a national or local level, we don’t have to look long and hard for mismanagement of donations. There is nothing that breaks the trust of a donor more than seeing their hard-earned dollars misspent. We should care about where our giving goes. Churches ought to lead the way in financial transparency and accountability.

Why We Should Give to Financially Mismanaged Organizations
Recommendations, Nature, Evangelism, Parenting
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. 6 discouraging trends in global Christianity: Aaron Earls reports, “While Christianity continues to grow, Islamic growth continues to outpace the church’s growth. Christianity slightly outpaced the global rate of population growth (0.98% v. 0.88%), but Islam grew even faster (1.67%).”

  2. Wikipedia founder embraces Christianity: Trevin Wax reflects on Larry Sanger’s conversion, “Considering how many people are curious about the Bible these days, the increase in Bible sales, the interest in various philosophers and commentators providing their takes on the Scriptures,

This Week's Recommendations

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  1. Love One Another: Local leader and life advocate Matt Merrill writes, “My encouragement for this moment is to consider not perpetuating the sin of devaluing the life of the person who is arguing contrary.”

  2. Did Jesus Tell us to Give to Every Panhandler: John Piper handles this question with appropriate nuance. “Here’s a daily scenario. You’re sitting in your car at a stoplight. Someone approaches your window to ask for money or food. You sit facing forward, ignoring them to focus on the traffic light ahead, until you finally drive off. Every time I do this, something doesn’t feel right here, especially with regards to Luke 6:30 — we should give to everyone who asks.”

  3. I am Just Tired! Sacha Alexandre Mendes unpacks a seemingly mundane topic with great depth, “In your life and ministry experience, you will face weariness. Therefore, it is vital to develop a biblical understanding of tiredness, its scope, and its impact on your life and ministry.”

  4. 5 New Stats You Should Know about Teens and Social Media: Chris Martin shares some enlightening information. For instance, “It’s not hyperbolic to say that YouTube is the most influential—and, therefore, the most important—website in the world. It’s used by almost every single teen in the country, and as of Pew’s latest research of U.S. adults in 2021, it’s also used by 81 percent of all adults. YouTube is king of the social media world…”

  5. The Bible Tells Us the Rest of the Story About Who We Are: David Mobley shares a Francis Schaeffer analogy: “Now, imagine having that set of page fragments, and then finding the remaining portion of all of the pages from the book somewhere, perhaps in the attic. By taking the newly discovered set of page fragments and placing them together with the pages you already have, you would be able to complete the book. It would be easy to tell that the remaining portions match the fragments, because taken together they complete the story. And once the story is completed, you could read the whole story and finally make sense of the whole book.”

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  1. I Despise My Sufferings, and I’m So Thankful For Them: Sarah Walton begins, “The hours, days, and years that I’ve spent waiting, praying, weeping, and wrestling with “why” – they are too many to count. These memories – these profound moments of heartbreak, helplessness, and horror – they’ve changed every part of who I am.”

  2. The Commandment We Forgot: Honoring the Dishonorable: Tim Challies asks how do we honor parents who don’t deserve honor. He asks, “But what about people who were adopted and never knew their birth parents? What about people who had difficult or absent or abusive parents? What about people whose parents behaved in utterly dishonorable ways? Does this debt of honor extend even to them? In all the feedback I’ve received from this series, more has focused on these concerns than any other. “Do you really expect me to honor my parents? Let me tell you about them…””

  3. 60 Questions for Pro-Choice Christians: Jamie Wilder says, “With that I have 60 questions for any Christian who identifies as pro-choice. These are not meant to be dismissive, snarky, or rhetorical. They are much more helpful than calling an entire segment of people ‘bigots’ or ‘baby murderers.’”

  4. Gen Z Mental Health Crisis: How Pastors Can Make a Difference: Jamieson Taylor and Kevin Singer report, “Nearly half of young people (48%) say they’re moderately or extremely depressed.”

  5. Fighting False Guilt: Jared Mellinger explains, “Guilt is a burden that many believers carry every day. It is the soundtrack in our minds, the white noise relentlessly hissing in our ears. Persistent guilt afflicts the insecure and the confident alike.”

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  1. The Thing About ‘Light and Momentary’: I found Tim Challies’s reflections on suffering to be very helpful. He begins, “They are words that can be tremendously encouraging or tremendously discouraging. Said at the wrong time or in the wrong spirit they can compound hurt, but said at the right time and in the right spirit they can be a cool drink on a hot day, a soothing balm on a sore wound.”

  2. The Church’s Role in Making Abortion Unthinkable and Unnecessary: Jen Oshman shares, “Studies show that for women who have an abortion, their suicidality increases by 155 percent. Studies also show that about 80 percent of women would not have chosen abortion if they had felt more supported. So my call to the church, then, is How can we seek life? How can we come alongside vulnerable women, vulnerable children, vulnerable families, and how can we be people who help them seek life? How can we be a culture that makes abortion not only unthinkable, but unnecessary—just something that’s not even on the agenda because we are a church and a people in a community that comes around the vulnerable population?”

  3. Killing Goliath: My friend and fellow pastor at New Life, Dustin DeJong, helps adjust the way we read a familiar story. “We assume we’re David but we aren’t. You aren’t David and Goliath isn’t some problem to be solved.”

  4. My Reconstructed Faith: Philip Ryan says, “Over the past two years, we have all seen and listened to many stories of deconstruction from authors, musicians, and even YouTube personalities. Sadly, these stories are celebrated even by some Christians — the same Christians who then mock those who raised alarm over deconstruction. What I don’t often hear are stories of those who have reconstructed their faith.”

  5. A Nobody in One Country, Famous in the Next: Darryl Dash with a real story that relates profoundly to us: “Sixto Rodriguez was a nobody. He’d tried to establish a career as a musician, but it went nowhere. He showed lots of promise and had sold a handful of records, but his record label dropped him and then closed. He was working on a third album at the time, but it was never released.”

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  1. How I Would Explain a Christian View of Trans-Genderism to a Non-Christian: Samuel James takes on this loaded topic. He says, “Our broken, sinful world facilitates the deepest kind of frustration and shame toward our own bodies.”

  2. An Open Letter to a Young Woman Contemplating an Abortion: Leah Savas’s article is a must-read. She says, “You’re not an accident, and neither is that baby inside of you. A Creator formed you and formed your baby with the same intentionality that your grandma has when she knits a pair of mittens.”

  3. Four Guidelines for Dating Without Regrets: Simple wisdom from Tim Challies. “Stop acting like you’re married when you’re not. We tend to see exclusive dating relationships as quasi-marriages in which couples quickly become strongly entangled emotionally, romantically, and even physically.”

  4. What Does “Heap Burning Coals On His Head” Mean? Interesting stuff from Steve Cornell. He considers five possible interpretations of this verse.

  5. Before You Pack Up and Leave: Tim Challies offers counsel to someone considering leaving a church. He asks, “[W]hat should you do when you begin feeling discontent at your church? What should you do when you feel that yearning to pick up and move on? What should you do when you find yourself eager to slip out of one church and into another? I’d like to offer just a few suggestions that I hope you’ll consider and put into practice.”

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  1. Why the Search for the Church that Meets Your Needs is Futile: Carey Nieuwhof asks, “Should the criteria of a church meeting your needs be the reason you change churches? Well, what if the church was never intended to meet your needs? What if the furthest thing from God’s mind when he created the church was to meet your needs?”

  2. Why You Should Name and Feel Even Negative Emotions: Lara D’Entremont reflects, “I rarely dealt with or named my emotions—at least not the “negative” ones. They had to be killed, banished, ignored, and stuffed. I learned this from both Christian circles (like the counselor above) and my own fears. I didn’t want others to see my emotions. Negative emotions always equaled sin and weakness in my mind, a reason for people to look down their noses at me. So I tried to kill my negative feelings with kindness—or gratitude. But what if there’s goodness in every emotion—even in the ones we don’t like so much?”

  3. Expressive Individualism and the Death of Mental “Illness” Samuel James’s point is worth considering. He says, “Here’s one guess: Personality profiling is the last politically-acceptable way of receiving an identity, rather than crafting one. And many people today are weary of crafting their own custom identity and would very much like to belong to something instead.”

  4. Prayers That God Will Not Answer: Tim Challies begins, “There are times when it seems like God does not hear us. There are times when it seems like God has become deaf to our prayers and unresponsive to our cries. There are times when we seek but do not find, knock but do not find the door opened. Why is it that God sometimes does not answer our prayers?”

  5. Beneath Our Social Justice Strife: Thaddeus Williams has four questions for both sides. He begins, “Over the last five years, the topic of social justice has become something of a jackhammer in some churches, reducing congregations to rubble, shaking denominations, even fracturing fellowship between old friends. Online cloisters have formed in which anyone to our left must be a social-justice-warrior snowflake or a neo-Marxist. And, in other cloisters, anyone to our right is probably a white supremacist or a neo-Nazi. Meanwhile, the exhausted majority feels caught in the crossfire, hoping for some new way forward.”

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  1. An Open Letter to Those Nearing Retirement: John Dunlap’s letter is simple and rich. “For years I have given my retiring patients two simple rules for retiring well: Wake up every morning knowing what you are going to do that day. Go to bed every night knowing that someone else was helped.”

  2. The Man in the Mirror: My friend Dustin DeJong’s post on shame is excellent. He says, “When I force my eyes to meet their reflection, it’s not my eyes I see. It’s my shame: what I’ve done and who I’ve become. It’s what these eyes have seen, these ears have heard, these hands have done. There are decades of regret behind those eyes. It’s the feeling of 20+ years of sexual struggles.”

  3. Wounds in Beauty Glorified: Mitch Chase responds to the question: “Why did Jesus’ resurrected body bear wounds of his crucifixion?” His third reason is, “Third, the visible marks on Jesus’s risen body were not evidence of failure but were a display of victory.”

  4. Harry Emerson Fosdick and the Spirit of American Liberalism: You likely don’t know Fosdick’s name, but Kevin DeYoung shares why it is worth knowing. A drift to spiritualism and liberalism is nothing new. Fosdick preached, “’God keep us,’ he exhorted in the last line of his sermon, ‘intellectually hospitable, open-minded, liberty-loving, fair, tolerant, not with the tolerance of indifference as though we did not care about the faith, but because always our major emphasis is upon the weightier matters of the law.’”

  5. Grief is Not the Enemy: Travis writes, “Like love or joy or hope, grief is not less than an emotion, but it is also much more. And certainly, love and joy are tightly connected with grief. We cannot truly grieve something or someone unless we love them first and take joy in them. It would be natural to think of grief as the opposite of joy, or the absence of love, but that’s not quite right.”

  6. Fantastic Fireflies: Fantastic indeed!

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  1. A Call to Raise Daughters Wise to Domestic Abuse: Excellent article by Jeremy Pierre. He begins, “’If your future husband ever lays a finger on you, you better tell me so I can kill him.’ This is the extent to which many dads address abuse with their daughters. It feels effective because it’s simple, protective, and tough. And it also feels kind of awesome to say.

  2. Loving With a Limp: Chris Thomas writes, “Maybe, like Jacob, an encounter with God will leave you living life with a limp, serving with a limp, worshiping with a limp; loving with a limp.”

  3. Cords Have Memory: Lauren Washer likens the memory of electrical cords with our inner lives. “Our inner lives have a similar type of cord memory. We inherit ideas, values, and belief systems from our families, faith backgrounds, and cultural surroundings. Many of these are good and right. But sometimes, the way we’ve always done things or thought about things, isn’t good.”

  4. Bend Me Toward the Light: Glenna Marshall says, “When I find myself spending copious amounts of time pursuing distractions, my prayer has become one of crooked house plants and branchy, horizontal azaleas: “Lord, bend me toward the Light.” Distractions are just that—distractions. We aren’t meant to spend our time and mental margin on things that do not feed our souls. We’ll wither up and die without spiritual nourishment, especially if our flesh is yearning for what the world offers”

  5. The Anatomy of an Apology: Justin Hale responds to this question, “I recently did something hurtful to a family member. Shortly afterward, I said I was sorry but the person didn’t seem to accept my apology. I’ve tried to reach out but they are giving me a bit of a “cold shoulder.” They still seem bugged about what I did. I feel like I’ve done my part and now it’s up to them to accept the apology. Should I be looking at this differently?”

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  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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  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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