Biblical Studies, Reading, Spiritual Growth, Wisdom, Worship
John Beeson
The Transforming Word

With a new year comes new resolutions: aspirations for improvement. If you could add just one discipline to your life, which one would make the most impact? Diet? Exercise? Meditation?

The answer might be reading the Bible.

If you think about, it’s not surprising that God’s Word is so transformative in our lives. Do you remember the first novel you cried when you read? Do you remember reading a book that changed the way you think about life? I have a distinct memory from seventh grade. A frayed paperback copy of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men shook in my hands as I wept over the final scene with George and Lennie.

The Transforming Word
Recommendations, Church, Death, Family, History, Vocation
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. The dignity of ordinary work: Alastair Herd says, “When researchers examined what actually predicts whether workers feel their jobs are useless, they discovered something profound. The strongest correlation was with a single factor: whether workers felt respected by their immediate manager.”

  2. What Martha’s problem really was: Cindy Matson asks, “But what if Martha’s problem didn’t have anything to do with hospitality or domestic chores? And what if you and I struggle like Martha far more often than we think?”

This Week's Recommendations
Gratitude, Reading, Recommendations, Vocation
John Beeson
The Best of the Bee Hive 2025

“Gracious words are like a honeycomb,
sweetness to the soul and health to the body.”

Proverbs 16:24

I write because I believe these words to my core. Following a forty day fast, Jesus responds to Satan’s temptation to turn loaves into bread, by quoting Moses’s admonition to the Israelites who had seen that very type of miracle every day for forty days, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4/Dt. 8:3).

Israel had depended on God’s miraculous hand to bring manna for forty years—what could be more important than this daily bread?

The Best of the Bee Hive 2025
Forgiveness, Identity, Counseling, Religion, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Your Heart Is Not a Toy

“That isn’t a toy!” parents warn a child playing with a knife or a hammer.

Pharaoh thought he could play a game with God and win. He lost.

Your heart is not a toy.

The story of God’s battle with Pharaoh in the book of Exodus is the story of the consequences of a hardened heart. It’s the story of someone who thought they could toy with God and with their heart. We cannot.

In the first five plagues, Pharaoh’s hardens his heart three times and his heart “is hardened” (it’s ambiguous who is doing the hardening) twice.

Your Heart Is Not a Toy
Recommendations, Christmas, Christian Living, Death, Music
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. The ghost of Christmas never: Samuel James with a poignant Christmas reflection, especially for young men. “Fear is powerful. It warps the mind and shrinks the soul. It can deform character, like in Scrooge, or elicit despair, like in George. Most of all, it freezes. Fear paralyzes its host, suggesting that the next step will undoubtedly be wrong, or the next word will come back to haunt.”

  2. Human weakness doesn’t limit God: Paul David Tripp reminds us, “Sometimes we make good-hearted promises that later we realize we are unable to keep. We know things need to get done, but we do not have the power or the wisdom to do them. There is nothing that God has promised to do or that we need him to do that he is unable to do. Nothing.”

This Week's Recommendations

History

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The dignity of ordinary work: Alastair Herd says, “When researchers examined what actually predicts whether workers feel their jobs are useless, they discovered something profound. The strongest correlation was with a single factor: whether workers felt respected by their immediate manager.”

  2. What Martha’s problem really was: Cindy Matson asks, “But what if Martha’s problem didn’t have anything to do with hospitality or domestic chores? And what if you and I struggle like Martha far more often than we think?”

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Semper Reformanda

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Semper Reformanda

This week, while many celebrate Halloween, Protestants reflect on a much more significant holiday: the start of the Reformation. In commemorating the Reformation, we don’t merely look back at an event that took place 500 years ago, but consider the spirit of reformation that we pray remains in us as followers of Jesus Christ. Ecclesia semper reformanda est: “The church must always be reformed.” It is the unofficial motto of the Protestant church.

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his document, the 95 Theses, to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg. For that reason, October 31st is still celebrated as Reformation Day by Protestants.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. How do I help someone see their anger when they can’t see it themselves? Ed Welch answers, “It’s difficult for at least two reasons. One is that angry people tend not to see their anger as a problem, because anger tends to feel like a righteous reaction against some kind of injustice. Another is that angry people, they can combust in a moment.” 

  2. How were the biblical Psalms originally performed? Marek Dospel asks, “How much do we really know about how biblical psalms were originally performed? What might a psalm performance have looked like in the First Temple period, around 900 B.C.E.?” 

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Preaching and Perspicuity

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Preaching and Perspicuity

Monosyllabic.

Inflammable.

Abbreviation.

Phonetically.

Every one of these words are ironic. Monosyllabic means one syllable but contains five syllables. Inflammable means “easy to catch fire,” but looks like it means the opposite (not flammable). Abbreviation is not an abbreviation. And don’t phonetically should be spelled funetically, don’t you think?

Perspicuity means clarity or “ease of understanding” and yet isn’t very easy to understand. We’ll return to that later.

Roman Catholic theologians during the Middle Ages argued that the scripture was not perspicuous. Scripture was too veiled and obscure for the average person to understand, they contended.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Take a closer look at Noah’s ark: Pete Lee says, “An analysis of its design indicates that the ark represents three things: a microcosm of creation, a temple-home, and an emblem of resurrection.”

  2. God is everywhere, why go to church? James Williams says, “Of course we can meet with God anywhere, but is that a good reason to dismiss ourselves from a local church? Thankfully, God’s word isn't silent.”

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Does Systemic Sin Exist?

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Does Systemic Sin Exist?

Is America racist? I’m aware that the question itself likely creates a strong emotional reaction in you. But, if we set aside our temptation to make that question a political question and take our cues from scripture instead of political pundits, there is much we can learn from the question. Before we can answer the question, we have to ask an underlying question: does systemic sin exist?

In other words, is sin just an individual problem or are there elements of sin that are corporate in nature? Does the way a country organizes its government, for instance, have sin imbedded in its design?

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. When God says now: Christopher Cook says, “I understand the hesitation, but you and I need discernment for this hour. We are being called to submit. Our job is not to assess our readiness (according to our perspective). It is to step forward with clean hands, a yielded spirit, and a heart tethered to the will of the Father.”

  2. The secret things: Andrea Sanborn concludes, “Someday we’ll know the secret things that our mortality can’t fathom. “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known”, as the Apostle Paul explained it. But for now, it’s okay to rest in wonder. Because wonder, in the end, is worship.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. If I could change anything about the modern church: I won’t spoil Tim Challies’s recommendation, but it will likely surprise you.

  2. How to make friends in college (or anywhere): Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra explains, “Between 2003 and 2023, in-person socializing among those aged 15 to 24 dropped by more than 35 percent, Thompson reported. Younger millennials and Gen Z are less likely than previous generations were to go out without their parents, go on dates, get their driver’s licenses, try alcohol, and work for pay.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Who are the sons of God in Genesis 6? William Cook navigates one of the most difficult passages in scripture, “The crucial question concerns whether the phrase refers to human beings or to spiritual beings (demons).”

  2. iPhones, idolatry, and evil spirits: Casey McCall sees echoes of the golden calf in our cell phones today, “It’s just metal and wires and plastic, the fruit of human ingenuity. The products of Silicon Valley seem to be at the opposite end of the supernatural spectrum compared to golden calves and pagan temples created specifically for worship. And yet, nearly half of American teenagers say they’re online “almost constantly.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. God brings us bad to bring us best: Joni Eareckson Tada, “When God lobs a hand grenade into life and rattles our faith to the core, we wonder how he’ll work the pieces of shrapnel together for our good. What does good mean, anyway?”

  2. Why we should expect witnesses to disagree: J. Warner Wallace, former cold-case detective explains, “I spent the first nine years of my career investigating crimes as a committed atheist. Even then, I would have approved the notion that witnesses who fail to agree on every detail, raise as many questions as they seem to answer and are inaccurate in some detail of the event, could still be trusted as reliable eyewitnesses.

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