Christmas, Theology, Advent, Church, Hospitality
John Beeson
The Faithfulness of God of the Manger

Recently we had someone over and as the night came to a close Angel warmly offered, “Let’s do this again soon!” I wilted as I processed just how many things were on our calendar in the coming month. Just like Angel did, I wanted to be with them again and soon, but her invitation made me flinch.

 

My wife Angel and I are very different people. Angel brings light and life everywhere. People are drawn to her, and she is drawn to people. One of the many things I love about Angel is how she gets caught up in a moment with people. In that space, it’s not unusual that she shares hopes with those we are with of spending more time together. And she means it: there is no doubt of her genuineness.

The Faithfulness of God of the Manger
Advent, Christmas, Theology
John Beeson
A Humble God?

“I don’t compare myself with anybody, but nobody is better.” Michael Jordan

“They say the sky’s the limit, but I think my potential is beyond it.” Jay-Z

“I won’t be happy until I’m as famous as God” Madonna

“I won’t be a rock star. I will be a legend.” Freddie Mercury

“We’re more popular than Jesus now.” John Lennon

We tend to expect that greatest among us are also some of the most arrogant. And why wouldn’t they be? For many who make it to the top of their field, we can see how that arrogance can be a driving force for their greatness.

A Humble God?
Christmas, Forgiveness, Theology
John Beeson
The Just and the Justifier

God became flesh.

Let that sink in. Christianity asserts that God—sovereign, immutable, omnipotent, other—the eternal God who has no beginning and end—became a human being.

 Because many of us have had exposure to Christianity from our early years, it is easy to miss how massive the theological implications of the incarnation are. The incarnation lays the groundwork for a God who chooses to participate in his creation. The incarnation denies the existence of an abstract and distant God, unmuddied by his handiwork.

The Just and the Justifier
Advent, Christmas, Theology
John Beeson
The Theology of the Manger

“God did not, as the Bible says, create man in his own image; on the contrary, man created God in his own image.” Ludwig Feuerbach dropped this theological bombshell three years before Friedrich Nietzsche’s birth. Feuerbach, a name forgotten by most, but who influenced Nietzsche, wrote these words in his book, The Essence of Christianity (1841). He argued that human beings project their own attributes and desires onto an imagined deity, creating God in their own image. This for Feuerbach, is the essence of Christianity (and indeed all religions), the deification of our human ideals. “What man wishes to be, he makes his God… God is the outward projection of a man’s inward nature.”

The Theology of the Manger
Death, Gratitude, Prayer, Suffering
John Beeson
Go To a Funeral

We Westerners avoid death.

 

When was the last time you walked through a cemetery? When was the last funeral you went to? Our churches no longer have cemeteries, those who are older head to retirement communities and then to head to long-term care or assisted care facilities. The number of funerals held in churches has diminished. Death has become professionalized, antisepticised, and remote.

Go To a Funeral

Exodus

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

    1. Suicide—when hope runs out: Jonathan Noyes, “Suicide rates have climbed 36 percent in the last 20 years, according to the Center for Disease Control.[4] Recent studies show that 13.6 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds have seriously contemplated ending their lives.”

    2. The real reason the unchurched do not attend (and what you can do about it):Sam Rainer with an article that ought to spur us to action, “The unchurched start attending regularly because of spiritual prompts: growing spiritually (32%) and God told me to go (20%). The spiritual prompt is coupled with the personal prompt. The unchurched also start attending regularly because someone invited them (22%) and a spouse wants them to go (17%).”

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Am I Good Enough?

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Am I Good Enough?

How good am I? Am I good enough?

We all wrestle with these questions in different ways and at different times. We reflexively answer these questions through comparison. How happy am I? How generous am I? How successful am I? How smart am I? We consider our family, friends, and neighbors and make an evaluation.

But if the age of social media has taught us anything, hasn’t it taught us how destructive comparison is? Hasn’t it shown us that comparison reveals the basest version of ourselves? Hasn’t social media taught us how fragile and finicky the rubric of comparison is?

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Shining Idols: Uncovering Them

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Shining Idols: Uncovering Them

What are the idols of your heart? What are the ways in which you have allowed your heart which is intended to worship God, to worship the golden calves that surround us? Where else have you placed your hope?

If you’re unsure of the answer to that question, perhaps one of these questions might help diagnose your heart. What keeps me up when I’m trying to sleep? What do I fear? What do I think about? What do I daydream about? What gets me most excited in life? What do I give myself to? What do I use my time for?

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Shining Idols: A Rejected Covenant

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Shining Idols: A Rejected Covenant

Is it possible idolatry might still be alive and well in us today?

I am currently in India, a land of a million gods. The first time I traveled to India, I was startled by how many altars and temples filled the land. Gods are layered upon gods: family gods, regional gods, and gods of healing and fertility. Devout Hindus, in search of hope, pour out their time and resources to god after god in hoping that one of these gods might be able to solve their health problems or financial woes.

This is the human condition, not a quirk of Indian culture. We want something tangible to place our hope in, and we want objects to worship.

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Shining Idols: What They Demand

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Shining Idols: What They Demand

Are you an idolater? I already lost you, didn’t I? Most wouldn’t raise their hand to affirm their idolatry.  

Idolatry doesn’t preach well to us 21st-century Westerners. A couple of years ago, I had someone leave the church after I preached on idolatry. “You preached for most of your sermon on the Old Testament, the law against Idolatry, and how might we be guilty of idolatry today,” she reflected. She said that the sermon didn’t connect with her and didn’t offer “spiritual encouragement.”

Oh, friends, the dangers we face when we think that biblical passages on idolatry don’t apply to us!

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That Isn’t a Toy!

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That Isn’t 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.

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Grumbling to Gratitude

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Grumbling to Gratitude

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a time where God’s powerful and miraculous hand was impossible to deny? Such were the days of the Israelites who lived during Moses’s lifetime.

The books of Exodus and Numbers track God’s miraculous rescue of Israel out of the clutches of centuries of Egyptian enslavement. God isn’t only going to rescue his people; he is taking them to the long-awaited Promised Land.

There is only one obstacle preventing Israel from escaping from Egypt and seizing the Promised Land. That obstacle isn’t Pharaoh and his massive army. It isn’t the imposing Red Sea. It isn’t even the entrenched Canaanite forces.

The only obstacle is the grumbling hearts of the Israelites.

The two words in Hebrew that are translated “grumble” are lun and ragan. Lun has the connotation of growling. Ragan has the connotation of whispered rebellion. The word in Greek that is translated as grumble is a fun word to say: gogguzo. The word sits in the back of your throat and you have to spit it out. Just for fun say it out loud now (a nice scowl makes it even better).

Each of these three words captures the state of each of our hearts in the midst of our grumbling. When we grumble we growl against God. Recently a congregant showed me the 22 stitches he received when a dog thought he was a threat. Like an angry dog who misperceives your kind intentions to pet it, we growl against our gentle and kind Heavenly Father wanting to love and care for us. When we grumble, we rebel against God’s rule. Our grumbling declares our distrust of God’s sovereign rule over our lives. “Not good enough!” we spit at the Almighty.

Forgetfulness

Forgetfulness

At this season, in this week, I have considered the heaviness of the scriptural accounts that indicate the forgetfulness of our human natures. My regular day-time job as a dispatcher has me running all over the place and I have to take notes on my computer lest I forget what it was that I was supposed to do or promised I would do later. Life in general can be like this regarding my walk with Christ if I am not careful.

One particular account can be read in Exodus. From Exodus 7 to 12 we are given a glimpse of the awesome power of God through the text in the punishment of Egypt. One can only imagine how the Israelites experienced all of these events.

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