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

Gallup

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Why Are We All So Anxious?

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Why Are We All So Anxious?

Gallup recently reported that, “The percentage of U.S. adults who report having been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lifetime has reached 29.0%, nearly 10 percentage points higher than in 2015. The percentage of Americans who currently have or are being treated for depression has also increased, to 17.8%, up about seven points over the same period. Both rates are the highest recorded by Gallup since it began measuring depression using the current form of data collection in 2015.”

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Paul's Advice To a College Freshman

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Paul's Advice To a College Freshman

Today, I hand this space over to my daughter, Camille, a rising junior in college. I asked Camille what advice she would offer to those who are making the jump from high school to college. Even if it doesn’t apply to you, I bet you’ll be interested in what she has to say.

-John

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

LGBTQ+ population grows, especially among Gen Z: Aaron Earls reports, “When Gallup first measured LGBTQ+ identification in the U.S., 3.5% claimed a non-straight label in 2012. By 2020, 5.6% identified as such. That jumped to 7.1% in 2021 and has increased incrementally since then—7.2% in 2022 and 7.6% in 2023.”

  1. Can we forgive when the offender doesn’t repent? Mike Wittmer’s response is nuanced and wise, “Forgiveness is excruciating. Who wants to pardon the perpetrator who maliciously wounded us? Forgiveness can also be confusing. What should we do when the person who wronged us doesn’t repent? He doesn’t own what he did, say he’s sorry, and mean it. What then?”

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An Upstream Community

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An Upstream Community

Last fall we came home from a vacation on a dry day to water streaming down the window pane of our downstairs den in our split-level home. Oh dear.

 

Four months later our Humpty Dumpty house was put back together again. The burst pipe was repaired, the water and mold damage remediated, and the walls and flooring torn out and redone. It turns out that our home didn’t have a pressure regulating valve that would have prevented a massive spike in water pressure causing the pipe to burst. A $150 part could have saved us thousands of dollars in damage.

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You Don't Trust Me. What Now?

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You Don't Trust Me. What Now?

The world doesn’t trust me. It doesn’t trust you either. But don’t lose heart. Christ has overcome the world. And he calls us into the world with the assurance of his presence and his power. May we live in a manner that reflects his light to this dark world. Daniel promises that, “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” May we shine for his glory, entrusting our reputation to God and God alone.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. May a Christian Gamble? Jim Newheiser warns, “Gambling is an attempt to circumvent God’s way of gaining wealth. Even if you do not expect to become wealthy personally through gambling, you are participating in a system that undermines the work ethic of our entire society.”

  2. Public Trust in Pastors Falls to Historic Lows: Aaron Earls reports, “Trust in pastors fell for the third straight year and reached an all-time low. Around 1 in 3 Americans (34%) rate the honesty and ethical standards of clergy as high or very high, according to the latest Gallup survey.”

  3. Not Enough of Me to Go Around: Kristen Wetherel reflects, “I want so badly to “help [everyone] when [they want me to].” I have told my daughter that I’m not an octopus—but boy, do I wish I was. (At least in the sense of having eight capacities at once. I do not wish to become a sea creature with tentacles rather than arms…).”

  4. Why Should I Forgive? Guy Richards confesses, “Deep down inside, I don’t really want to forgive my wife, my son, or my co-worker—at least not initially. I want instead to hold on to my anger and pride, knowing that I really was right all along. I want to prop up my feelings of superiority and self-respect and to feel vindicated for acting the way that I did.”

  5. Local Man Crushing Bible-in-a-Year Plan After Switching to Jesus Storybook Bible: Funny stuff from the Babylon Bee.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Church Membership Falls Below 50% for the First Time: The latest Gallup poll reveals that only 47% of Americans report being part of a church, synagogue, or mosque. That number was at 70% in 1999. Meanwhile, the number of Americans who express no religious affiliation is on the rise, “Over the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 13% in 2008-2010 and 21% over the past three years.”

2. Why You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat it in the Church: Stephen Kneale explains how a recent dust up at Buckingham Palace relates to the Christian life.

3. How the Bible Defines Anxiety: We are an anxious creatures. The Bible offers wisdom and hope for our anxiety. Cory Brock explains. “Anxiety is not mere concern. It is not the type of fear that helps us survive in a dangerous situation. It is not concern for the moment that we put our sixteen-year-old behind the wheel for the first time or for our sick child’s health. Rather, it is an ongoing, fearful restlessness wherein we imagine hypothetical circumstances of loss.”

4. No Bitter Root: Glenna Marshall’s article on bitterness made me pause to consider my own heart and the ways bitterness has grown up unawares. She reminds us that “bitterness doesn’t need my attention to grow.” You’ll appreciate her illuminating analogy.

5. I Met Messiah: A powerful (and funny) testimony of how Andrew Klavan met Jesus.

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New Year's Eve Recommendations

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New Year's Eve Recommendations

1. Mental Health Declines Among Americans, Except Weekly Churchgoers: Fascinating study by Gallup that Aaron Earls explains. He says that, “Those describing their mental health as excellent has been between 42% and 51% since 2001. In 2020, that fell to 34%.”

2. Are We Experiencing Another Reformation? George Barna says that based on a new survey, “’American Christians are undergoing a post-Christian Reformation,’ says Dr. George Barna, Director of Research at the CRC. Unlike the Protestant Reformation was to return to the foundational teachings of the Bible, this modern movement is one where Americans are redefining biblical beliefs according to secular values.”

3. Should Christians Use the Enneagram? This is a well-balanced article by Tyler Zach, who shares some fascinating history of the Enneagram and concludes, “After decades of the church deploying reason-based apologetics, the door is wide open for us to use a self-awareness tool like the Enneagram to connect hearts and minds within a culture that has split itself.”

4. Pornhub Removes Majority of Videos: Fantastic news as the anti-trafficking ministry Exodus Cry has taken on the pornography giant. A recent expose by the New York Times revealed that, “Videos of assault involving underage girls, rape, and other exploitative content continue to be posted and reposted on the user-generated porn site, and the company is not doing enough to stop it.”

5. A Friend Who Sticks Closer Than… a Hobbit? Carissa Jones with a wonderful post on friendship and hobbits. She concludes, “We need those friends in our lives. Those who will carry us to the throne room when we are too weak and weary to take ourselves. We need to be those friends as well, sharing others' burdens when we can and lifting them up when we cannot. And when we've reached the end of our earthly journeys, may we look at our friends and proclaim, ‘I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things.’”

6. The Gentle Tug of Spiritual Disciplines: Craig Thompson reflects on how the tug of spiritual disciplines is different than the tug of his dog, “Toby makes sure that he is the center of my attention when he needs something. The Lord tends to call to us in small whispers. Listen carefully. Your spiritual disciplines may never demand your attention. But they do promise rest and communion with the Lord if you will just slow down.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. Loose Change: I appreciated this reflection on the author’s grandfather with a memorable spiritual lesson.

2. It is Well With Me: Finding Peace in My Suffering: My friend Brie Barrier shares her story riddled with suffering, “Ten years ago, I remember laying in a hospital bed with a serious case of pneumonia. Every breath hurt. In fact, everything hurt…and I was terrified. I dare you to find anything more frightening than fighting for a breath that won’t come.”

3. Three Leadership Lessons for All of Us: Brianna Lambert draws leadership lessons from the book of Deuteronomy. Her first is, “Leaders steep their followers in the past.”

4. Americans’ Confidence in the Church Raises for the First Time in Seven Years: This is encouraging news from Gallup.

5. How Does Google’s Monopoly Hurt You? Thanks to Tim Challies for this recommendation. This is disconcerting, to say the least. One can only hope if Google continues to betray trust at this level that a true competitor will emerge.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       4 Mistakes Parents Make With Technology: Jeff Henderson, " The reason many kids are addicted to technology is because their parents are."

2.       A Parenting Roadmap for Social Media: Jeff and Wendy Henderson begin by reminding us, " Great parenting isn’t controlling. Great parenting is coaching."

3.       4 Reasons to Stop Grumbling: Cass Watson says that simply not grumbling is a powerful witness: " Because complaining is so rampant in the “crooked and twisted generation” around us, our cheerfulness will make us witnesses to the truth. "

4.       Americans Vastly Overestimate LGBT Population: There have been a few studies on this. It's important to right-size our understanding of different populations. " A recent Gallup survey found that on average U.S. adults believe 23.6% of their fellow Americans are gay or lesbian." However, " In Gallup’s most recent survey on the subject, 4.5% of Americans personally identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender."

5.       A Liberating Verse About God's Will: Eric Geiger encourages us to rethink God's will in light of Eden, "God’s desire was for Adam and Eve to not eat from one tree, but there was a lot of freedom beyond that. God did not say, ‘On Monday and Wednesday mornings you eat from the apple tree and on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, you eat from the avocado tree but only during odd months.’"

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