Christian Living, Culture, Death, Fear
John Beeson
What Spooks You?

Across the street from our home is the holiday house. You probably have one in your neighborhood. They go all out for every holiday. On Saturday, cars stacked up on the main road leading into the neighborhood as families drove by slowly, taking in the massive display that must have cost the owners thousands of dollars.

 

Last week I drove by a home whose Halloween decorations weren’t as massive or ostentatious, but the lawn display was undoubtedly the eeriest I’ve ever seen. A life-like severed head hung from a tree limb. A decapitated corpse with a visible spinal cord jutting out between slumped shoulders sat underneath.

What Spooks You?
Christian Living, Culture, Fear, Wisdom
John Beeson
The Temptation of Temptation

In 2023, 46 horror movies were released. 75 million tickets were sold, and the industry made $798 million in domestic revenue alone. It’s been argued that horror movies remain a draw for many in the contemporary West because there is so little actual danger in most of our lives.

 

Atheist Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature argues that we live in the most peaceful era of human existence: wars have decreased, human rights have expanded, and rates of starvation and lifespans have improved. Drawn to conflict, we now have access to global news coverage, which gives us the dopamine hit of feeling like we are in conflict.

The Temptation of Temptation
Christian Living, Fear, Spiritual Growth, Wisdom
John Beeson
Night

What attracts us so much to the dark?

In the story of Swan Lake, a ballet by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Prince Siegfried falls in love with Odette (who has been cursed by the evil magician, Von Rothbart), after happening upon her at the lake one night during a hunting trip.  As a result of Von Rothbart's curse, Odette is human only at nightfall, for at daybreak she transforms into a swan.  True and faithful love is the only thing that can break the curse, and Siegfried aims to marry Odette, proclaiming such love, at a ball his mother is throwing for his birthday. 

Night
Christian Living, Death, Heaven, Religion, Spiritual Growth, Worship
John Beeson
How Changing Your View of Heaven Transforms the ...

In 2003, Bart Millard still mourning his father’s recent death, penned the lyrics for “I Can Only Imagine,” a song that would go on to be the most-played song in the history of Christian radio.

Can you imagine what heaven is going to be like?

There are lots of different views of heaven out there. A couple of decades ago a cottage industry developed, selling stories of those who said they had been to heaven while on death’s doorstep. We’re told of bright lights, lives re-played, and a warm glow. Others might daydream of harps and clouds, when asked to imagine heaven.

How Changing Your View of Heaven Transforms the Way You Live Today
Identity, Counseling, Culture, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
One Year Old!

On October 17, 2023, we (my wife Angel and I) released our first book, Trading Faces. With around four million books published annually (one for every resident of Oklahoma!), an author can feel as though they’re contributing a grain of sand to a beach. And there is truth to that! As the Preacher wisely reminds us in Ecclesiastes,

Is there a thing of which it is said,
    “See, this is new”?
It has been already
    in the ages before us. (Eccl. 1:10)

One Year Old!

evil

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. What Is the Unforgivable Sin? How to Know if You’ve Committed It: Clear and concise explanation by Murray J. Harris. Harris compares the two different references to the unforgivable sin. He concludes, “In sum, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable, not because God is unwilling to forgive but because the repentance that is the necessary precondition for God’s forgiveness is absent. The heart has become so hardened that no need for repentance is recognized, and so no request for forgiveness is offered.”

2. Why Sexual Immorality is a Big Deal: Darryl Burling begins, “Western society argues that the human body is insignificant. We are told that our bodies are of no value in determining identity and that sex is purely a physical need—of no significance to our personhood.”

3. Only the Christian Faith Begins at the Top: Tim Challies with an astute observation, “A plumb line hangs from a point that has been fixed above it. As long as the laws of gravity remain intact, that line will always hang perfectly straight so that whatever parallels it will be equally straight…But imagine if the builder of that tower had taken that same line and anchored it below instead of above.”

4. What Do You Pick Up From Your Pastor’s Preaching? It’s true, isn’t it, that you pick up on what stirs your pastor’s heart? What do you pick up from my heart?

5. How to Respond to the Problem of Evil: In this brief video Greg Koukl illuminates why the existence of evil supports the existence of God.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

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Evil and the Justice of God by NT Wright

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Evil and the Justice of God by NT Wright

After NT Wright completed his seminal work on the resurrection of Jesus: The Resurrection of the Son of God he planned on writing a follow-up on the crucifixion of Christ (what would eventually be The Day the Revolution Began). As he prepared to write that book, tragedy struck as 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners and flew them into civilian targets on the Eastern seaboard of the US. Wright realized he needed to write a book on the problem of evil before he dealt with the cross. This thin (less than 170 page) volume Evil and the Justice of God is Wright’s contribution on the subject of evil and God.

Wright’s book is neither primarily a pastoral nor a philosophical reflection on the problem of evil. It deals with the problem primarily from a cultural and biblical perspective. Wright speaks with such ease, you feel as though you’re sitting with a cup of tea in hand in his living room. This both warmly draws the reader in, but can at times give one the sense that the material is ad hoc and is not as well thought out as one would hope.

The encroachment of evil in the contemporary world has been a significant problem, and yet, Wright notes, it “seems to have taken many people, not least politicians and the media, by surprise.” This is because our cultural philosophy has no answer for evil. Wright identifies that cultural philosophy in one word: progress. What is new, no, what is next holds the highest value (look no further than our cultural worship of youth).

And yet, we should have learned that progress provided no real answers for our hardest questions. How, in light of Auschwitz, could we still be anchored by a philosophical mooring as weak as progress? Our answer has been to project evil outward: to the other, to society, to politics. But a culture of blame is no real solution.

Enter postmodernity, where cynicism reigns: “nothing will get better and there’s nothing you can do about it.” But that is no solution. Worse still, “postmodernity allows for no redemption. There is no way out, no chance of repentance and restoration, no way back to the solid ground of truth from the quicksands of deconstruction.”

Modernism did away with Satan and evil, but the burden of proof lies on the modernist to defend their tenuous construal of reality.

What does the God of the Bible do about evil? Wright takes us on a biblical tour to answer that question.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       3-2-1 Animated Gospel Presentation: A simple five and a half minute gospel presentation by Glen Scrivener. It is clear, thorough, and compelling. I encourage you to watch it and consider using it yourself. 

2.       Why the Internet will Strengthen, Not Hurt the Church: Paul Alexander reflects that "When YouVersion launched there were 12 versions of the Bible available in 2 languages. Today there are more than 1,200 versions of the Bible available in more than 900 languages! YouVersion is working to make God’s Word available to every person on Earth, no matter where they live or what language they prefer."

3.       7 Things Evil is Not: What the Death of My Son Taught Me: This weighty piece by Khaldoun Sweis is worth reading whether you are struggling with suffering or in a time of peace. He shares, "I held my son Enoch’s little hand as he died, and went through a suffering that no words could express. A perpetually wounded heart that would not mend, a broken body for which there is no antidote, or a destroyed home that can never be the same…There are more books and articles on this topic than any other in theology. But because it is so personal, we need to be reminded of the simple truths about it."

4.       Lies About Cultural Awareness: Jared Olivetti, over at Gentle Reformation, elaborates on these four lies: Lie #1 – You can understand a complex subject in a very brief time; Lie #2 – You should understand as many complex subjects as possible; Lie #3 – Your opinion on those many and complex subjects is valid; Lie #4 – You are angry at all the right things. 

5.       Does "Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!" really belong in the Bible? Paul Carter with an excellent reflection on one of the most difficult passages in the Bible, Psalm 137. "They say that the Book of Psalms was the songbook of the early church – but how could anyone who knows and loves Jesus read or sing – let alone pray a sentence like that? We were told to love our enemies; we were told to turn the other cheek – how in the world does this go with that?"

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