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

grace

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The data is clear: people are having less sex: Ryan Burge concludes, “Who would have thought that Mark Zuckerberg building an app to try and meet girls would eventually be one of the causes of declining fertility. But, here we are.”

  2. Climb a mountain, swim a sea, fight a dragon: Tim Challies on grace and works, “I think that if Elisha had told Naaman to do something hard and heroic, he would have gladly done it. If he had been told to climb a mountain or swim a sea or fight a dragon, he would have embarked on so noble a quest.

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Welcoming with Grace and Peace

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Welcoming with Grace and Peace

How do you greet your friends? “Good morning!” “Hey!” “How are you doing?”

Zip back 2000 years and drop yourself into a Christian community and you would have be welcomed with, “grace and peace to you.”

You’ve probably noticed those greetings in scripture before. Because our greetings tend to be tired, it’s unsurprising that we skip over these salutations. Let’s slow down and look at those five words and consider why they would be used so frequently.

What does “grace and peace” mean? How can we offer grace and peace?

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Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB

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Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB

I drove a little manual 2005 Scion xB for about eight years. It finally gave out after 230,000 miles. I loved that little car. It was fuel-efficient and required minimal maintenance. But it is undeniably close to the least powerful car on the road. I’m pretty sure that on its specs, next to 0-60mph, it says, “Eventually!”

Unless I was lined up against someone from a nearby retirement community, I was the last car to reach the speed limit coming off a stoplight. Unsurprisingly, more aggressive drivers with more powerful vehicles tended to treat my little Scion like a safety cone on the road, more like an obstacle than a fellow traveler.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Six categories of the cross: JI Packer begins, “Jesus Christ is, in fact, an expression of the temper of the whole New Testament. For explaining the cross, the New Testament uses many images, many categories, many modes of thought blended together. These various categories and modes of thought serve to enrich our understanding of the cross and its meaning.”

  2. A game of hide-and-seek: how shame keeps us from the Father’s love: Bethany Broderick shares a moment with her daughter, “The angry speech I was ready to give her melts away, and I drop to the ground next to her. I pull her close, and she cries against me. She is broken over her sin, yet she doesn’t know what to do other than try to hide.”

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7 Ways To Fight Well

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7 Ways To Fight Well

Have you ever sent off an email or a text with the jab of an angry finger? Have you ever slammed a door or punched a wall? Have you ever hung up on someone? We all have conflict in our lives.

We encounter conflict daily: we have disagreements with our spouses, parents, children, co-workers, and neighbors. But how do we navigate conflict and come out the other side in one piece? How do we not become the worst version of ourselves during conflict? What if conflict provided an opportunity for us to grow as people and also to glorify God?

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7 Ways to Fight Poorly

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7 Ways to Fight Poorly

I wake up first in our home. I get dressed and start the coffee. I wake up Angel and our two teenage kids. The other day, I wake my daughter up with a kiss to the forehead, “good morning, sweetie, it’s time to wake up.” “No, it isn’t!” she responded, pulling her covers over her head. My first whiff of conflict.

I go back downstairs and work on breakfast. At 6:50 everyone is supposed to be gathered around the table. Usually only one of the three is there. I would tell you who, but you know, conflict. It lurks again.

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Don't "Give Yourself Grace"

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Don't "Give Yourself Grace"

My friend was lost. Over cups of coffee, he shared what had been bottled up inside of him for months. It was hard to figure out which came first, his depression or his spiritual spiral. Secret porn and drug addictions were now coupled with a full-blown affair, and his wife had demanded that he move out. He was confused and hurting, hard-hearted, and spiritually blind. “My girlfriend tells me I just need to give myself grace,” he shared.

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The Bible's Strange Reasons for Generosity: Giving is a Grace

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The Bible's Strange Reasons for Generosity: Giving is a Grace

Our doorbell rang – an odd occasion –I got up from the dinner table and walked toward the door. My step hitched halfway to the door as I realized it was likely a child selling something… too late. I opened the door and a high schooler stood in front of me, fundraising for his baseball team.

Being asked for money makes me uncomfortable.

There is something reasonable about being uncomfortable when we’re asked for money. The pang might speak to whether we are giving thoughtfully. But the reality is that far too often that twinge of discomfort points not to the worth of the cause, but the grip our hearts have on our money.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul tells us that God doesn’t wasn’t uncomfortable givers, he wants cheerful givers. The way to cheerfulness isn’t by willing ourselves there, it’s by reshaping our affections. In this series we’re going to unpack four transformative reasons about generosity and then unpack Paul’s instructions for how we ought to give.

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A New-Old Way to Say Hello

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A New-Old Way to Say Hello

What’s your go-to greeting? “Good morning!” “Hey!” “How are you doing?”

“Grace and peace to you” was likely the most frequently used greeting offered by the leaders of the early church.

Because our greetings tend to be tired and worn thin, it’s unsurprising that we skip over these greetings. Let’s slow down and look at those five words and consider why they would be used so frequently.

What does “grace and peace” mean? How can we offer grace and peace?

17x “Grace and Peace”

Let’s first take a look at the seventeen times that it is used in the New Testament:

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The Power of Grace

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The Power of Grace

A note from John:

It is a gift to hand the reins over to my friend Valerie McMahon today. Valerie shared this poetic essay with my wife and me a few months back. I hope you are as moved as we were.

 

A note from Valerie:

Growing up in church, I remember always singing the song Amazing Grace, but I don’t think I fully grasped how amazing grace was until recently. After hurting my husband Shane greatly, he offered this amazing grace to me. I didn’t deserved it, but I was convicted to choose to believe and receive this powerful gift. It was then that I was convinced how much I need grace beyond salvation for my daily sanctification. What follows is a testimony and an anthem of gratitude.

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