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

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Lessons from an Anti-Hero: Arise

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Lessons from an Anti-Hero: Arise

The Anti-Hero isn’t a modern invention, thousands of years ago Jonah was the Anti-Hero of his own story. Jonah’s story is in the Bible to hold up a mirror to ourselves and ask if our hearts reflect Jonah’s twisted heart for the world or God’s compassionate heart.

God, the Hero, speaks first in Jonah’s tale. “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me,”[i] God directs Jonah. “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish”[ii] (in the exact opposite direction, over sea instead of over land).

“Arise!” we hear for the second time in the narrative from the godless captain of Jonah’s boat as the ship is pounded by the relentless sea. The captain shows the depths of God’s prophet rebellion when the pagan directs the Jewish prophet to “call out to your god!”[iii]

Into the dark sea Noah is tossed and swallowed by a great fish. Following his repentance he is spat out onto the ground. And the Hero returns, “Arise, go to Nineveh,” he repeats, as if to make sure that Noah has no doubt that his mission has not expired.

Are you stubbornly refusing the call of the Hero of your story? Where is he calling you to arise to? God is calling you to move. For many of us, we are docked on our couches. We need to move. We need to arise. For many of us, even though we walk into our workplace every day, we hunker down, put our head down, and disengage from our coworkers.

Arise!

It’s easy to hear the call to “Arise” and functionally opt-out.

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How to Invite Someone to Church

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How to Invite Someone to Church

An encouraging study by Lifeway Research found that two-thirds of churchgoers invited someone to church in the last six months.[i] When was the last time you invited someone to church? What would it look like for you to increase those efforts?

Inviting someone to church isn’t, of course, a substitute for evangelism, but it sure is a great partner in our evangelistic efforts. Similar to our homes, our churches ought to be a place that, while they are primarily for the gathered body of Christ, are also always welcoming to the outsider.

Diana Davis had an excellent post at Lifeway that spurred me to consider ways that I can better engage those God has put in my life with the gospel and be more active in inviting them to church.[ii] I’ve tweaked and whittled her list of 52 down to 17. They are a good challenge for me, and I hope they will be for you as well.  

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Lessons from an Anti-Hero: Arise

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Lessons from an Anti-Hero: Arise

The Anti-Hero isn’t a modern invention, thousands of years ago Jonah was the Anti-Hero of his own story. An inspired story in the pages of scripture, no less! Jonah’s story is in the Bible to hold up a mirror to ourselves and ask if our hearts reflect Jonah’s twisted heart for the world or God’s compassionate heart.

God, the Hero, speaks first in Jonah’s tale. “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me,”[i] God directs Jonah. “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish”[ii] (in the exact opposite direction, over sea instead of over land).

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