Advent, Christmas, Theology
John Beeson
Glory to God in the Lowest!

Last week on The World and Everything in It George Grant considered “The Wisdom of paradox.” He concludes his reflection,  that Christmas is “the greatest and most remarkable paradox of all is revealed: He who was infinite, was yet an infant; He who was eternal, was yet born of a woman; He who was almighty, was yet nursing at His mother’s breast; He who was upholding the universe, was yet carried in His mother’s arms. Thus, Chesterton exclaimed, ‘Outrushing the depth of the fall of man is the height of the fall of God. Glory to God in the Lowest.’”

“Glory to God in the lowest.” What a mind-bending truth.

Glory to God in the Lowest!
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

preaching

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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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Teaching for Change: the Power of Questions

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Teaching for Change: the Power of Questions

I took three preaching courses at seminary. They were all excellent. I didn’t take any courses on teaching, and wasn’t aware of any offered. It wasn’t until after a campus minister sat me down for a conversation I would have even considered the need for a separate class on teaching. Aren’t they both just presenting biblical truth accurately and memorably?

That conversation ended with the most impactful advice I’ve ever received about teaching: prepare your lesson around several open questions that engage the group. Such preparation maximizes what small group teaching environments can do so well: connect biblical truths with individual hearts to bring about change.

Let’s unpack how to teach with the aim to experience change ourselves as teachers and help those in the group experience change.

Before I begin, let me qualify this post in two important ways. First, I absolutely believe in preaching and the power of the exposition of God’s Word. Clear and impactful preaching of the authoritative Word of God is important for the gathered body of Christ. Second, there are times in which classrooms and groups can benefit from a teacher preaching. There is a time and a place for non-interactional teaching. That said, there can be the opposite drift in biblically-grounded churches. In such contexts, classrooms and living rooms become mini-sanctuaries and the preaching ministry is multiplied into small group contexts. I think misses out on some of the great benefits of smaller groups and can reinforce a brand of Christianity that emphasizes the accumulation of knowledge to the detriment of life-change.

Let’s dive in, then. Here are some methods I use when I prepare to teach interactively:

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Teaching for Change: How I Learned to Stop Preaching

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Teaching for Change: How I Learned to Stop Preaching

When I signed up to serve as a pastoral intern during my seminary years in New Jersey, I was given the opportunity to teach our church’s adult Sunday school class. The popular and engaging regular teacher graciously handed me the reins for a chunk of the fall semester. I decided we would study the gospel of John together. I read through the gospel, paged through commentaries, crafted a syllabus, and prepared the manuscript for the class’s first week. I handed out the syllabus to the group (that included weekly homework) and launched in, hands gripped to the podium, with passion and verve.

I had mixed thoughts about how it went. On the one hand, my sermon lesson was well structured, thoroughly researched, and faithful to scripture. I intentionally added questions in the lessons, so it wasn’t just a monologue. I should have felt good about it. On the other hand, there seemed a disconnect between the class and myself that I couldn’t figure out how to bridge. My enthusiasm for the book didn’t seem to create engagement. The questions I asked were met with (mostly) silence or shallow answers. The faces in front of me seemed largely unaffected.

I got a friendly call from one of the campus ministers who attended our church (and that Sunday School class) that week and he invited me out to coffee. Over mugs at the local caffeine dive, Small World, I had a brief conversation that was worth a semester’s worth of seminary education. (Parenthetically, while I took four classes on preaching, I never took a class on teaching at seminary, and I am not sure if one was offered.) The conversation changed the way I have taught ever since.

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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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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Three Predictors of Porn Use: Jay Stringer explains, "Perhaps you’ve found yourself not able to turn off your allure to porn. If so, a far more beneficial approach to recovery than combating lust is to focus on the themes that drive and necessitate your use of pornography. Until these themes are transformed, you will find yourself in the same, pernicious cycle of pornography use."

2.       How to Heal the Damage Caused by Family Conflict: Mark Gregston wisely reflects, " Not following up on hurtful actions of confrontations to either correct the mistakes you’ve made or affirm the relationship is what allows conflict to cause damage to your relationship with your child.   Remember that you’re not only resolving issues that you have with your child, but, more importantly you are setting the example of conflict resolution and teaching your child how to admit fault, assume a position of humility, and ask for forgiveness for any wrongdoing; all characteristics in a person’s life that are more caught than taught."

3.       5 Honest Struggles Church Leaders Don't Want to Admit: Carey Nieuwhof with a good reminder of the lies leaders can easily get entrapped by, "Greater faithfulness should result in greater impact in ministry. Pursue God, and pursue a great mission. Both are critical. But God doesn’t reward the most faithful with the best results."

4.       The Best Preacher in the World: David Murray says, " Every church needs two preachers. We need a human preacher, one who is visible, audible, tangible. But we also need a divine preacher, one that is invisible, inaudible, and intangible. I’m speaking of the Holy Spirit, without whom the work of the human preacher is in vain."

5.       Girl Scout Marketing Meeting: Jon Crist will have you laughing at the silliness of the Girl Scout's marketing plan.

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Why Don’t You Preach More About…?!

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Why Don’t You Preach More About…?!

What topics does your pastor avoid? When was the last time you heard sermon dealing with depression? Sexuality? Race? Immigration? I’ve been part of more than a few conversations with congregants who have complained either that we don’t preach enough on a particular topic (ironically, this often occurs right after we preach on that topic), or that they hope we will not be like their old church that never preached on a particular topic.

Christianity Today puts out periodic issues which focus on particular issues. In those issues, they often have polls where they report how often respondents say their pastors speak about that particular issue. Unsurprisingly, the polls always show severe neglect of the given topic. I’m grateful for Christianity Today—they do great work and I benefit from their excellent writing and reporting. But I’m wary of the criticism that pastors don’t preach often enough about any given issue for a few reasons:

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Teaching for Change, part 2

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Teaching for Change, part 2

I took three preaching courses at seminary. They were all excellent. I didn’t take any courses on teaching, and wasn’t aware of any offered. It wasn’t until a campus minister sat me down for a conversation I would have even considered the need for a separate class on teaching. Aren’t they both just presenting biblical truth accurately and memorably?

That conversation ended with the most impactful advice I’ve ever received about teaching: prepare your lesson around several open questions that engage the group. Such preparation maximizes what small group teaching environments can do so well: connect biblical truths with individual hearts to bring about change.

Let’s unpack how I prepare to teach with the aim to experience change myself and help those in the group experience change.

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Teaching for Change, part I

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Teaching for Change, part I

When I signed up to serve as a pastoral intern during my seminary years, I knew I wouldn’t be able to preach on Sunday morning, but I would be given other opportunities to grow in preaching and teaching. One of those opportunities came in the form of our Adult Sunday School class. The popular and engaging regular teacher handed me the reigns for a half dozen or so weeks that first semester. I studied, I crafted a syllabus, and I wrote out a manuscript for the class’s first week. I handed out the syllabus (that included weekly homework) and launched in, hands gripped to the podium, with passion and verve.

I got a friendly call from one of the campus ministers who attended our church (and that Sunday School class) that week and he invited me out to coffee. Over mugs at the local caffeine dive, Small World, I had a brief conversation that was worth a semester’s worth of seminary education. It changed the way I have taught ever since.

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