Christian Living, Culture, Politics, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Vulgar Authenticity

Who is your favorite celebrity? Your favorite political pundit? Your favorite politician?

Why are you drawn to these individuals? Maybe it is their personality. Perhaps it is because you respect their convictions. Possibly, it is because of their unique style.

Taylor Swift might be the most beloved celebrity in the world. Many have commented that one of the reasons that Swift has cultivated such a devoted following is her accessibility and down-to-earth qualities, from what she wears to the love stories she writes about in her music.

Vulgar Authenticity
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

weariness

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Love One Another: Local leader and life advocate Matt Merrill writes, “My encouragement for this moment is to consider not perpetuating the sin of devaluing the life of the person who is arguing contrary.”

  2. Did Jesus Tell us to Give to Every Panhandler: John Piper handles this question with appropriate nuance. “Here’s a daily scenario. You’re sitting in your car at a stoplight. Someone approaches your window to ask for money or food. You sit facing forward, ignoring them to focus on the traffic light ahead, until you finally drive off. Every time I do this, something doesn’t feel right here, especially with regards to Luke 6:30 — we should give to everyone who asks.”

  3. I am Just Tired! Sacha Alexandre Mendes unpacks a seemingly mundane topic with great depth, “In your life and ministry experience, you will face weariness. Therefore, it is vital to develop a biblical understanding of tiredness, its scope, and its impact on your life and ministry.”

  4. 5 New Stats You Should Know about Teens and Social Media: Chris Martin shares some enlightening information. For instance, “It’s not hyperbolic to say that YouTube is the most influential—and, therefore, the most important—website in the world. It’s used by almost every single teen in the country, and as of Pew’s latest research of U.S. adults in 2021, it’s also used by 81 percent of all adults. YouTube is king of the social media world…”

  5. The Bible Tells Us the Rest of the Story About Who We Are: David Mobley shares a Francis Schaeffer analogy: “Now, imagine having that set of page fragments, and then finding the remaining portion of all of the pages from the book somewhere, perhaps in the attic. By taking the newly discovered set of page fragments and placing them together with the pages you already have, you would be able to complete the book. It would be easy to tell that the remaining portions match the fragments, because taken together they complete the story. And once the story is completed, you could read the whole story and finally make sense of the whole book.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. A Prayer and a Prayer: My friend John Starke compares two prayers, “The first prayer, “Lord, give me patience,” is a prayer that she has learned she ought to pray. But the second is something deeper than a request “give me,” but a lament.”

2. The 50 Countries It’s Most Dangerous to Follow Jesus in 2021: Open Doors’s new list includes North Korea, Afghanistan, followed by Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, and India as the top ten. This Christianity Today report begins with the sobering news that, “Every day, 13 Christians worldwide are killed because of their faith. Every day, 12 churches or Christian buildings are attacked.”

3. Our Patriotic Idolatry: Danny Friederichsen with a timely warning, “Patriotolatry is dangerous because it flies under the radar for so many American Christians. After all, it can feel dangerously like faithfulness.”

4. The Blessing of Our Weariness: David Qaoud with a great reminder and encouragement, “weariness is a reminder that God created you to get stuff done for his glory (Ephesians 2:10). To use an N.D. Wilson expression, “Life is meant to be spent.” Workaholism is bad, but laziness is equally so…Weariness reminds us that idleness is sinful and that our lives are meant to be poured out for the glory of the triune God.”

5. Secret Sins Will Hurt Others: Greg Morse reminds us how significant our battle against sin is, “In this, Satan is a crafty spider, spinning a web of concealed threads sticking to those we never intended to harm.”

6. How to Respond to the News About Ravi Zacharias: Speaking of secret sins: this week a report was issued about an in-depth investigation of Ravi Zacharias which revealed a horrific history of sexual sin and cover-up. Randy Alcorn offers wisdom in how to consider such a devastating report.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. My Son Did Not Live One Day More or Less Than God Planned: Erik Reed shares the powerful story of grieving over his 15-year-old son's death and holding onto the truth of God's sovereignty. He shares, "Before Kaleb existed in the womb, he existed in the mind of God. From the foundation of the world, God determined that Kaleb Reed be born on March 8, 2004. Not only is this true, but He wrote the days of Kaleb’s life in His book, before one single day came to pass. God wrote the days of his life in His book and He didn’t write it in pencil."

2. Medical Ethics, Gender Identity, and Children: Robert George and Ryan Anderson weigh in on this complicated issue. They conclude, "Prudent legislation is needed to prevent adults from interfering with a child’s normal, natural bodily development. “Gender affirmation” procedures violate sound medical ethics. It is profoundly unethical to intervene in the normal physical development of a child as part of “affirming” a “gender identity” at odds with bodily sex."

3. Come to Me All Who Have COVID Weariness: My friend Benjamin Vrbicek with a timely and poignant post. He says, “The flowing current of COVID sadness can drown the strongest swimmer. You might already be gasping for air. If you feel this way, come to Jesus. Pray to him. Read his word. Belong to his church... Come and enjoy the freedom found in being loved by the Savior, not controlled by a harsh slave master.”

4. Navigating Different COVID-19 Recovery Convictions: I have felt the heat of different convictions and share Costi Hinn’s concern that “one of the ways the enemy will seek to divide our ranks within the church is tempting us to use our opinions against each other. IF the Devil has his way, we’ll be throwing stones of accusation from all sides, calling the cautious people ‘soft,’ labeling the optimists of being ‘reckless.’”

5. Do We Really Want to Go Back to Normal: Trevin Wax considers some of the ways he hopes that COVID-19 re-shapes us. He says, “What if this period of forced isolation can help us see the end result of radical individualism’s trajectory, so that in the end we come out of our enclaves and homes with a stronger commitment to our communities, our churches, and our country?”

6. Behind the Scenes of One of the World’s Top Nature Photographers: I love the combination of skill, creativity, and perseverance Yarrow demonstrates in his craft.

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