Identity, Spiritual Growth, Worship
John Beeson
God's Names and Our Identities

There was a season of worship music from my childhood where a flood of songs were released reflecting on the names of God. El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh My Provider, and Emmanuel all spring to mind. Interest in the names of God appears to making a comeback in worship as demonstrated by the popularity of Jireh, Yahweh, and Yahweh Elyon.

The names of God have always been dear to his people. The first person in scripture to give God a name is Hagar, who calls God El Roi, “The God who sees”

God's Names and Our Identities
Recommendations, Church, Identity, Nature, Theology
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. A theology of leisure: Reagan Rose with an important piece. She says, “Many Christians have unthinkingly adopted a view of leisure that sees rest time as synonymous with me time. But this is a historical anomaly.”

  2. The church’s unsung hero: the persevering Sunday School teacher: Can we get an amen to Trevin Wax’s post? God bless our amazing faithful teachers! “Committed Sunday school teachers are a big part of what makes discipleship effective. Yet how often do we let weeks and years go by without lifting up their example or celebrating their faithfulness?”

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Church, Leadership, Wisdom
John Beeson
The Danger of Driscoll In Me

A few years ago Christianity today released a podcast series entitled “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” It’s as gripping as it is sobering. In it, Mike Cosper chronicles the history of the formation of Mars Hill Church. The podcast follows Mark Driscoll’s beginnings as a church planter in 1996 when he launched Mars Hill in Seattle to his quick rise to fame to the church’s ultimate collapse. The details are excruciating. It’s heartbreaking that such an influential community could have gone from leading such a huge cultural wave to closing its doors in a matter of years (Mars Hill ceased to exist in 2014).

The Danger of Driscoll In Me
Christian Living, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Resolving To Do Less

I enjoy this time of year. New Year’s resolutions are right up my alley. I love the challenge of improving spiritually, emotionally, and physically. In James Clear’s Atomic Habits, Clear popularized the idea of habit stacking: linking a new habit you want to form with a habit you already faithfully perform. 

In past years, I’ve added the habits of reading through the Bible in a year, memorizing scripture, working out, and other disciplines. This year I will try something different: I’m resolving to do less.

Resolving To Do Less
Christian Living, Generosity, Gratitude, Hospitality, Marriage, Recommendations, Wisdom
John Beeson
The Best of the Bee Hive Honeycomb in 2024

Our is an Esau world. We exchange our birthright for a pot of stew, God’s Word for an endorphin hit, the eternal for the ephemeral.

My hope is that by stewarding my ministry of Words, I can help push back against that tide just a little bit. I blog first to pastor my dear congregation New Life Bible Fellowship through the ministry of the written word. My hope is that the three additional touchpoints during the week allow those God has entrusted to me as an under-shepherd to grow in their love for God, their wisdom, and to foster unity. I’m grateful for the many who read…

The Best of the Bee Hive Honeycomb in 2024
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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. ‘Bothsideism’ about Hamas is moral failure: Russell Moore offers clarity on the horrifying atrocity in Israel. He begins, “Sometimes certain moments in history reveal in minutes what was concealed for decades. And sometimes those moments of revelation come with hearing oneself say the words, “Yes, but …” or “But what about …” The aftermath of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel is not one of those times. In this case, saying who is to blame—and who is not—is not factually or morally difficult at all.”

  2. The baobab: the strangest tree on earth: Have you ever seen one in person? They’re wild. Don Batten and Jerry Bergman share, “They are among Earth’s longest-lived flowering plants, and under normal conditions can grow for over 1,000 years. One baobab was estimated to have lived for 2,600 years. They grow to over 22 metres (75 feet) tall, with a trunk circumference that can exceed 26 m (85 ft).”

  3. As Jesus sleeps: Ed Welch encourages us, “There are, it seems, reasons to worry. Some of his disciples would live homeless and hand-to-mouth. To be penniless is as dangerous as a severe storm. But our God does not worry. His face toward you reveals his rest and favor. During the turbulence of life, his face also reveals his compassion and care.”

  4. On the other side of a church split: Abigail Rehmert, a pastor’s wife, shares, “The heartbreaking drama of the last year beckoned my heart toward resentment, bitterness, and pride. I have been reminded that each day, I must inspect my heart and eyes for the planks that lodge there.”

  5. Every state’s most popular Halloween candy: This is a pretty fun list. Arizona is Hershey Kisses… go figure.

  6. Clone-a-lisa: Need a silly diversion that puts your art skills to the test? Vole has you covered.

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Am I Good Enough?

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Am I Good Enough?

How good am I? Am I good enough?

We all wrestle with these questions in different ways and at different times. We reflexively answer these questions through comparison. How happy am I? How generous am I? How successful am I? How smart am I? We consider our family, friends, and neighbors and make an evaluation.

But if the age of social media has taught us anything, hasn’t it taught us how destructive comparison is? Hasn’t it shown us that comparison reveals the basest version of ourselves? Hasn’t social media taught us how fragile and finicky the rubric of comparison is?

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Can Discovering Ourselves Help Us Discover God?

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Can Discovering Ourselves Help Us Discover God?

There is no topic we love discussing more than ourselves. The self-discovery industry has never had more pull than it does in the contemporary West.

 

Christians might be tempted to push back on all of the obsession of self-discovery and reject it as ungodly. John Calvin, the 16th-century French Reformer, would disagree with this assessment.  In the first chapter of Calvin’s Institutes, the Reformed theologian makes a point about self-understanding and our relationship that might surprise you.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Love it or loathe it: Instacart reveals America’s top 15 most polarizing foods. To show you how weird I am, I like all 15! How about you?

  2. A forgetter’s prayer: Melissa Edgington confesses, “I forget. I forget who my Father is. I forget what my Savior looks like. I forget “fear not.” I forget “come to me, and I will give you rest.” All of the reasons to be courageous fade.”

  3. There is something greater than the great commandment: Jacob Crouch begins, “When the lawyer asked Jesus which commandment was the greatest, Jesus gave Him the perfect answer. We call it “The Great Commandment,” and as we read the impeccable wisdom of Jesus, we are encouraged, challenged, and humbled. Christians throughout all time have been, rightly, energized to love God more through this high calling. But I have to say this: There is something greater than the Great Commandment. Before you strike me off as a heretic, hear me out.”

  4. 50 preaching tips in 15 minutes (video): HB Charles’s wisdom is gold.

  5. Bird’s impressive courtship dance moves fail to impress partner: I feel like I’m watching myself in middle school. Poor guy.

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Why We have a 37 Page Doctrinal Statement

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Why We have a 37 Page Doctrinal Statement

This past year, we’ve visited Evangelical Free, Southern Baptist, Assemblies of God, and Anglican churches and been blessed in each gathering. These are brothers and sisters in Christ who worship the one Triune God. While varied in style and different on theological non-essentials, it is an honor to know that we are part of God’s family: we are rescued by God-made flesh who died for our sins and is risen from the dead. We submit to the same Word of God. We are indwelt by the same Spirit.

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Oatmeal Cookies Don't Make You Healthy

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Oatmeal Cookies Don't Make You Healthy

Trigger warning: I love oatmeal cookies. Like, I might like the average oatmeal cookie better than the average chocolate chip cookie. I know. I’m weird.

 Beyond loving the taste of oatmeal cookies, I’ll admit that there is also the ancillary benefit of feeling healthy when you eat oatmeal cookies. I mean, you’ve got your whole grains, your dried fruit, your nuts. They’re practically health food, right?

 A quick search on the internet proves otherwise: one Costco oatmeal cookie weighs in at 230 calories, 9 grams of fat, and 20 grams of carbs. One Costco chocolate chip cookie tallies 210 calories, 11 grams of fat, and 27 grams of carbs. It’s basically a wash. Either way, you’re imbibing a disc of fat-packed, calorie-dense deliciousness.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Don’t think about elephants: Simon van Bruchem begins, “How good are you at resisting the anxious thoughts that enter your mind? Most of us can find all kinds of things to worry about. It might be our family members, our sin, our finances, any number of things. And this general underlying anxiety is fed when we scroll through the news or social media. What can we do about these things that are making us unhappy, especially when we know that this kind of anxious thinking doesn’t accomplish anything?”

  2. The sermon on the mount is not an impossible standard to make us feel bad: Kevin DeYoung cautions us, “Too many Christians instinctively set aside the commands of Scripture as utterly impossible to obey on any level. The danger with this mindset is not only that we might be disheartened when we shouldn’t be, but that we might not be warned when we should be. Once we convince ourselves that failure is the norm…we won’t take seriously the many warnings given to us in Scripture that people unchanged by the gospel prove themselves to never really have been saved by the gospel.”

  3. The utter folly of the cross: Jeremy Treat helps us look at the cross with fresh eyes, “When the Bible talks about crucifixion, however, it emphasizes not physical pain but rather social shame. Reserved for the scum of society (rebels, slaves, and outcasts), crucifixion was a public spectacle meant to humiliate and dehumanize the victim.”

  4. The astounding diversity of ocean life: Laurent Ballesta’s magnificent photography is on display here.

  5. Wings of wonder: Fun video about “nature’s helicopters.”

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Can We Choose Our Identity?

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Can We Choose Our Identity?

On October 17, Angel and my first book, Trading Faces: Removing the Masks that Hide Your God-Given Identity releases. Below is an excerpt. May God invite us deeper in knowing him as we discover who we are in him.

 

Daniel Day Lewis is known as one of the most committed method actors of our time. When he takes on a role, he embodies the character not only on camera but off camera, and he only responds to his character’s name. For the movie In the Name of the Father, Day-Lewis lost fifty pounds and spent three days in solitary confinement without water.

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When Should You Fight Evil with Evil?

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When Should You Fight Evil with Evil?

One of my Christian heroes is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I even asked my wife if we could name our son Dietrich. For some reason she didn’t like that idea. Go figure.

Bonhoeffer is a fascinating figure for all sorts of reasons. One of those is that his ministry took place during the rise of Nazism in Germany. Born into an upper-middle class family in Germany and studying at some of finest schools, he ended up rejecting the German national church, which was controlled by the Nazi party. Instead he threw his energy behind the Confessing Church, a church that resisted the Nazi party

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. They will never understand how much I love them: Jacob Crouch speaks to the heart of every parent. “God has now given me five children, and with each new birth, a strange thing happens.

  2. Jesus said more about hell than anyone in the Bible: Speaking of love, how do we square Jesus’ love with this hard truth?

  3. The list on the door: Andrea Sanborn asks us to consider eternity

  4. Which is the best position to sleep in?

  5. Nature inFocus photography festival winners: India’s annual photography festival has some amazing shots.

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