Christian Living, Culture, Relationships, Social Media, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Deep Calls to Deep

We’ve all heard how poor the state of mental health in America. But the numbers are truly staggering. “Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent.” We have a serious problem.

Deep Calls to Deep
Recommendations, Death, Family, Relationships, Apologetics
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Tortured, imperfect, and held by Jesus: Garrett Kell’s touching tribute to his mother, “My two earliest memories of my mother couldn’t be more different. The pleasant one is our evening routine: She’d pull me onto her lap to recite the Lord’s Prayer and sing “The Old Rugged Cross” until I fell asleep. The other is her sobbing in her bathroom, telling me how badly she wanted to die.”

  2. How Jesus helps my unbelief: Erin Mount shares her struggle, “My mind knows that God has not left me, for there is nowhere I can go that he will not also be, but my heart has not felt him. All of the pain and sorrow and sickness would be much easier to bear had I felt God’s comfort, but for whatever reason, God has not felt near. It has felt like he was hiding, and as much as I have tried to find him, I couldn’t.”

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Consumerism, Finance, Family, Wisdom
John Beeson
Living on a Single Income

I respect my sister and brother-in-law for many reasons. One of those reasons is their wise financial stewardship. With eight kids (you can read the story of why they have eight kids here), they are able to live on a single income, and they managed to pay off the mortgage on their previous house several years ago. That financial flexibility allowed them to purchase a home with my parents two years ago so they could help my dad whose mobility suffered after a series of strokes.

Living on a Single Income
Apologetics, Biblical Studies, Church, Culture, Evangelism
John Beeson
The Return of Apologetics

Approximately 30 million people watched and listened to a recent Joe Rogan podcast with New Testament scholar and apologist Wes Huff (Wes Huff on the Joe Rogan Experience: warning: Rogan curses quite a bit). Huff was invited onto Rogan’s podcast after a debate with agnostic Billy Carson went viral (Wes Huff vs. Billy Carson debate).

Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent a fair chunk of time digesting these two appearances (the Rogan show alone is over three hours) and the reactions to them across the internet. I think Huff’s popularity is a cause for great encouragement and also a challenge to us as Christians.

The Return of Apologetics
Recommendations, Church, Family, Parenting
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. What is my spiritual gift? Maybe you’re asking the wrong question: Jonathan Threlfall helps us refocus the question, “The New Testament’s teaching on spiritual gifts focuses not on self-discovery but on loving service. In fact, the anxiety about discovering “my” spiritual gift will probably fade completely when you focus on what you can do to build up the body of Christ.”

  2. Three things my autistic daughter taught me about evangelism: Vicki Bentley begins, “I watched with amazement as my nine-year-old daughter mingled with the eclectic group of visitors at our church’s community outreach event.

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

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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…

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Books I Read in 2024 (and some you might want to read in 2025)

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Books I Read in 2024 (and some you might want to read in 2025)

Aren’t books the best? Open a cover and adventurer leads you into a new world, or a wise guide directs you further down the path of truth. I love reading books of all sorts.

 

I read 117 books this year: down just a bit from 2023 (not surprising since I went on sabbatical in the summer of 2023). I actually plan on trying to intentionally read fewer books in the coming year. I have been trying to grow in my spiritual disciplines of silence, solitude, and meditation. Input comes naturally to me. I need to grow in my ability to slow down and listen to God. And that has come at the cost of some of my reading time.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Afraid of the dark: Chrys Jones says, “For those of us who have seen the Light, Advent is a time of sober remembrance. We are reminded of the darkness that once resided in us. We lived in the valley of the shadow of death without even realizing it. But the goodness and lovingkindness of God showed up!”

  2. Did the Son of God leave heaven when he came to earth: Kevin DeYoung answers, “The key is to understand that the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way as to still be in heaven. Christ’s incarnational descent did not involve a change to the divine nature or a change of location.”

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Glory to God in the Lowest!

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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.

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The Faithfulness of God of the Manger

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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.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The uncarnation of Christ: J.A. Medders explains, “Our flesh and the devil are happy to uncarnate Christ—to reduce him to doctrinal points we affirm and then ignore him. But spiritual theology rejoices over Christ—his person and work—as our divine and personal Savior, Lord, and Friend.”

  2. Looking at photos with my mum: Des Smith with a moving piece on aging and hope,  “But Scripture also tells me there’s something else going on inside Mum. I can’t see it, but it’s there. ‘Outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day’ (4:16). Somewhere in there, God tells me, there’s an invincible core; an iron spine of light that can’t be put out—that is growing in brightness.”

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A Humble God?

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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.

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The Just and the Justifier

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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.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Five things we’re missing the global church gets: Sean McConnell says, “Our theology may say one thing, but our behavior is often more focused on our work and our plans than God’s presence.”

  2. What is the Devil’s part in temptation? Paul Tautges warns, “Just as he hounded Jesus all the way to the cross, so he never tires of tempting you. He’s always on the hunt, always waiting for an opportune time.”

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The Theology of the Manger

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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.”

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