Christian Living, Nature
John Beeson
The Ground Where Saguaros Thrive

Nothing is more iconic to the Tucson landscape than the saguaro. The emblematic cactus is to the Sonoran Desert what the palm tree is to Miami: hard to imagine without it. Saguaros typically live between one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five years, not sprouting its trademark arms until around thirty to seventy years of its life and growing to around fifty feet tall.

For those Sonoran Desert natives, we intuitively know where saguaros thrive. They love the rocky (both granite and volcanic) soil at the foothills of the five beautiful mountain ranges that surround Tucson.

The Ground Where Saguaros Thrive
Leadership, Wisdom, Vocation
John Beeson
Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB

I drove a little manual 2005 Scion xB for about eight years. It finally gave out after 230,000 miles. I loved that little car. It was fuel-efficient and required minimal maintenance. But it is undeniably close to the least powerful car on the road. I’m pretty sure that on its specs, next to 0-60mph, it says, “Eventually!”

Unless I was lined up against someone from a nearby retirement community, I was the last car to reach the speed limit coming off a stoplight. Unsurprisingly, more aggressive drivers with more powerful vehicles tended to treat my little Scion like a safety cone on the road, more like an obstacle than a fellow traveler.

Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB
Family, Leadership, Parenting, Marriage
John Beeson
The Top Ten Ways to Lead in Your Home (and ...

In the past post we considered the biblical priority of leading in our homes before stepping into leadership callings outside of our home.

When I was asked to speak to our Mom’s Matter group on leading well in the home I was a bit intimidated. I felt far from equipped to speak as a man to women on the topic of leadership. And so, I did the only thing I could think of: I asked wise, godly women who were also great leaders. Starting with my wife, I began to listen to the advice my female friends offered on leadership in the home and beyond.

The Top Ten Ways to Lead in Your Home (and Organization, Too!)
Christian Living, Family, Marriage, Parenting
John Beeson
Leadership In Your Home and Beyond

Who are the most influential leaders in your life? What made them such great leaders?

I fear that our cultural understanding of leadership is going further astray from true leadership. We Americans seem to have a bizarre attraction to two types of leaders: celebrities and powerful communicators with bold, brash opinions. We judge leaders by the size of their platform.

Some time ago I was asked to speak to the Moms Matter group in our church about healthy leadership in the home and beyond. One of the comments made by the leadership team was that many moms believe they “don’t need to be or can’t be a leader because they are just moms.” We can all similarly dismiss ourselves.

Leadership In Your Home and Beyond
Christian Living, Religion, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Jesus Responds to the Inclusivist

I bet you hold Jesus in high regard. Nearly everyone does, no matter their religious leaning. We’ve been considering the position of the inclusivist. Let’s invite Jesus into the conversation.

With love in his eyes, Jesus begins, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6).

Jesus is no inclusivist. How would he respond to the inclusivist?

The Bible claims that Jesus is our only rescue. Throughout the pages of the New Testament, writer after writer and Jesus himself claim that Jesus Christ alone connects humankind back to God. Jesus claims he is no mere human being, but is God himself.

Jesus Responds to the Inclusivist

Abortion

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The lie half your church believes: Jared Wilson warns, “This slogan’s nod to God is a subterfuge from Satan. He would prefer if we never thought of God at all, but the next best thing is to think wrong thoughts about Him, thoughts that are not worthy of Him.”

  2. Men play significant role in decisions surrounding unplanned pregnancies: Aaron Earls reports, “In making their decision, 42% of men whose partners had an abortion say they encouraged the woman to do so, with 12% saying they strongly urged her to do so.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Finding rest in God’s eternality: Lara d’Entremont reflects, “On days like this, I long for eternal strength. I wish I never became weak or faint. I wish I could stay up into the late hours of the night finishing all these projects without taking a break. Sometimes I even try to push through, knowing I’ll pay for it that night as I try to fall asleep with a racing mind and throbbing feet.”

  2. Is the Bible pro-life? Scott Klusendorf begins, “Abortion-choice advocates with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and Planned Parenthood Federation of America contend that the Bible is silent on abortion, and that none of the Scriptures traditionally cited by pro-life advocates establishes the humanity of the unborn.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The Worshipper: Jeremy Walker begins a post that comes with a twist, “He is a worshipper. His life revolves around his worship. Nothing stops him.”

  2. The Serious Business of Laughing at Myself: Seth Lewis tells a very funny story about himself and concludes, “If I can’t embrace my own smallness, my own humiliations, and my total dependence on the God who made me, then my pride has grown out of control. That’s a serious problem.”

  3. Unborn Images Matter: Alan Shlemon begins, “Abortionist Dr. Joan Fleischman says she sometimes shows her patients the pregnancy tissue she removes after an abortion. She says that post-abortive women are “stunned by what it actually looks like,” and the women “feel they’ve been deceived.””

  4. 16 Passages to Read to Fight Lust: These are worth memorizing.

  5. A Spiritual MRI of the Heart: Warren Peel explains, “In Scripture, the word ‘heart’ is used more than 1000 times, but it almost never refers to the physical organ inside our chests. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament sums up all the usages of the term in this way: it is ‘the richest, most all-encompassing biblical term for the totality of a man’s inner nature.’ The heart is said to do a wide range of things in the Bible, but all its many activities fall into one of the three main faculties of the soul: the mind, the affections and the will. It includes the mind—our thoughts, imagination, fantasies, judgments and attitudes. It encompasses the affections—our emotions, our desires and longings, our revulsions. And it describes the will—our choices, decisions and motivations.”

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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. I Despise My Sufferings, and I’m So Thankful For Them: Sarah Walton begins, “The hours, days, and years that I’ve spent waiting, praying, weeping, and wrestling with “why” – they are too many to count. These memories – these profound moments of heartbreak, helplessness, and horror – they’ve changed every part of who I am.”

  2. The Commandment We Forgot: Honoring the Dishonorable: Tim Challies asks how do we honor parents who don’t deserve honor. He asks, “But what about people who were adopted and never knew their birth parents? What about people who had difficult or absent or abusive parents? What about people whose parents behaved in utterly dishonorable ways? Does this debt of honor extend even to them? In all the feedback I’ve received from this series, more has focused on these concerns than any other. “Do you really expect me to honor my parents? Let me tell you about them…””

  3. 60 Questions for Pro-Choice Christians: Jamie Wilder says, “With that I have 60 questions for any Christian who identifies as pro-choice. These are not meant to be dismissive, snarky, or rhetorical. They are much more helpful than calling an entire segment of people ‘bigots’ or ‘baby murderers.’”

  4. Gen Z Mental Health Crisis: How Pastors Can Make a Difference: Jamieson Taylor and Kevin Singer report, “Nearly half of young people (48%) say they’re moderately or extremely depressed.”

  5. Fighting False Guilt: Jared Mellinger explains, “Guilt is a burden that many believers carry every day. It is the soundtrack in our minds, the white noise relentlessly hissing in our ears. Persistent guilt afflicts the insecure and the confident alike.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The Thing About ‘Light and Momentary’: I found Tim Challies’s reflections on suffering to be very helpful. He begins, “They are words that can be tremendously encouraging or tremendously discouraging. Said at the wrong time or in the wrong spirit they can compound hurt, but said at the right time and in the right spirit they can be a cool drink on a hot day, a soothing balm on a sore wound.”

  2. The Church’s Role in Making Abortion Unthinkable and Unnecessary: Jen Oshman shares, “Studies show that for women who have an abortion, their suicidality increases by 155 percent. Studies also show that about 80 percent of women would not have chosen abortion if they had felt more supported. So my call to the church, then, is How can we seek life? How can we come alongside vulnerable women, vulnerable children, vulnerable families, and how can we be people who help them seek life? How can we be a culture that makes abortion not only unthinkable, but unnecessary—just something that’s not even on the agenda because we are a church and a people in a community that comes around the vulnerable population?”

  3. Killing Goliath: My friend and fellow pastor at New Life, Dustin DeJong, helps adjust the way we read a familiar story. “We assume we’re David but we aren’t. You aren’t David and Goliath isn’t some problem to be solved.”

  4. My Reconstructed Faith: Philip Ryan says, “Over the past two years, we have all seen and listened to many stories of deconstruction from authors, musicians, and even YouTube personalities. Sadly, these stories are celebrated even by some Christians — the same Christians who then mock those who raised alarm over deconstruction. What I don’t often hear are stories of those who have reconstructed their faith.”

  5. A Nobody in One Country, Famous in the Next: Darryl Dash with a real story that relates profoundly to us: “Sixto Rodriguez was a nobody. He’d tried to establish a career as a musician, but it went nowhere. He showed lots of promise and had sold a handful of records, but his record label dropped him and then closed. He was working on a third album at the time, but it was never released.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. How I Would Explain a Christian View of Trans-Genderism to a Non-Christian: Samuel James takes on this loaded topic. He says, “Our broken, sinful world facilitates the deepest kind of frustration and shame toward our own bodies.”

  2. An Open Letter to a Young Woman Contemplating an Abortion: Leah Savas’s article is a must-read. She says, “You’re not an accident, and neither is that baby inside of you. A Creator formed you and formed your baby with the same intentionality that your grandma has when she knits a pair of mittens.”

  3. Four Guidelines for Dating Without Regrets: Simple wisdom from Tim Challies. “Stop acting like you’re married when you’re not. We tend to see exclusive dating relationships as quasi-marriages in which couples quickly become strongly entangled emotionally, romantically, and even physically.”

  4. What Does “Heap Burning Coals On His Head” Mean? Interesting stuff from Steve Cornell. He considers five possible interpretations of this verse.

  5. Before You Pack Up and Leave: Tim Challies offers counsel to someone considering leaving a church. He asks, “[W]hat should you do when you begin feeling discontent at your church? What should you do when you feel that yearning to pick up and move on? What should you do when you find yourself eager to slip out of one church and into another? I’d like to offer just a few suggestions that I hope you’ll consider and put into practice.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Is ‘Be True to Yourself’ Good Advice? Brian Rosner begins, “You don’t need to look far today to notice that personal identity is a do-it-yourself project. A gym near where I live advertises itself with the slogan: “Be Fit. Be Well. Be You.” A new apartment complex around the corner, offering high-end luxury design, carries the byline: “An Unlimited You.” People think about themselves constantly, it seems, and with high expectations!”

  2. The Dead Seriousness of Careless Words: Tim Challies concludes, “And as it is right and just that there be an accounting for the careless performance of tasks, it is right and just that there be an accounting for the careless uttering of words. For words can bring harm every bit as much as deeds.”

  3. The Internet is More Powerful Than the Printing Press: Chris Martin makes the argument. “The internet is the most consequential technological advancement in human history.1 The most common retort to this hot take of mine is, "Yeah but the printing press.”

  4. Reflections on Temptation from Peter’s Sifting: Wendy Willard shares, “God intends for us to be joined with Jesus so perfectly that we cannot be sifted out—or strained—regardless of how hard Satan shakes—or boils—us. Those negative statements we hear in our head? What if that’s Satan “sifting” us, trying to see if he can separate us from our Savior?”

  5. The Land is Bright: Jake Meador celebrates the overturning of Roe. “Overthrowing Roe is not the totality of what our response to abortion ought to be, nor does it mean that the culture of death has been defeated (or the culture of life established), nor does it mean that our work to promote a culture of life is done. It simply means that one highly significant step in the quest to create a culture of life has been taken. But more must follow.”

  6. FAQs: Supreme Court Overturns Roe, Sends Abortion Back to States: Joe Carter explains, “This is one of the most significant acts of justice in modern history. While ruling brings only a change of direction, not an end, to the fight over abortion, it is an essential victory for the pro-life cause that should be celebrated by all Christians. Roe was one of the most evil and repugnant decisions of jurisprudence in our nation’s history, on par with Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. How to Lose the Abortion Debate While Winning It: Russell Moore says, “What the world needs most from evangelical America is that we be a people who really believe what we say. Whether the world agrees or disagrees with us on abortion, or any other matter, they need to see us love vulnerable children—whether in the womb, in abusive homes, in foster care, or in our own pews.”

  2. Jesus, Friend of Sinners: Adriel Sanchez begins, “’How many prostitutes do you know?’ I once sat with a theologian who recommended asking that question to gauge a pastoral candidate’s qualification for ministry. Our conversation took place shortly before my ordination exam. Of all the questions I’d anticipated, this wasn’t one of them. He didn’t mean, ‘Have you ever visited a prostitute?’ He meant, ‘Are sinners drawn to you like they were drawn to Jesus?’ His point was that if we’re going to ordain men to represent Jesus as ministers of the word, they should know and love sinners as Jesus did.”

  3. Christ Conquered Death. He Didn’t Cancel It: Jennifer Rosner considers how Jewish traditions link death and life and what that means about the cross and the resurrection. She says, “Death, in all its insidious forms, still pervades our daily lives. Even after Jesus’ glorious resurrection, we continue to wrestle with the disquieting dimensions of our humanity: the traumas we relive, the losses we endure, the disappointments we amass, the anxieties we are paralyzed by.”

  4. The Ten Minutes After Church Ends: Andy Huette offers simple but impactful advice. The first is, “Don’t talk to your besties…Don’t miss that opportunity to experience the fullness of the body of Christ by getting to know those who are unlike you or from different life stages and interests.”

  5. How Should Christians Think About Gun Control: Excellent debate between Bob Thune and Andrew Wilson.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Jesus Versus the Trade-In Society: Samuel James begins his excellent article, “It seems to me that if there’s one thing that our current version of advertising-based capitalism teaches us all, it’s that everything is replaceable: everything can be reproduced, or traded in for a new and improved model. And that applies to coaches, to churches, to spouses. We live in a trade-in society.”

  2. 9 Myths About Abortion Rights and Roe v. Wade: Kevin DeYoung considers some misconceptions. For instance, “Myth #6: Our abortion laws are mainstream compared with the rest of the world. Truth: The United States is one of only 10 nations that allow abortion after 14 weeks of gestation. Only four countries allow abortion for any reason after viability: Canada, North Korea, China, and the United States

  3. The Ukelele and the Cross: J.A. Medders says, “Theologians have wrestled with the various angles that describe what Jesus did for us on the cross. Some will even argue that there is only one way to describe and define what Jesus did for us on the cross. Rather than pick sides on the theological playground, I want to propose a harmony of notes that are played at the cross of Christ.”

  4. How Not to Pray with a Hurting Loved One: Blake Glosson’s post is helpful to all of us. He says, “There’s certainly a time to give advice, but prayer isn’t the place for it. Prayer is not a free pass to share your opinions with the other person while pretending to talk to God (this is manipulative and the other person will feel it).”

  5. Constructing the Roman Road: A short video on what became a significant cause for the spread of the gospel.

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