Biblical Studies, History, Religion
John Beeson
The Pillaging of Hezekiah

The aged prophet Isaiah showed up at the bedside of the middle-aged king. Hezekiah was only about 39 years old and terminally ill. But the prophet was not bringing good news, “Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover” (Is. 38:1).

The weak king cried out to God, “’ Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight’. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” (Is. 38:3).

The Pillaging of Hezekiah
Church, Culture, Book Reviews
John Beeson
The Long Journey of Self-Knowledge in a Culture ...

“We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. It is greater than the First and Second Great Awakening and every revival in our country combined...but in the opposite direction.” This is the conclusion of the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America by sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe. In The Great DeChurching, pastors Jim Davis and Michael Graham unpack why and how over the past twenty-five years, forty million of those who formerly attended church no longer do so.

The Long Journey of Self-Knowledge in a Culture of Confusion
Christian Living, Prayer
John Beeson
The Air Raid Siren

Jerusalem, Israel

3:15 am, April 13

 

I sat up in bed to a wailing sound I had never heard before, but knew immediately: an air raid siren. Our building rattled to the booms of interceptors from Israel’s missile defense system hitting their inbound targets. I pulled back the curtains and watched as sprays of light streaked the sky.

 Iran launched 170 drones, 20 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s purported attack on an Iranian embassy in Syria.

The Air Raid Siren
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

Jennie Cesario

, , , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , , ,
This Week's Recommendations

1.       3 Reasons Your Church Shouldn't Be a Perfect Fit for You: Daniel Darling concludes, "Too often our fights aren’t good fights. They’re over preferences and an unwillingness to die to our preferences in order to give, serve, and love our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Not only should you have things in your church you don’t like, you should embrace the privilege of the opportunity to grow in a community that will be used by God to sanctify you."

2.       I'm So Glad Our Vows Kept Us: Jennie Cesario is a masterful writer. Here she reflects on the difficulty and beauty of marriage. Please read this in its entirety. Here is a taste: " Our hearts are so very tender toward one another now with the long years, softened to a sweetness hard-won."

3.       5 Questions to Discern God's Will: Juan Sanchez with sound advice: " [W]e don’t have to fear what God wills for us. And thankfully, God has revealed His plan and purposes—His will—by His Word (Deuteronomy 29:29). We’re not in the dark about what God desires."

4.       How to be an Appropriately Transparent Leader (Without Oversharing): Carey Niewhof packs in a lot in this helpful post. He concludes, "I find often that the speakers or writers who overshare are people who are processing something for their benefit, not for the benefit of their audience."

5.       12 Fascinating Archaeological Finds in 2019: The finds include a $26.8 million Renaissance masterpiece that was hanging in an unsuspecting French woman’s kitchen and a perfectly preserved 32,000-year-old severed wolf head found in Siberian permafrost.

6.       An Unexpected Duet: Wait until 74 seconds in for the "what?!"

, , , , , , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , , , , , ,
This Week's Recommendations

1.       You Might Be a Snowplow Parent if... Jen Goins reflects on a trip to Minnesota that has her thinking about how we can easily mess up the objective of our parenting. Two of her six mistakes are: "A snowplow parent shovels away responsibility," and "A snowplow parent clears the path of negative consequences."

2.      Longer Than: This is masterful writing from Jennie Cesario about the how love grows as marriage ages. You won't be disappointed.

3.      What Does the Book of Job Tell us About the Unborn? Jared Wilson suggests that Job 31 tells us three things about the unborn. 

4.      7 Encouraging Reasons to Pray: Colin Smith reminds us what an incredible privilege it is to pray and what God does when we pray... and I love how he concludes this article. What an incredible perspective of heaven!

5.      The Wake of Innovation: From the tractor to talking robots, society has feared innovations. But usefulness usually overcomes resistance. Is today any different from the past?

6.      The Rat Apocalypse in New Zealand: A rat apocalypse? Sounds Like real-life Halloween. Yikes.

, , , , , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , , , , ,
This Week's Recommendations

1.       How 32 African Slaves Turned Into Millions: This year we commemorate the 400th anniversary of the tragic start of the slave trade to the Americas. This powerful info-graphic rich article shows how 32 slaves ballooned into millions. 

2.       Why People Don't Think You Appreciate Them Even When You Do: Suzanne Vickberg with helpful advice for any leader. She begins by quoting Gladys Bronwyn Stern: "Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone."

3.       Why Calvinists Should Be the Gentlest: John Newton, in his letter to fellow Christians exhorts gentleness and cautions a lack of gentleness, " If you write with a desire of being an instrument of correcting mistakes, you will of course be cautious of laying stumbling blocks in the way of the blind or of using any expressions that may exasperate their passions, confirm them in their principles, and thereby make their conviction, humanly speaking, more impracticable."

4.       Eternity and Mortality: Jennie Cesario with a beautiful reflection on how a scrape with death shaped her perspective about herself, God, and parenting.

5.       The Ugly History of Mass Incarceration: The United States imprisons more people than any country in the world. And with a disproportionate number of those inmates being black, it is an issue fraught with difficulty. As a former Detention Officer, the complicated history of and solution for our incarceration problem hits close to home. 

, , , , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , , , ,
This Week's Recommendations

1.      Why the Devil Didn't Think He Won When Jesus was on the Cross: I hadn't thought this through as clearly until I read this JA Medders post. His final reason is the strongest: " Fifth, as Jesus was hanging on the cross, he is tempted to get himself down from the cross. Why? This would cease his substituting death for us—Satan wouldn’t be disarmed and defeated. But Jesus did the Father’s will, he died and rose again for us. Defeating Satan every step of the way."

2.      How to Mend a Relationship That has Been Broken for Years: Vital Signs delivers consistently difficult, but healthy advice on matters related to conflict: Joseph Grenny offers, " I have come to believe that my capacity for joy in life is a function of my capacity to love imperfect people. And the most aggressive calisthenics of that capacity is practicing vulnerability at times of the most acute emotional risk."

3.      Seeing the Individual's Face: Jennie Cesario with one of the most beautiful reflections I've read in a while: "[T]o grow in the love of God is to expand my heart and vision in this way. To, little by little, allow more faces to become particular to me, more faces to become dear — whether they’re next to me in a church pew or against me in the voting booth; whether they’re my kindred or my worst enemies."

4.      What Teens Value Most: Helen Gibson reports on Pew Research Center's latest poll on teens. In it, having a career they enjoy ranks first, then helping others who are in need, and third is having a lot of money. Getting married is fourth and having children is fifth with less than 40% of teens saying they desire to have children one day.

5.      Is God Anti-Gay? Sam Alberry reflects on this big question during a Gospel Coalition panel (this is a podcast).

Sign up to get The Bee Hive delivered to your inbox and receive a free 50 Books That Changed My Life (and Might Change Yours, Too) download!