Death, Politics, Suffering
John Beeson
Staring Death in the Eye

We do not do death well.

We avoid it. We deny it. We even pretend we can control it.

Last week, the French National Assembly advanced what many observers have called  “the most extreme euthanasia law in Europe since Nazi regulations in the 1930s.” French President Emmanuel Macron supported legislation framed as “medical aid in dying” but the proposal goes much further than many existing “death with dignity” laws.

The bill would legalize both assisted suicide—where a person receives a prescribed poison to end their own life—and euthanasia, where a doctor administers the deadly dose.

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Staring Death in the Eye
Recommendations, Christian Living, Counseling, Culture, Suffering, Wisdom
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Bearing the sorrows of the world: A timely piece by Brianna Lambert, “In-between funny reels and crock-pot recipes my feeds shake me with tragedy. Another bomb dropped, another missile fired. Another leader declares war, another group of Christians brutally murdered. My weather app might tell me about a mudslide that kills hundreds while the local news reports on a newly discovered grave of dozens of victims. Sorrow never ends.”

  2. Ozempic Christianity: Christopher Cook says, “In a culture increasingly shaped by immediacy and optimization, even our spiritual hunger has been co-opted by the language of quick returns. 

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Family, Parenting
John Beeson
My Son Can’t Ride a Bike: Failures in Parenting

Our son Soren is twenty years old. And he doesn’t know how to ride his bike.

I share this as a confession. Soren, on the other hand, is totally comfortable with this reality.

As parents, we feel responsible for equipping our kids for the world. But what does it mean to prepare our children for life? What does it mean to be a successful parent?

The demands of parenting can feel overwhelming. We want to teach our children to be thoughtful stewards by caring for their things and cleaning the house. We want them to learn how to make meals and do their own laundry.

My Son Can’t Ride a Bike: Failures in Parenting
Christian Living, Counseling, Identity, Spiritual Growth, Suffering, Wisdom
John Beeson
The Thing Under the Thing

I have the opportunity of sharing this space with my friend and mentor, Glen Elliott (you find out more about Glen here). I’m sure you will be blessed by his wealth of wisdom. –John

Last winter I learned something from a dying tree.

There’s a tree outside our bedroom window that provides beautiful shade in the summer. A while back I noticed the leaves were dying—brown, brittle, hanging lifelessly from the branches. So I did what most of us do when something looks unhealthy: I trimmed the visible problems.

I cut off dead branches. Then more branches. I fertilized. I watered. Nothing worked.

The Thing Under the Thing
Recommendations, Culture, Family, Forgiveness, Marriage, Parenting, Suffering
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. When a crack becomes a chasm: Dave Almack says, “In years past, family disagreements often resulted in an uneasy detente and shallow conversations at gathering times. Today, in more and more cases, these disconnects have turned into outright hostility and accusations of wrongdoing by parents who have diligently tried to raise their kids to love and honor the Lord. It is a painful and almost unbearable experience to endure and far more common than many might know.”

  2. Alysa Liu inspired an exhausted world: Brianna Lambert begins, "Last week, one of the most memorable moments of the Olympics occurred

This Week's Recommendations

culture

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Bearing the sorrows of the world: A timely piece by Brianna Lambert, “In-between funny reels and crock-pot recipes my feeds shake me with tragedy. Another bomb dropped, another missile fired. Another leader declares war, another group of Christians brutally murdered. My weather app might tell me about a mudslide that kills hundreds while the local news reports on a newly discovered grave of dozens of victims. Sorrow never ends.”

  2. Ozempic Christianity: Christopher Cook says, “In a culture increasingly shaped by immediacy and optimization, even our spiritual hunger has been co-opted by the language of quick returns. 

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How to Battle Lust

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How to Battle Lust

Sexuality saturates our culture. The human heart, already an engine inclined toward  malformed desires, has plenty of fuel available via the internet alone to propel it toward disaster. How can we remain pure in a world bent on dragging us into impurity?   

 

Indeed, the world is partial. The battle against lust is a three-pronged battle against our flesh, the world, and Satan. Paul warns us to “not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16) by later specifying some of those desires: “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality” (Galatians 5:19). Our flesh lures us into believing that we can take a shortcut to joy and intimacy.

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A New Hope

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A New Hope

Jesus wept (Jn. 11:35).

This is the shortest verse in the Bible.  

It is profound as it applies to the heart of Our Lord, Jesus Christ; to those whom he came to save: You.  Me.  Us.  

There is much pain and confusion in our world today.  You don't need to look far to see it.  Some of us have been brought to our knees in grief and in this moment cannot hardly see past it; the same can be said of those of us in the throes of financial woe; relational strife; physical affliction.  

Hopelessness.  Dread.  Despair.

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Unbelief Isn't a Sin, or Is It?

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Unbelief Isn't a Sin, or Is It?

An earnest interlocutor responded to me, “God wouldn’t hold it against me if I don’t believe in him, would he? If he hasn’t made faith clear enough, isn’t that his responsibility?”

Is unbelief a sin? Surely not!

Culturally, we don’t take unbelief very seriously. We tend to think of unbelief as a neutral characteristic, if not even something that might show a particular strength of character. We might consider someone who doesn’t believe as being sharp minded, thoughtful, or not gullible.

Many Christians even diminish the nature of unbelief. I recently read a book by a popular pastor who claimed that Jesus didn’t call his followers to believe,

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Are we the idols? Andrew Noble says, “It is strange to become an idol, isn’t it? It’s hard to wrap your mind around. Yet every day, people are morphing into something like mud. Instead of functioning as images of God, they worship idols and turn into lifeless dust. Life goes wrong when we don’t worship right.”

  2. Weakness in God’s economy: Kirsten shares, “As I consider my heart, my struggle does not come in whether or not I believe that God is able to heal; I believe that God is able to do all that pleases him. Rather, my struggle comes in believing whether or not God is willing; at least in the timeframe I am hoping and praying.”

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Why Didn't We Preach About Charlie Kirk's Assassination?

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Why Didn't We Preach About Charlie Kirk's Assassination?

Last week, on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. The founder of Turning Point, USA, Kirk was an outspoken Christian conservative.

On Sunday, before our sermon, we prayed for our country in light of the assassination, the religiously motivated shooting in Minneapolis, the racially motivated murder in Charlotte, and the school shooting in Denver. We kept the rest of the service as planned. We preached on the planned text in 1 Corinthians 7 and shared the same announcements that had been planned.

On Sunday afternoon, I spent an hour and a half with a family member processing their upset that their church spent most of their Sunday service focused on Kirk’s murder.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. When safety becomes a god: Christopher Cook warns, “We’re living in a cultural moment where safety has been enthroned as the highest virtue. You hear it everywhere: “I need to feel safe here.” “I need to feel seen.” “I need to feel welcome.” On the surface, these phrases sound kind. Compassionate, even. But beneath the sentimental polish, there’s often an unspoken expectation: ‘Don’t challenge me.’”

  2. A biblical pathway to emotional wisdom: Dan Brewer says, “Our emotions are not a flaw in God’s design. They are not a curse either—they are a gift.

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A Womb or Two for Every Man

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A Womb or Two for Every Man

What is distinctive about femininity and masculinity? Our culture is confused about what is distinctive about what it is to be a woman and what it is to be a man. Some have Christians parachuted in trying to provide clarity only to overstate or misstate how the Bible speaks to this question. The truth is that God’s Word blows up our narrowly defined cultural constructs and categories.

So long as we go hunting in scripture for proof of our expectations about masculinity and femininity, we are likely to create two-dimensional cut-outs in place of God’s three-dimensional realities.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Understanding therapy culture from different generations: This article from Sheryl Jacob resonates with my experience in the counseling room with different generations. “Millennials (born 1981-1996) grew up with therapy as mainstream - encouraged to talk about trauma, set boundaries, process their inner child, and name anxiety. While this openness is good, this generation also normalised many struggles the Church should have addressed long ago.”

  2. Be drunk with love: J.A. Medders encourages, “We get filled with the Spirit—when bottles (barrels) of the vintage gospel hit our bloodstream, our Blood Gospel Content rises above the legalistic limit.”

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Grieving God's Heart

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Grieving God's Heart

Six chapters into the Bible and only three chapters after Adam and Eve committed the first sin against God, the hearts of humanity have turned in on themselves. They desire to please themselves alone. God’s heart is broken. Listen to the narrative in Genesis 6. It’s a remarkable glimpse into God’s emotional life,

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart….

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