Recommendations, Christian Living, Culture, Death, Faith, Finance, Science, Theology
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. The grief we learn to carry: Stacy MacLaren says, “Grief research has given us language for something grieving people have known in their bones forever: losing someone you deeply love isn't like sustaining an injury that eventually disappears once you've healed correctly. Grief is, in part, a massive act of learning.”

  2. Some of the strangest Old Testament laws and what they mean: Christine Palmer explains, ““You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes” (Lev. 19:26). To remain in right standing with the Lord, under no circumstances may the cove­nant people eat meat with its blood,

This Week's Recommendations
Biblical Studies, Christian Living, Faith
John Beeson
Saul, the Witch at En-dor, and the Will of God

Do ghosts exist? Do we have access to the spirit world? If so, what does that mean for our spiritual life? The bizarre story of Saul and the Medium at En-Dor, while challenging, addresses these questions.

 

At the heart of this text is a critical question: will you obey God?

Here is the story:

The Philistines assembled and came and encamped at Shunem. And Saul gathered all Israel, and they encamped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him,

Saul, the Witch at En-dor, and the Will of God
Faith, Fear, Prayer
John Beeson
Come, You Who Are Anxious

Anxiety comes in many shapes and forms. Do you ever have a feeling of dread? Does your chest ever tighten in fear? Do you feel like you can’t slow down your mind?

How can we escape anxiety’s clutches? Let’s look at how Jesus responds to those gripped by fear.

Jesus first points us to the sovereignty of God. As Jesus departs the upper room where he and his disciples ate the Last Supper and he stooped and washed their feet, the hearts of the eleven were in turmoil. Jesus had shared the frightening news that Judas had allowed Satan to enter his heart and that Peter would deny him

Come, You Who Are Anxious
Recommendations, Consumerism, Culture, Faith, Fear, Finance
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Why the internet is making men and women hate each other: Samuel James writes, “We’re on the threshold of a vicious cycle. Men and women are declining relationships with each other, which means they are more likely to be suckered in by the algorithmic gender silo. But the more they take in a biased, imbalanced view of the other, the less interested they are in relationship.”

  2. Mutant virtues: Jacob Crouch says, “These mutant virtues parade themselves out in the public square as though they are the real thing. So-called justice, instead of being the righteousness of God on display,

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Family, Marriage, Relationships, Science, Wisdom
John Beeson
Seasons of Marriage

You are on a date night with your wife, observing the people around you.

“First date?” you ask. “For sure!” she says, noticing the telltale signs. The young lady carries a single rose. The young man is a little nervous. They are slightly overdressed for the restaurant. Eyes locked, their attention is rapt on one another. Cell phones never make an appearance.

 Young love.

A mom and dad in their late thirties burst into the restaurant with three boisterous children guffawing at a joke. They divide and conquer: dad takes the two boys to the bathroom while mom settles herself and their daughter into the chair.

Seasons of Marriage

Theology

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The grief we learn to carry: Stacy MacLaren says, “Grief research has given us language for something grieving people have known in their bones forever: losing someone you deeply love isn't like sustaining an injury that eventually disappears once you've healed correctly. Grief is, in part, a massive act of learning.”

  2. Some of the strangest Old Testament laws and what they mean: Christine Palmer explains, ““You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes” (Lev. 19:26). To remain in right standing with the Lord, under no circumstances may the cove­nant people eat meat with its blood,

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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. In the immortalized words of the country singer Toby Keith, “I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about I, wanna talk about number one, oh my me my. What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see.” We laugh because it’s true and we laugh because it reveals our narcissism.

Christians might be tempted to push back on all of the obsession of self-discovery and reject it as narcissistic and ungodly. John Calvin

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When the Battle Rages, Seek Union

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When the Battle Rages, Seek Union

There is more going on around us than we can see. The physical world is surrounded by the spiritual realm. A spiritual battle rages around us.

I grew up during a time of heightened awareness of the spiritual realm. I remember lying in bed as a high school student, heart pounding and eyes glued to Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness. I recall driving past Hindu temples in Trinidad overwhelmed by a feeling of spiritual darkness. Our church hosted workshops based on Neil Anderson’s The Bondage Breaker. We were taught to put on the armor of God piece by piece and to claim the blood of Jesus when confronting dark spiritual forces.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. How much do you know about the US flag? Test your knowledge with this AP Quiz.

  2. A theology of awkwardness: Emily Stimpson Chapman says, “We are terrified of saying and doing the wrong thing, coming off the fool, finding ourselves humiliated through our own inadequacy, and not measuring up. Awkwardness is also what makes so many forms of technology—artificial and otherwise—so appealing.

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Jesus' Sloppy Wet Kiss

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Jesus' Sloppy Wet Kiss

While I grew up in a gospel-preaching church that formed the lifelong foundation for my faith, my theological awakening occurred in college. As I grew up in theology, I began to turn my nose up on some of the worship of my youth.

 

I had outgrown Precious Moments Christianity and left behind worship that felt like nothing more than love songs to Jesus. I’m thinking of sentimental songs like “Above All” where we sang,

Like the rose trampled on the ground

You took the fall

And thought of me

Above all

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The Ring of Fellowship

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The Ring of Fellowship

JRR Tolkien had an elevated view of friendship. For years, he met with an informal group of literary friends called the Inklings at the Oxford pub, the Eagle and The Eagle and the Child (or, as the group called it, “The Bird and the Baby). Tolkien and CS Lewis were fast friends. Tolkien’s Ent Treebeard was fashioned after Lewis, and Lewis likely fashioned his protagonist Ransom in his Space Trilogy on Tolkien.

Both were shaped by The Great War, their love of languages and myths, and by their devotion to Christ. Tolkien, in fact, was crucial in Lewis’s conversion.

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AI Isn't Your Mentor

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AI Isn't Your Mentor

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more and more people have begun turning to AI as a stand in for God when they want comfort, guidance, or even something that feels like prayer.

But let me say this gently and clearly: please don’t pray to AI. Claude is not God, and it cannot take his place.  No matter how advanced it seems, the ‘A’ in AI still stands for “artificial.”

For many, AI has become a conversation partner. It is reported that 75% of teens  use AI companions, and for some, those AI companions are beginning to function like mentors

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Hell to pay: what truly happened to Jesus on the cross? Nick Batzig says, “If Jesus wasn’t truly forsaken—if he didn’t really endure the equivalent of eternal punishment on the cross—then substitutionary atonement is a legal fiction.”

  2. Before the snow returns: Andrea Sanborn with a brief reflection on “false spring” and the resurrection. She says, “This is the tug-of-war between the new life and the old, the cold bite of disappointment wrestling with the hope of better. Of more. Of failure and forgiveness, of discouragement and hope, of worry and contentment.”

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Why Wouldn't God Provide More Proof?

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Why Wouldn't God Provide More Proof?

While the influence of the so-called new atheists, led by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins, has waned in recent years, the fog of their critiques against Christianity has not altogether disappeared. Comedian Ricky Gervais has leveled one of the most compelling arguments against Christianity. He argues that if you destroyed all holy books and all science books, “in a thousand years they'd all be back, because all the same tests would be the same result.” In other words, the science books would return exactly as they were because experiments would return the same results while the religious texts would not.

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Hark! Ris'n with Healing

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Hark! Ris'n with Healing

As we prepare for Christmas, we are diving into one of the most theologically rich Christmas carols ever written: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.

December not only brings the celebration of our Lord’s birth, it often brings sickness. Just this week our daughter got hit with the flu. It’s appropriate that many of us might be a little needier this time of year as we are reminded that Jesus alone can bring healing. Do you need healing today? Does someone you love need healing?

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