Recommendations, Counseling, Wisdom
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. We’re living in the dystopian future Neil Postman predicted 40 years ago: Brett McCracken says, “From the rising of the sun to its going down, we scroll our way through the day. We scroll our way through life. And we are scrolling ourselves to death.”

  2. Five hard truths about marriage most couples learn too late: Psychologist Mark Travers’s findings echo truths in the Bible, “One of the biggest misconceptions about marriage is that truly compatible people don’t argue. But not only is conflict inevitable, it’s also essential.”

This Week's Recommendations
Biblical Studies, Christian Living, Death
John Beeson
Let not him who straps on his armor boast ...

We would do well to heed Ahab and Roosevelt’s warnings. In our contemporary world, shrunk by media, it is enticing to microwave hot takes for all types of issues. Geopolitical events, religious issues, and economic and social policies entice us to weigh in. We want to know what is right and wrong, good and evil, and we want to hold firm opinions in fields in which we have little to no experience.

Ben-hadad meant “son of Hadad,” the Syrian god of thunder. It’s a fitting name. He was booming and terrifying, but relatively harmless. There are a lot of Ben-hadads out there today, those who dial up every opinion to 100 decibels.

Let not him who straps on his armor boast himself as he who takes it off
Culture, Identity
John Beeson
The Worthlessness of Cool

When I was in high school, swimming was my best sport. I still remember the first time I saw Gary Hall, Jr. swim. I was a freshman and he was a senior. We were at the hallowed grounds of the Plummer Aquatic Center at Arizona State University in Tempe. Gary Hall, Jr.’s father was an Olympic swimmer and Gary Hall Jr. would one day join that class. In fact, Hall would go on to win ten Olympic medals. I had never seen anything like Hall in a pool before. At 6’6” and probably 225 pounds, Hall looked more like a linebacker than a swimmer. In the water, his body rose above the water higher than anyone else’s, seemingly buoyed at his hips by an invisible force. He swam freestyle with a hitch, almost strutting through the water.

The Worthlessness of Cool
Recommendations, Christian Living, Nature, Culture
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. An age of extinction is coming. Here’s how to survive. Ross Douthat portends, “The bottleneck of the digital age is different: The new era is killing us softly, by drawing people out of the real and into the virtual, distracting us from the activities that sustain ordinary life, and finally making existence at a human scale seem obsolete.”

  2. Chickens, elephants, and the illusion of freedom. Donal shares a simple, but memorable story, ““the chicken is tied to a tree for so long, that when it is released, as long as it has the string on its ankle (do chickens have ankles?) it thinks it cannot go any further than the length of the original string. It is still attached in its own mind.”

This Week's Recommendations
Reading, Recommendations
John Beeson
Summer Reads (2025)

Right now, Angel and I are in California working on the audiobook for Trading Faces. We would love your prayers as we help our book get into the ears of more listeners.

Books are such a great companion to summertime. Do you have any vacation plans this summer? Perhaps you hope to get some time poolside? Even if you don’t, I hope you’re able to carve out a bit of time to enjoy a few good books. Here are a few you might enjoy.

Summer Reads (2025)
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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The data is clear: people are having less sex: Ryan Burge concludes, “Who would have thought that Mark Zuckerberg building an app to try and meet girls would eventually be one of the causes of declining fertility. But, here we are.”

  2. Climb a mountain, swim a sea, fight a dragon: Tim Challies on grace and works, “I think that if Elisha had told Naaman to do something hard and heroic, he would have gladly done it. If he had been told to climb a mountain or swim a sea or fight a dragon, he would have embarked on so noble a quest.

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Off the Beaten Path Christian Music

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Off the Beaten Path Christian Music

One of the things I love about having two musical young adults in my home is that they are a funnel for new music. Combined with my own curiosity and some great resources. I have found a great off-the-beaten path collection of Christian artists from a lot of different genres.  

So, are you interested in some new music? Perhaps some of these artists might whet your appetite for further exploration. Who are some of your favorite non-mainstream Christian artists? Let me know!

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The Dust Mite and the Spider

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The Dust Mite and the Spider

One afternoon, the spider and the dust mite met in the cool underside of a misshapen pillow.

Greetings and pleasantries concluded, an awkward silence grew. Intimidated by the size of the spider, the dust mite boasted, “Have you ever noticed how similar I am to an eagle?”

“You? Like an eagle?” the spider questioned scornfully.

“Oh yes,” the dust mite responded, gaining confidence. “I am like an eagle. Like an eagle, I have a head and legs and lay eggs.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Random thoughts on being a dad: Lots of gems from Tim Challies here: “When you sin in front of your children, apologize to your children. While it may feel like you are losing their respect by apologizing, you are actually regaining the respect you surrendered when you sinned against them in the first place.”

  2. Why my shepherd carries a rod: David Gibson, “It is the shepherd’s primary offensive weapon for protecting the flock from enemies, be they wild animals or human thieves. The instrument itself is about two and a half feet long with a mace-like end into which the heavy pieces of iron are often embedded. It becomes a formidable weapon.”

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The Bible Isn't a Q-Tip

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The Bible Isn't a Q-Tip

You know you’re not supposed to use a Q-tip that way, right? Right on the box it reads, “Do not insert swab into ear canal. Entering the ear canal cold cause injury.” A bevy of articles warn against using cotton swabs to swab your ear canal as “the majority [of earwax] is actually pushed deeper into your ear canal. This can lead to impacted earwax and a vicious cycle of feeling like your ears are dirty, using Q-tips and pushing more wax deeper in your ears.”

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What If Everyone at Your Church Was Like You?

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What If Everyone at Your Church Was Like You?

Is the church biblically sound? Do its leaders bear a faithful witness with their personal lives? Is the theology sound? Does the worship honor Christ? Is there programming that helps those from diverse ages grow in faith? Does it reflect the ethnic diversity of its neighborhood?

This is just the tip of the iceberg of appropriate questions when considering whether a church might be a good fit for us. Most of us have a finely tuned ability to evaluate churches. We’ve developed these skills by combining our biblical knowledge with our experience in our consumer culture.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Signet, wax, and fire: Chris Martin considers a powerful analogy, “If we simply hammer our hearts with the truth of God’s Word over and over, our hard hearts will either be imprinted with some shallow facsimile of Truth or be cracked by its overwhelming weight.”

  2. The path away from pornography: Chris Hutchinson shares, “There is no “formula” for getting free from pornography: each person, and their situation, is unique. At the same time, just as sexual sin operates in certain patterns, so I’ve witnessed common patterns in the way the Lord breaks people free from its chains.”

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Our Rescue Story

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Our Rescue Story

“What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” It is not that Thomas doesn’t believe marriage can be a source of joy, but that we ask too much if we ask marriage to bring us our “happily ever after.” Joy will likely trail holiness if we make that the main aim in marriage, but if we aim at happiness, we will miss both happiness and holiness.

 Angel and I can testify to how fragile marriage is. In the summer of 2009, our marriage began unraveling after my first three years of pastoral ministry—years I neglected Angel for my mistress, the church.

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Things to Not Say About Science

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Things to Not Say About Science

With over 1,000 videos and eight million subscribers, the Jubilee channel on YouTube is a popular platform for debate. Each episode of Jubilee brings people who have disagreements together to try to hash out their opposing opinions. They have episodes about everything from abortion to immigration to the Israel-Palestinian debate. In one of the episodes, two sides debate whether the earth is flat or not. Of the three proponents that the earth is flat, two of the three were Christians. The three opponents were all scientists.

How did we get here?

Christian friends, we’ve got to do better.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. A sickness in pursuing health: Trevin Wax considers some of the excesses of the movement toward long and healthy living. “If this life is all there is, then the pressure to optimize your body and extend your life as long as possible makes sense. But if there’s more to life than this existence and more to “making the most” of life than physical prowess, then the pursuit of longevity and health can sabotage itself.”

  2. When God takes his time: I love everything Glenna Marshall writes. This is so filled with wisdom, “The problem is this: we rarely assume that God is purposeful and kind in his long game.

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