Josh Benner

Category: Commentary

  • Repentance, Facebook, and Wells Fargo

     

    Has anyone else noticed that Facebook and Wells Fargo are both essentially running the same commercial.
    Both companies have been the subject of recent scandals. Facebook with data collection and publishing algorithms. Wells Fargo was just hit with hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for securities fraud.
    Both commercials point to their origin and how the companies changed the world. Then “oops, we messed up.” Followed by, “But we promise we won’t do it again.”
    Apologies are easy. It’s also true in life. It’s EASY to simply say “I’m sorry.”
    Actually changing is much more difficult.

    In life, the sincerity is seen in true repentance and change. With Facebook and Wells Fargo, the standard is the same.

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

  • Teachable moment missed: New Jersey high school allows everyone to make team, regardless of ability

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    There’s a high school in East Hanover, New Jersey. They had cheerleader tryouts. Some girls didn’t make the team. Parents of one girl complained. The school district revised their policy and decides to allow every girl to be on the squad.

    It’s disappointing to want something and not get it. From many personal experiences, I can relate. Jobs I didn’t get. Goals I failed to achieve. I still have a letter from a graduate school that didn’t accept me (I still think they were wrong!)

    In college, I ran for vice president of the organization that oversaw the fraternities. I had the goal of becoming president my senior year. When I ran for vice president, I lost. It was a disappointing setback.

    When you don’t accomplish a goal, you can complain, make excuses, or feel sorry for yourself. Or you can refocus, work harder, and try again.

    High school is old enough to learn start learning that lesson. And it’s an important life lesson. We learn so much more from disappointment and challenge than we do from winning and ease.

    Show me a person who always succeeds, and I’ll show you a person who needs to be striving for some more challenging accomplishments.

    Many are criticizing the school as another example of “snowflakes” and of our participation trophy culture. In this situation, I think those criticisms are warranted.

    Some of the cheerleaders went before the school board and a young woman said that this new policy threw her hard work “out the window.” We make a mistake when we let the unqualified participate in the name of fairness. And it also undermines those who worked hard. It cheapens their effort.

    So instead of girls who didn’t making the team learning a valuable lesson about disappointment, the girls who rightfully made the team are learning a different life lesson: “life isn’t always fair and you have to deal with a lot of ridiculousness.”

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

     

  • What seminary taught me

    13240631_10103459013196830_6669337147853210272_nI graduated seminary two years ago today. I consider it my proudest accomplishment.

    It wasn’t easy. I chose Trinity Evangelical Divinity School because I knew it was a great school that was academically rigorous. And they did not disappoint on that front. I’ve compared it to four years worth of theological Navy SEAL training.

    I learned a lot there. Things I learned about preaching, I use every week. Training in theological and Biblical studies impacts me on a daily basis.

    I learned the importance of Church history.

    There were also many things I learned outside of the classroom from friends. Preconceptions were challenged. It was a wonderful learning experience. And I can honestly say that there are still things I still from seminary friends.

    I learned that not every disagreement needs to be a theological hill worth dying on.

    Over the last several weeks, I’ve seen a new video series on the Gospel Coalition website entitled “what seminary didn’t teach” and it includes responses from many of the leading pastors and scholars in the Evangelical world.

    I was struck by John Piper’s response. He doesn’t like that question.

    Seminary can’t teach everything. Basic training and military training can’t teach a soldier everything there is to being in a war.

    I never had a professor in seminary who gave any false notion that seminary would fully prepare a person for every aspect of ministry. It’s too complicated of a job with too many hats to wear and too many plates to keep spinning. There are an infinite number of situations and scenarios a pastor can potentially face. And those situations involve different and unique people where the appropriate response is not always the same.

    I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know when I graduated. I feel like I have continued to study and learn since my time in seminary, and I realize I’m still really just scratching the surface on studying theology and the Bible.

    I didn’t realize the impact of sin and how it ripples through a church and family.

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

  • The lost art of lament

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    Lament is a topic that is often overlooked in American churches (especially in predominately caucasian churches).
    Lament is very common in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. We see it as a theme throughout the prophetic books, and the Bible has more books on prophecy than in any other genre. We see it in places like Job, Ruth, and Ecclesiasties.
    Lament is not whining.
    It’s not complaining. It’s not grumbling. Lament is an expression of grief and sorrow. Lament is based in the reality of who God is. Lament is based in a high view of the goodness of God in a fallen world. Grumbling is not based in reality and doubts the goodness of God.
    In the Psalms, lament is the theme of more Psalms than any other subject. And that is the hymnal of the Old Testament!
    We also see lament in…Lamentations. A book literally named after lament.
    We do see elements of lament in the New Testament as well.
    For example, Matthew 5:4 says “blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” And the mourning that Jesus talks about is mourning sin, grieving the sin that is in the world. Jesus lamented in the garden, when he asked God “if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).
    Lament is honest
    With the times where people lament in the Bible, God never rebukes them for lamenting.
    The heart that cries out “how long O Lord” isn’t criticized for asking.
    In the dialogue of our hearts with God, we must always be honest with how we feel.
    Lament applies to struggles we face, times where we feel lonely or betrayed. Times where we have poor health. We can lament other hardships that we face. We can lament our own sins.
    God knows your thoughts and your heart.
    We need to be honest with God.
    We need to be honest about the hurt that we feel. About the distressing nature of sin.
    We need to be honest with God about the struggles we’re experiencing. We need to be honest about the harshness we see in the world around us.
    The temptation can be to keep a stiff upper lip, to remain stoic. To give the outward appearance that we’re fine. And I think that we can be tempted to want to appear strong. But the problem with that is it doesn’t make you weak to hurt. It makes you human.
    Lament is an important aspect of the Christian experience in a fallen world. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

  • What’s the greatest danger to the church?

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    There are 300,000 churches in America.
    There are many wonderful churches that boldly proclaim the gospel and faithfully teach the Bible every week. There is no perfect church in the world, because every church is full of members who are imperfect people.
    I think that the biggest issue the American church faces today is related to truth and love.
    Love that undermines truth and truth that doesn’t practice love. I’ll briefly explain what that means.
    Love that undermines truth 
    Love is important. The greatest command in scripture is to love God and to love people. God is love.
    But some churches can emphasize love to the point where it undermines truth.
    For instance, there is a temptation in some Christian circles to consider the love of God and reason that: “since God is love, his love extends to all people, whether or not they believe in God and whether or not they want or accept his love.”
    God is love. But that is just taking a slice of the character of God and acting as if that’s the whole pie. God is love. But he is also just, and righteous, and holy. He judges, he has wrath towards sin. God has all of those qualities at all times.
    God is love. But the idea of love is not only exclusive to what our culture defines love as.
    We tend to value acceptance and tolerance as what it is to love. And it’s true that God meets us where we are, but Jesus doesn’t save us to keep us the same. God is a perfecting God. We sin. We sin so much that we needed a savior, and the gospel is not a message that teaches us that we’re ok and we should just keep doing what we’re doing. We need to live for God and pursue him.
    Making love purely about acceptance and tolerance is not the full Biblical scope of what love is. And so it undermines the truth of scripture. And it runs the danger of undermining the inerrancy of scripture (taking the Bible as practical wisdom rather than the infallible word of God). And this view runs the risk of undermining the gospel itself.
    Assuming that love and  demand for justice are mutually exclusive.

    I observe this being the great risk in more liberal denominations.

    Truth that doesn’t practice love

    I think this is more of a danger in conservative and evangelical circles. We place a high value on the scripture and theology. And well we should because both of those are hugely important.

    But we can get so preoccupied with having the right answer that we lose sight of actually living out what we know. This is very similar to the failure of the Pharisees in the gospels. They were very well studied and trained in theology, but they missed the heart of the message.

    It can be easy to know the right answer but it’s difficult to live it out in practice.

    Truth and love. It comes down to belief and practice. We need both.

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.