Josh Benner

Category: Theology

  • Why we need to pursue God everyday

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    Do you have an area in your life today where you’re tempted to doubt God’s goodness?
    Life is hard. There are challenges we face.
    For some of us, it’s health. For some of us, it’s in the relationships we have. Maybe there’s a lot of conflict either with a friend or a neighbor or a family member. But things are just really tough. And maybe you’re in a situation that you just don’t like.
    In the Exodus, the Israelites constantly complain about not having enough, things not being good enough, life not being easy enough.
    For the Israelites, God works all of these signs and wonders. Miraculously redeems them.
    Brings them to the edge of the Red Sea.
    They complain. “Why are we going to die out here?”
    Miraculously God parts the waters. Brings them across. Wipes out the greatest army the world had ever known.
    They get into the wilderness and they don’t have food.
    “Why were brought out here to die?”
    God provides food.
    They don’t have water.
    “Why were we brought here to die?”
    God gives them water.
    Blessing after blessing after blessing. And continually losing sight of all of that.
    They send out scouts who SEE the land and they’re like “Woah, this place is even better than advertised. This place is amazing!” But the people hear about the people in the land, “we can’t beat them. We can’t do it. It’s too much, it’s too hard.”
    It’s easy to judge them. To think, “Wow, the Israelites just didn’t get it.”
    But we often have more in common with the Israelites than we like to admit to ourselves. Their responses are so…human.
    What is your view of the Lord’s blessing? Is it gratitude and thankfulness?
    Or are you never happy because it’s never enough, never close enough to what you want? Never what you think you need?
    Eye on the prize.
    It’s what the Israelites never figured out during their wanderings. They didn’t learn how to enjoy God.
    God can be enjoyed in all circumstances and situations.
    We don’t have to wait until we get through a certain challenge. We don’t need to wait until we get to a certain level of Chrristian maturity. We don’t need to wait to enjoy God. We can rejoice in his goodness and majesty and dominion and holiness today.
    We can and we must.
    Or else, we’ll be like the Israelites. Continually seeing the blessings of God and never enjoying any of it because we always have something else to look at to worry about.
    They were walking in the wilderness but were so often not really walking with God.
    Let me ask you: how’s your Spiritual life today?
    For the Israelites on their wanderings, they had such little joy in God, trust in God, and love for God.
    That’s not the life God wants us to live.
    In time where you’re struggling and not finding joy and delight in God, and when God seems distant to you, how are you doing, Spiritually?
    How’s your devotional life?
    I’ll go out on a limb that it’s struggling, that you’re probably not taking it as seriously.
    Am I wrong?
    If you look back on times where you Spiritually snuggled, were those also the times when you were most serious about pursuing God daily?
    It takes a daily pursuit.
    You can’t take your foot off the gas.
    But it can be hard sometimes. It’s hard for me sometimes.
    It needs to be part of our daily life. Spending time in God’s word, spending time in prayer, having a worshipful heart towards God. And it needs to be part of our life to have a mind that is set on the things above, a mind that is devoted to God, the things of God, meditating on God, rejoicing in God and in his goodness.
    Clearly the Israelites struggled with that on their wanderings. Always finding reasons to complain about what they had been given. Never happy.
    That’s not saying it’ll all become easy.
    But we can experience all of that with God or without God. Rejoicing in God or complaining about God.
    How are you doing today?
    God needs to be the focal point of your day.

    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.

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  • Americans have more reverence for being in the presence of the queen of another country than being in the presence of God

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    President Trump visited the United Kingdom this week. I saw a few posts and articles this morning in regards to the president’s meeting with Queen Elizabeth II.

    Many are complaining about the president breaking protocols with the monarch. For instance, there is a tradition that people walk slightly behind the queen. At one point, the president was in front of the queen during her ceremonial inspection of the guard at Windsor Castle.

    Oh the humanity!

    The comments online talked about how this was an embarrassment, a sign of disrespect, and a president who lacked manners.

    There are all of these protocols for meeting a royal.

    Men are supposed to bow, women are supposed to curtsy. You’re supposed to walk behind her. You’re not supposed to turn your back to the queen. On first meeting, the queen is supposed to be addressed as “your majesty.”

    And as we saw with President Trump breaching some of these protocols, there was criticism.

    And that’s just for meeting a person. Think about the respect that Americans have for the queen of a different country. There is an expectation of this reverence for the queen. There’s this expectation of following the rules.

    Yet we often have a very casual view of what it would be like to be in the presence of God. God is righteous, holy, set apart. He is awesomely mighty and glorious. And being in his presence also has its own protocols. You don’t just approach the King in any way you want. You approach God on his terms, not yours.

    God requires perfection to enter his presence. It takes holiness to be with a holy God. We bristle at that, thrash against that, complain about that. But that is God’s standard.

    We are not worthy of that.

    You wouldn’t just go to Buckingham Palace and demand an audience with the queen. We don’t approach God on our terms.

    It is faith in Jesus who gives us access to God. We are unholy, but Jesus makes a person holy. We are unrighteous, but Jesus makes a person righteous.

    The Prophet Isaiah reports one of the great heavenly visions of the Bible in chapter 6.

    In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:

    “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;

    the whole earth is full of his glory!”

    4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

    -Isaiah 6:1-5

    The presence of God is always depicted as being an awesome and overwhelming experience. As people realize their unworthiness, it’s often a terrifying experience to be in the presence of this holiness.

    The good news of the gospel is that Jesus brings us in.

    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.

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  • When we’re tempted to second guess God…

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    I was going through Lee Strobel’s latest book The Case for Miracles last week. The final chapter in the book was a poignant discussion entitled: “When miracles don’t happen.”

    In that chapter, Strobel interviews Douglas Groothuis who’s a professor at Denver Seminary. In the interview, they talk about the health of Groothuis’s wife Becky, a Mensa member and author who developed a rare form of dementia which impacts the brain’s ability to recall words.

    In the interview, they talk of day to day challenges of seeing his wife taken from him. The interview talked about faith, spirituality, lament, and hope.

    I was particularly struck by one of the answers Groothuis gave. Strobel asked “Do you feel like if you were God, you would definitely heal Becky?”

    “God is perfect and he acts accordingly. If I were God, I’d be perfect – and therefore I’d act in the very same way he does. We might not understand why he does what he does, but it’s folly to think we’d do things better.”

    I found that to be brilliant and insightful. It’s easy for us to look to things in God’s rule of creation and to think it could be done better or should be done differently. But God is righteous and eternal. At times, it can be very hard to see the good in the struggles of our lives. At times, it’s hard to see the goodness of God in the wrongs others afflict on us.

    Groothuis saw a brilliant woman lose her mental faculties and pass away at just 59 years of age. But the faith to trust that God is still good in that. To trust that God is so good that his plan cannot be improved upon in spite of all of the bad, all of the evil, all of the suffering in our world. God still works that for good. God still weaves that into his plans and uses it for his own glory.

    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.

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  • Can a loving God allow hell to exist?

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    Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

    Originally published: November 14, 2016

    Hell is a tough doctrine.

    In his book the Problem of Pain, CS Lewis sums up what I think many would agree with: “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason.”

    We’re fine with the idea of a loving God, but we’re less accepting of a God who judges.

    With the idea of hell, It can seem unfair. We can feel tempted to justify why hell doesn’t exist. Or maybe we think that hell is really just for people who are really, really bad. (more…)

  • The best commentaries on Matthew (in my opinion)

    photo-1520099078215-db50d947d060.jpegLike many pastors, I’m a commentary nerd.

    Bible commentaries are scholarly books which give a verse by verse analysis of a book of the Bible. There are commentaries on every book of the Bible. Over the last 20 years, there have been hundreds of new commentaries that have been released. Commentaries are helpful to me in my studies of the Bible as I prepare sermons, Sunday school lessons, youth group lessons, and small group discussions. They’re a huge blessing to me and my ministry.

    If you’re looking to study a book in depth, which commentaries should you read?

    I’m starting a new series where I give my opinions on some of the best commentaries I’ve encountered for various books of the Bible.

    Today, we start with the Gospel of Matthew. It’s my favorite book of the Bible to study. I’ve also preached more from Matthew than any other book and I’m familiar with all of the major commentaries.

    Matthew has many great commentaries. I would put it right up with Romans as being the New Testament books with the best literature.

    1. Grant Osborne – Zondervan Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament (2010). Osborne was a professor at my seminary but I never actually had him for a class (so many great professors, it was difficult to get ’em all). I love his writing. Commentaries can be very dense and intellectual but Osborne’s commentaries (and he’s written one on every book of the New Testament) are written in an approachable manner, while still being academically rigorous.
    2. R.T. France – New International Commentary of the New Testament (2007). The late R.T. France actually wrote two commentaries on Matthew. He wrote one the New International Commentary of the New Testament (NICNT) and the Tyndale New Testament Commentary on Matthew. The NICNT commentaries can at times get highly academic, but, like Osborne, France writes with great clarity. Every time I read France’s observations of Matthew’s gospel, I feel that there is something fresh and interesting he has gleaned from the text. The Tyndale commentary is still very solid, more condensed than the NICNT, and a bit more approachable for the lay person, but still very solid.
    3. Leon Morris – Pillar New Testament Commentary (1992). Unlike any other commentator I’ve read, Morris could write with brevity while feeling like he fully captured the idea of a verse. Truly a gift. A solid Evangelical scholar.
    4. D.A. Carson – The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (1984). This is my favorite commentary in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary series. Carson is my favorite New Testament scholar. As with anything Carson does, excellent exegesis and explanations of the text. One of the things I most appreciate about Carson is his ability to explain a passage while seamlessly connecting it to the rest of the context of the passage and within the overarching book.
    5. Craig Blomberg – North American Commentary (1992). As a critique (and not so much a direct criticism of Blomberg because there are often restrictions from publishers on how long a book can be), but at times, I feel like his exposition can be too brief, and leaves me wanting more. But what he gives you in his commentary of Matthew is first rate. Blomberg approaches challenging subjects in a gentle manner.

    What’s your favorite commentary on Matthew?

    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.