Back on February 12, I started a 27-sermon series teaching through the book of Hebrews, the most extensive expository set I’ve done at my present church. Twenty-five of these sermons are down, we have 2 to go…and I gotta say, I love Hebrews and I think it well worth the time for my church to spend the better part of the year absorbing the book, and its main theme: Jesus is greater than everything! For an upcoming young adult fellowship this Friday night, I spent some time today preparing a lesson to go along with Francis Chan’s DVD series (based on his book), Crazy Love. In the first … [Read more...] about The Words We Speak, the Moment We First See God
7 Reasons Why I Am Enthusiastically Using the Gospel Project
It’s about Jesus and the Bible. I think that’s enough said on that one. It’s theologically deep. Southern Baptists are a broad group. You won’t have any curriculum produced by anyone that represents the broad spectrum of theology. This is why the BF&M2000 is a “wide tent” in many areas. To present every side is overkill, to present a general gloss is shallow. This stretches us to ponder... It draws from a variety of sources throughout the church and church history. There’s a Simpson’s episode where the Simpsons end up in heaven…a heaven that is divided into different parts … [Read more...] about 7 Reasons Why I Am Enthusiastically Using the Gospel Project
The Central Idea to the Bible’s Story (aka a very short biblical theology in a semi-long blog post)
This past Sunday I preached Hebrews 10:19-31 as part of a 27 week series going passage by passage through the book of Hebrews. Hebrews is one of my favorite books in the Bible and I have been wanting to teach through it for years, but never felt the timing was right until this past spring. It’s funny—I’ve had quite a few fellow pastors tell me, “Man, Hebrews is hard to understand.” I smile. “No it’s not. It’s really quite simple.” Now I don’t mean that to be prideful…I fully admit that certain parts of Hebrews take a while to wrestle with and at the end of that match, you still come out … [Read more...] about The Central Idea to the Bible’s Story (aka a very short biblical theology in a semi-long blog post)
Being a Pastor’s Pastor
I gained a new-found respect for one of my mentors last week. Ronnie Rogers, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church (Norman, OK), came into the blogosphere limelight this past week in a way I know he didn’t expect. Recently he wrote a book detailing his journey away from Calvinism. Our friends at sbctoday posted a chapter from his book as well as an interview he gave. But I don’t want to talk in this post about his book or Calvinism at all… Instead, seeing the interview made me remember a sad truth—it had been way to long since I had spoken with Ronnie to encourage him as my mentor. You … [Read more...] about Being a Pastor’s Pastor
A Funny Thing Happened…
I’m free! Well, almost. I just finished up six weeks of walking around with an incapacitated right hand due to a tiny little stress fracture in my wrist. I’m working on getting my range of motion and strength back, but if feels so good… In a culture dependent on typing, and a job dependent on writing—when you’re one hand down, and the dominant hand at that, it’s really no fun. I had broken this same wrist 20 years ago, when I was 12. But then I had mom and dad around to help button shirts, do dishes, walk the dog, etc. And I really didn’t have to worry about typing and all this writing. … [Read more...] about A Funny Thing Happened…
How Does Your Church Train Up Men?
I must admit some personal irony to the subject at hand (no pun to be intended), I did quite the boyish thing seven weeks ago, by turning one of our young adults into a tackling dummy during a church volleyball game. Landed awkwardly on my wrist and broke a bone. Funny thing is it didn’t hurt that bad and looked fine, so I went 2 weeks without knowing it was broke. Then spent 4 weeks in a cast, and now find myself in the middle of at least a 2-week stint in a splint… makes typing at a computer and therefore blogging a bit difficult. So I’m going to keep this short—mainly in the form of … [Read more...] about How Does Your Church Train Up Men?
The Five “Bes” of Evangelism
One of the guys I’ve been mentoring/discipling in my church is in his last summer before his senior year of High School. While his school is bigger than some, we do not live in a large town with a large school. Each graduating class contains somewhere between 50-to-60 students. In the time I’ve been mentoring him, we have worked on his character and consistency as a follower of Jesus. One area in which he desires to grow is sharing the Gospel with his fellow students. We live in a very spiritually apathetic town. It is small. Most everyone is related or connected to each other in some … [Read more...] about The Five “Bes” of Evangelism
Why I Am a Credobaptist (or, a theology of believers’ baptism)
Simple answer to this post’s title: Because circumcision is the sign of the covenant for the offspring of Abraham. Now here might be a head-scratcher, because that line sounds quite paedobaptist. Indeed at the root of a good deal of paedobaptism is the idea that an overarching covenant of grace exists, under which all the biblical covenants fall. Therefore the New Covenant (somehow despite Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8, which tell us it is completely different) is basically the same as the Old. According to such Covenant Theology, there is not much core difference between Israel and the … [Read more...] about Why I Am a Credobaptist (or, a theology of believers’ baptism)
A Common Ground Soteriology
I consider myself a child of the Conservative Resurgence. As at least a 3rd generation Southern Baptist, I am able to happily continue to identify with my denominational heritage thanks to the faithfulness, work, and dedication of my generation’s Pauls—men such as Paige Patterson, Adrian Rogers, Paul Pressler, Charles Stanley, etc. These men taught us that we must have a high view of the Bible. We are, by declaration, “people of the book.” Therefore what we believe must be grounded firmly in Scripture. They taught us that inerrancy is indeed “a hill on which to die.” After all, to lose … [Read more...] about A Common Ground Soteriology
What’s It Gonna Take?
Last January, as I’ve written about, I took a trip to Zambia to teach at a Bible College, and I hope to do it again this January. The college is operated by an organization called Gospelink (which is a good organization, not to be confused with another gospelink website—the LDS on-line library). And this past Sunday I had a gentleman on the board of directors come and speak my church. You see, Gospelink’s primary mission focus is not a Bible college in Zambia, though that is now an important focus. Rather, as their main task they raise support from a country that has in order to fund the … [Read more...] about What’s It Gonna Take?