SBC Issues

There are only two reasons to use an apostrophe - a contracted word or a possessive noun. You don't need to use one any other time. Please stop. The "overuse" of "quotation marks" is both "rampant" and "annoying." There is no such word as irregardless. Their, there, and they're are three different words. Learn the difference. Same principle applies with to, too and two. Internet abbreviations (lol, etc) are as onerous as emoticons. The last book of the Bible is the Revelation-singular. One revelation of Jesus Christ, not many little Revelations. The word went should generally not be … [Read more...] about Dear Everyone….

How well do most Christians know the difference between what the Bible says and our commentary on what the Bible says?  When we teach and preach, are we clearly drawing distinctions between the text itself and our expansion on the text? _____________ Every Tuesday evening around 7:00, four Deaf men and one Deaf woman come by our home for a Bible study.  These five people have been Christians for varying lengths of time ranging from months to years.  Like most local Deaf residents, they are functionally illiterate, using print only when necessary; even then, reading is an awkward, … [Read more...] about “He Said” vs “We Said That He Said”

Yesterday, I listened to a talk from Steve Jobs from 1983.  I’d encourage you to at least play it in the background or give it a skim listen at some point: Did I mention that he gave this talk in 1983?!?!  In this hour he predicted the world that we live in today.  And he did it with passion and confidence.  It felt as if Steve Jobs had time travelled to the year 2000 and then went back to 1983 to tell people what he witnessed.  Amazing! As I listened to Jobs I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not churches ought to dream like Steve Jobs?  Jobs stood before these people and said, … [Read more...] about Should Churches Dream Like Steve Jobs?

Sometimes things just stink. Have you experienced that? Sometimes things go wrong, fights at home, income drops, kids are wild and your team loses and doesn't make it to the World Series. Sometimes life is just hard and you wonder why. I know I have spent many hours begging God for relief and deliverance. Often, I don't find it and it's for my benefit that I don't find it. I am not always in the situations that I want to be in, but I have found those situations are where I learn the most. It's approaching winter time, and the trees are bare, the grass in brown and what I see out the window … [Read more...] about Finding the Beauty and Purpose in Ashes

This article is a reflection on "Southern Baptist Identity: An Evangelical Denomination Faces the Future," edited by David S. Dockery. This post is based on the Introduction, "Southern Baptists in the 21st Century," also by David Dockery. The introduction to this series appeared yesterday. How important is your rear-view mirror? It is an important aid in driving, but you cannot make progress through busy streets if all you do is stare behind you! I've known a few Baptists who are trying to steer toward the future by gazing only in their rear-view mirrors! Every problem we face has … [Read more...] about Southern Baptist Identity: Southern Baptists in the 21st Century

I carried on with prayer and Bible study, but the children's ministry took the night off. Some of the leaders stayed home and did some evangelistic stuff in neighborhoods. We had our "Fall Festival" last weekend. I was out of town and haven't heard how things went. Sounds like a lot of churches had Halloween parties (though the word never appears - its all Fall Festival or Harvest Night or whatever cover we use). Those draw big numbers but are they evangelistically effective? Let's talk about it … [Read more...] about How Did Your Church Handle Halloween?

Several years ago, in the "Wild West" days of Baptist blogging, I read a comment made by a prominent blogger, the pastor of a large church, disdaining the viewpoints of several others bloggers who pastored much smaller churches.  Because their churches were smaller than his, their opinions evidently carried less weight than his did. It was strange to see those words on the screen, but they represent a prevalent opinion in the Baptist world - that numbers are an obvious measure of God's blessings. We Baptists tend to be a "bigger is better" bunch. Our denomination is dominated by those who have … [Read more...] about Can We Measure God’s Pleasure? Examining Baptists’ Passion for Numbers

I find myself reading through Judges 19 this morning and my heart absolutely breaking.  The story is one of the inhospitality and wickedness of the men of Gibeah.  Just as in the story of Sodom the men of the city desire to have sexual relations with a male visitor of the city.  Instead of allowing them to devour his guest, the Levite, the hospitable sojourner throws out the Levites concubine and “they knew her and abused her all night until the morning”. The story ends with dead concubine grasping at the threshold of her masters door.  Actually, though her life ends there her story does … [Read more...] about Where is Jesus in Judges 19?

America has now become a “Culture of the Moral Negative.” I am not talking about “negativity,” the bogie man of the new age.   Actually, I am convinced negativity can be honorable.  Of God’s ten laws, eight of them are stated in the negative.  “Thou shalt not.”  That is an 80% negativity rate - from God.  Flawed human beings need limits to inhibit our sinful behavior. But that is another topic. I am talking about the kind of negative we used to get when cameras had something called film inside.   On the photographic negative, everything was reversed; dark colors appear as light and light … [Read more...] about The Culture of the Moral Negative