SBC Voices

Spring is the season for meetings in Southern Baptist life—OK, let's face it: EVERY season is a season in which Baptists are happy to convene a meeting, but there are a few periods of the year that are especially intense. For the past few weeks I've been encountering a lot of my friends from across the geography and ideology of the Southern Baptist Convention. In the midst of a cordial conversation with one of them, he replied to something I had said by saying, "That's nice that you would say that. We're supposed to be on different sides!" (or something along those lines). It is … [Read more...] about Sides

Last year I wrote a little devotional on the book of Colossians and gave it to my son for his fifth birthday. We gave him the devotional and his own Children’s Bible. At the time I simply titled it “Isaiah’s Big Boy Bible Study”. Now I’ve been inspired to tweak that devotional and make it available for others. The goal of the project is to continue to write devotional on various books of the Bible that parents (primarily dads) can use with their sons*. It is written on a level for K-2 children. The first devotional is on Paul’s letter to the Colossians. It is tentatively subtitled Jesus … [Read more...] about Help Title My Next Writing Project

I believe that you should encourage to participate in the Lord's Supper any and everyone who, if he or she were a member of your church, you would not discipline out. That states my understanding of the extent of the Lord's Supper in its entirety. A few corollary thoughts: This presumes that your church has the framework in place to exercise church discipline and the guts to do it. Our church is a Baptist church. That means that if one of our Sunday School classes started sprinkling infants and refused to stop, they would be subject to church discipline simply because they were … [Read more...] about My Beliefs About the Extent of Communion

We are in a real situation here folks. We've had three articles in recent days discussing the issue of the messenger eligibility proposals being floated at the Executive Committee. All of a sudden it feels like we are back in 2006 debating Baptist Identity and IMB policies and such. I don't know about any of the rest of you who were around in 2006, but I have no desire to go back to those days and that style of Baptist blog debate. But this is no small issue that we have here. Let me state the facts, as I see them. There is a significant problem with the Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M) … [Read more...] about The BF&M Communion Issue: There Is Only 1 Solution

Alan Cross blogs at Downshore Drift. A recent post on SBCVoices.com raises that question. Bart Barber, current 1st VP of the SBC and a friend of mine writes about a recent meeting of the SBC's Executive Committee. They put forward a proposal to amend Article III of our Constitution which deals with member churches and messengers to the annual meeting. There is the business about trying to raise contribution requirements and a few other things, but what really caught my attention was the part about requiring firm adherence to all points of the BFM2000 to be a participating SBC church or … [Read more...] about Is the SBC Positioning to Be Able to Oust Half Of Its Churches? (by Alan Cross)

Taitian, Irenaeus, Origen, and Tertullian As I mentioned in my previous post, early pagan philosophical critics sought to discredit and destroy the “new” Christian religion. However, their ill-fated attempts did not stand a chance against the providential hand of God. In His ordained plan, He placed certain men to write apologetic works refuting those pagan philosophical critics. I mentioned Justin Martyr as the “main” or Father of the Apologists, but I want to give acknowledgment to others. Defending the faith was not a task for one person. God’s plans have rarely been reserved for one … [Read more...] about The Early Apologists

As Baptist Press has reported, and as William Thornton has already discussed, Dr. John Mark Yeats's motion about revising Article III in the SBC Constitution has passed the Executive Committee and is likely coming in some form or another to this year's SBC Annual Meeting. Thornton's previous post and the ensuing comment thread examined several aspects of this proposal, but one question in Thornton's initial article is perhaps the most poignant: "Does the Executive Committee think that there is some compelling reason to make a change other than that the dollar figure hasn’t been changed since … [Read more...] about Thoughts About Article III

Last July I felt convicted to be more intentional in praying for my wife. I figured that it might help me to join with a few other guys and commit to using the month of August to pray every day for our wives. To that end I set up the 31 Day Pray For Your Wife challenge. I was astonished to see over 2,000 men commit to praying. And I’m even more astonished to see that this challenge is still going on every day—thanks to our free eBook and the P4W app. (All our challenges can be easily accessed here). In October and January we prayed for our sons and daughters. Once again many people … [Read more...] about Will You Join Us For 31 Days of Purity?

According to the Gospel of John, the first miracle that Jesus performed, inaugurating his three-year ministry, was turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana. John calls it a "sign." A sign is a hint, an evidence of a somewhat hidden truth. What was that truth? John reveals it near the end of his Gospel: "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (20:30-31). This inaugural sign was only … [Read more...] about Sunday Reflection: Assurance and Faith

William Thornton is the SBC Plodder. The SBC Executive Committee is considering a proposal to change the messenger allocation formula for the annual meeting. Baptist Press reports on the proposal. Updated qualifications weighed for messengers. This subject erupts regularly at our annual meetings. BP says that motions concerning the messenger allocation formula have been made no less than 16 times in the past 35 years. For the past 136 years messengers have been allocated as follows: One per cooperating church. One additional per $250 "paid to the work of the Convention" or per … [Read more...] about Proposed SBC Messenger Formula: Not Very Small Church Friendly? (by William Thornton)