SBC Voices

The scrawny lad heaved his pile of video games onto the counter. With a hint of sadness in his voice, he asks the clerk, “How much can I get for these”? The poor lad looks as if his best-friend just informed him that he’s moving across the state. As I’m wondering why this kid had to get rid of all of his games, I over hear nerd talk. The guys at the video game store are talking about backwards compatibility. Apparently, once this little dude opens up his new PS4 or XBox One for Christmas all of his previous games are obsolete. His old games won’t work on the new system. As I observed … [Read more...] about Backwards Compatible Church

Jeremy Vanatta is the pastor and an elder of Southside Baptist Church in Lebanon, TN.  He holds a PhD in New Testament from Mid-America BTS.  He blogs at The Threshing Floor, where this article originally appeared. As Paul brings his letter to Titus to a close, he wants to give some instructions on what to do with divisive church members who persistently disrupt the unity in the church with their wild theologies and controversies. Titus 3:10-11—As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, 11 knowing that such a person is … [Read more...] about Remove the Persistent Agitator (by Jeremy Vanatta)

Joshua Breland is a seminary student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and blogs at JoshuaBreland.com  The Apostle Paul's teaching about love and a clanging cymbal is on the tip of the tongues of many Christians today. That can be good or not so good. Let's look at the chapter and verse. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. - 1 Corinthians 13:1 Paul is beginning a section on how love is a necessity for godly and helpful behavior. Even though Paul might have powerful truth and knowledge, even … [Read more...] about Paul, Clanging Cymbal, and Listening to Others (by Joshua Breland)

My ongoing dialogue with Dwight McKissic regarding the nature of the gift of tongues has now occupied a number of posts across a six-month timespan: I wrote The Nature of the Biblical Gift of Tongues: Consideration of Relevant Non-Narrative New Testament Passages on July 5. Dwight wrote A Biblical Basis for Speaking in Tongues in Private on July 9. This post did not explicitly respond to my post, but it coming just four days after my initial post and containing significant overlap in content, it belongs in this list, I think. I then authored The Nature of the Biblical Gift of Tongues: … [Read more...] about Clarifications with Dwight McKissic

Rick Reilly manages, by accident every once in a while, to dig deep and strike sportswriter gold! He wrote a thought-provoking article, published at ESPN recently, that expressed his growing angst at being a football fan. As stories of the long terms effects of the violence of the game pile one on top of the other, civilized human beings, and especially Christians, are going to have to ask this question: Does the brutality of football make it immoral?  You can follow the link above to read the entire article, but let me cull some clips that make his point most clearly. After talking about … [Read more...] about Is It Time to End Our Love-Affair with Football?

Wiping away tears from his eyes, the once confident man expresses his dismay, “How did this happen, I had such strong faith?” And he did. He’s not the only one shocked. If you asked his pastor to give a list of the top 10 people that would never fall like this, he’d have been on that list. If you needed someone to counsel young couples going through marital strife, this was the guy. He seemed to have a way of helping young men to become better husbands. This guy had a faith in the Lord that was secretly envied by many in the congregation. Now he’s an adulterer. You’re probably … [Read more...] about How You Fell

I have written quite a bit about Sunday School and how Sunday School can help your church and grow your church.  It can, it can increase your church attendance, make disciples, help your children's ministry, your youth ministry, your young adult, median and senior adult ministries.  Sunday School can do awesome things, but do you have a plan?  You can do great things if you have a plan, an intentional plan that you can not only share, but communicate, execute and make work. Let me give you an example.  FAITH by Lifeway.  I love the visitation that comes with FAITH.  I am not too keen on the … [Read more...] about Do You Have Any Idea What You Are Doing?

Identity Crisis This post does not take the multisite church approach to task. Skilled craftsmen in church planting can hash that out. This post does not seek to bash a single location containing multiple congregations, pending a differentiation between those congregations. Along with the differentiation, there are separate pastoral leaders. Many churches have multiple ethnic congregations within the same facility. I strongly encourage this approach. As pastors, we should allow like-minded linguistic groups to reach each other. As the “main” or “mother” congregation, we should seek to … [Read more...] about Identity Crisis

It is a trite saying, but also true - we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. That is precisely what a lot of Bible-believing, Christ-loving Christians have done on the topic of the subjective voice of God. There can be little doubt that "God told me" or "God spoke to me" are some of the most abused words in the church. People claim that God has told them things that I am quite sure did not come from God. But, does the fact that God's subjective voice - speaking to the human mind and heart directly by His Spirit - is abused mean that it is invalid? For many, the abuses of the … [Read more...] about The Macedonian Call and the Voice of God: An Examination of Acts 16:6-10