Archive for the ‘Blog Post’ Category

As Southern Baptists gather next week in St. Louis for our annual convention, I pray these dual strengths might once again be celebrated and renewed. Annually, we have occasion to recommit ourselves to a full-throated confessional, witness and to renew our cooperative work. As we do, we will enjoy healthier churches, an increasingly robust and global gospel witness, and a unified, well-funded and vibrant denomination. Read more

The Southern Baptist Convention boasts more than 15 million members in nearly 50,000 churches. In the Deep South, the numbers are even more impressive. In fact, one in four Alabamians identify themselves as a Southern Baptist.

Yet, all is not well within the Southern Baptist Zion. Nearly 50 years ago, Dean Kelley’s insightful, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing, documented the correlation between a denomination’s acceptance of liberal theology and the numerical decline that always followed. Kelley’s argument was clear enough—if a church does not believe in the full truthfulness of Scripture, the exclusivity of the gospel, and the eternal realities of heaven and hell, it feels no urgency to evangelize. Therefore, denominational decline always follows doctrinal compromise. Read more

In looking back upon the character of our prayers, if we do it honestly, we shall be filled with wonder that God has ever answered them. There may be some who think their prayers worthy of acceptance–as the Pharisee did; but the true Christian, in a more enlightened retrospect, weeps over his prayers, and if he could retrace his steps he would desire to pray more earnestly Read more

Pastors are called to preach sermons, not deliver rants. Too often God’s people are subjected to the latter, but it is the former they truly need. This distinction struck me several years ago, while co-preaching a conference with several other pastors.

I sensed we were in for a rant when one of the speakers declined a microphone, assuring the sound-booth attendant he would be sufficiently loud without it. When his moment to preach came, he did not disappoint. I was as amazed at his volume as I was disturbed by his handling of the text.

Pastors are called to preach sermons, not deliver rants. What differentiates the two? Read more

What a mass of hideous sickness must have thrust itself under the eye of Jesus! Yet we read not that he was disgusted, but patiently waited on every case. What a singular variety of evils must have met at his feet! What sickening ulcers and putrefying sores! Yet he was ready for every new shape of the monster evil, and was victor over it in every form. Let the arrow fly from what quarter it might, he quenched its fiery power. The heat of fever, or the cold of dropsy; the lethargy of palsy, or the rage of madness; the filth of leprosy, or the darkness of ophthalmia–all knew the power of his word, and fled at his command. In every corner of the field he was triumphant over evil, and received the homage of delivered captives. Read more