The President of the Southern Baptist Convention, Bart Barber, has just announced that the platform will be recommending a new rule for the annual meeting this summer in Indianapolis. They are recommending that messengers relinquish their right to end debate before at least 12 minutes of debate have taken place. If messengers were to approve such a rule, every single matter of business that comes up for a vote would require at least 12 minutes of deliberation. I could be wrong, but I suspect that the platform would not be offering such a rule were the Law Amendment not on the agenda. I’m all f ..read more

Last year, James Merritt moved that the President of the SBC appoint a task force to study Article 3 of the SBC Constitution and how the Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M) figures into our cooperative efforts. President Barber appointed the task force last year, and they became known as the “Cooperation Group.” They have been working since last year and released their recommendations earlier today. I am grateful for the hard work of the committee and for their service to the convention. I’m also grateful that they were able to come up with a set of proposals that they unanimously approved ..read more

The leader of Tennessee Baptists, Randy Davis, just released an article opposing the Law amendment. He gives three reasons for opposing it. First, he says that it is not necessary because Southern Baptists demonstrated last summer that they can remove churches that violate our confessional parameters. Second, the amendment legalistically imposes a confession on SBC churches and violates principles of “soul competency” and “priesthood of believers.” Third, passing the amendment will set a precedent of going beyond the BF&M to establish the parameters for our cooperation (e.g., Millennial vi ..read more

I have been preaching expositionally through the Gospel of John at our church, and a couple weeks ago I came to John 3:29, which says this: The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. My explanation on this point relied almost entirely on something that I read in Colin Kruse’s commentary on this text. Here’s is the relevant excerpt from my sermon manuscript: The analogy is really simple here. At a wedding, you have a bride, a groom, and a best man. Th ..read more

Have you ever behaved as if you are the center of reality? As if all of your wants and desires and ideas are better than everyone else’s and as if everyone needs to reorient their lives and priorities around your priorities? Have you ever found yourself relating to God that way? Such that your prayers shift subtly from Thy will be done to My will be done. Your kids or your spouse does something that irritates you, and so you fly off the handle in a self-righteous rage because the little people around you disturbed your comfort and tranquility in some way? The basis for that anger is the subtle ..read more

Many of you will recognize the name “Weezer” from the 1989 movie Steel Magnolias, a film about the special bond shared among a group of small-town Southern women and how they cope with the death of one of their own. Many will also remember that Shirley MacLaine turned in a performance of a lifetime in her depiction of the endearing curmudgeon, Weezer Boudreaux. What many people don’t know is that the movie was inspired by a true story. Playwriter Robert Harling wrote Steel Magnolias after the untimely death of his own sister Susan. Like the movie, Susan had a group of women who were a part of ..read more

Someone recently asked me a question about complementarianism, and I thought it might be useful to share with readers more broadly the answer that I gave privately–especially in light of recent controversies in the Southern Baptist Convention concerning women serving as pastors. Here’s the question followed by my lightly edited answer. Do you think complementarianism is a big enough tent to include those who restrict the office of elder/senior pastor to men but still allow women to serve in associate pastors roles? From a normative perspective, I think the answer is clearly no. If we take The ..read more

I just read the following observation in an Axios newsletter: “Abortion rights have yet to lose since the end of Roe when the decision has been up to voters instead of legislators or courts.” This is a sobering reality that pro-lifers need to come to terms with. It’s why many Republican politicians are now treating the pro-life cause as a political liability. See Donald Trump’s statement yesterday, and Kari Lake’s statement today. And of course, we know where the Democrats stand. They are even worse by supporting abortion rights through all nine months of a woman’s pregnancy. The politicians a ..read more

O Jesus, Savior of my life, My hope, my joy, my sacrifice, I’ve searched and found no other one Who loves me more than you have done. So I denounce my lingering sin Whose power You have broke within My ever weak and faithless frame. Its vigor’s crushed in Jesus name. For your death did at once proclaim, The Godhead’s glory and my shame. And you did seize my cup of guilt And drank all that the chalice spilled. No condemnation now I dread Because you went for me instead To bear the curse and wrath and rage, To pay the debt I would have paid. Yet your work finished not with death, Nor with your ..read more

The Left is colonizing the calendar. The most recent evidence of this is President Biden declaring tomorrow, Easter Sunday, to be “Transgender Visibility Day.” For Biden, I suspect this is a political calculation—a sop to the Left and indifferent contempt for faithful Christians everywhere. I have seen little evidence that his Catholic faith is anything more than a meaningless tradition. He publicly dishonors his church’s teaching about abortion, homosexuality, and marriage. And now he defiles the holiest day on the Christian calendar with transgender abomination. But Biden aside, we would all ..read more