Since it goes along with one of my main emphases, and because I am leading a similar study in my Sunday School class, I have decided that over the course of the first several months of this year I will be making posts covering the whole of the Southern Baptist standard confession of orthodoxy, the Baptist Faith and Message (2000). It is neither is breath nor depth the whole of what I would ascribe to, but being a Southern Baptist denominationally it is what defines, on a general level, our beliefs and so I feel it is worth mining out to see exactly what it says.
My plan is, starting with the article on Scripture this coming week, to quote what the document says, walk through some of the supporting verses, and provide brief commentary to further specify what it affirms and/or to state where I would personally go farther. I will also be referring to other confessions which are of the Baptist tradition including the Second London Confession, the New Hampshire Baptist Confession, and the Abstract of Principles, as well as other documents such as the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.
I am really looking forward to this as I am a firm believer in knowing where we have come from and having the ability to concisely state what it is that we believe. I also agree with Spurgeon when he said (about the Second London Confession) that such confessing documents are “not issued as an authoritative rule, or code of faith, whereby [we] are to be fettered, but as an assistance to [us] in controversy, a confirmation in faith, and a means of edification in righteousness.” These should be used in order to help us better fulfill 1 Peter 3.15, but never as a replacement for the Word itself.
For easy reference I have added a Resources tab which contains links to these various documents on the internet (most of which, as well as many others I won’t be referencing, can be found at The Reformed Reader).
