“For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.” (2 Corinthians 1.12)

Can I boast that I have done as Paul?  Am I as cautious as he to avoid living “by earthly wisdom”?  At times I know this not to be the case, falling victim to the prophets of this age.  This is not self-reliance he is describing; it is sovereign-reliance!  I must rest upon the sovereign that he will line up everything by grace and that nothing will befall me that is not ultimately for my good in being sanctified into the image of Christ (cf. Romans 8.28-29).

What then are these characteristics that Paul embraces?  Simplicity and godly sincerity.  Simplicity, or holiness.  This is a sort of transparency and uprightness which avoids lurking in the shadows of sin to protect oneself or to elevate one’s own fame.  And godly sincerity is the earnestness with which he acts, knowing that he possesses the only message which gives life and thus is compelled to make it known.  There is no conjured emotion or cold obedience here.  Paul discharges his call out of love for the Father and love for the Elect (cf. 2 Timothy 2.10).  Would that these were also the traits of my life.  That my actions and heart could be described in such ways.  That through such a frame God’s glory might be praised all the more because, and not in spite of, me.

In my experience, most American Christians tend to have a rather limited view of the temple of God.  They would probably be able to tell you that the Temple was in Jerusalem, that it was destroyed at some point, and that your body is a temple (cf. 1 Corinthians 6.19, which, in my opinion, is the second most misused verse in the Bible behind Revelation 3.20).  However, over the year and a half the Spirit has lead me into studies which show a much deeper importance to the Temple, an importance which drives me to believe the Temple should be the focus of all our eschatalogical dreams as Christians.

Of course, to make sense of this requires first a proper understanding of what the Temple is and second enough time to go from cover to cover in the Bible seeing what God has revealed about the Temple to us.  For my part I will tell you that the Temple, properly understood, is the place where the presence of God dwells with man.  Thus we see that in the physical temple, the presence of God dwelt in the Holy of Holies, and today the presence of God dwells in the church and the individual believers which make up the church.  But what about at all other points?  What about before the Temple was built in Jerusalem?  What about after it was destroyed?  What about in the end time?

This truly is a rich subject, so rich in fact that I just recently finished reading a 400-page book on it.  Now, I know that not everyone has the time (or patience) to read a book this long, but if you ever want to give it a try, G.K. Beale’s The Temple and the Church’s Mission is well worth it.  When I first found this book sitting on the shelf in Southern’s LifeWay I immediately bought it and nearly skipped class just to start reading.  In fact, I was a little disappointed when I found this book because I had decided myself that I would right a treatise on the Temple for my Ph.D (should I ever go for one) and now I know that someone has beaten me to it.

If the sound of that book is a little too intimidating for you (and honestly, 400-pages scares me as well) then at least take a listen to this sermon from Sojourn Community Church a few weeks back.  It is on 1 Kings 8 where Solomon prays over the Temple in Jerusalem and in it Daniel Montgomery offers an introductory glance at this very deep, very rewarding theme in Scripture.

[Warning: for those of you who are offended by swearing, the linked music contains some vulgar language.]

For those of you who think it is not important to keep up with the emergent church movement (ECM) then let this be a warning: this is what’s going on in the broader world of American Christianity while we sit and fight stupid denominational battles about things like if we can accept Calvinists or not.

I hate this.

If you think that we have a problem with people moving towards the doctrines of grace . . . OPEN YOUR EYES!  We have a problem with the church moving away from the Bible.

Brian McLaren calls this song “important and courageous.”  He compares it with a post where he said that “many if not most Christians in the US remain focused on the ‘religious arguments’ list [versus a list of global crises]” (read more here).  And you know what?  He’s right.  Many if not most of us are so focused on our ridiculous arguments against Calvinists ruining families or trying to get Mark Driscoll banned from LifeWay bookstores or keeping Southern Baptists from working in places that sell booze that we totally neglect the whole world in need of a God who is mighty to save.

However, just because we are neglecting this does not mean that everyone is.  No.  In fact, there are plenty of “Christians” like McLaren who are very focused upon these problems.  And guess what?  They don’t care at all about theology.  I don’t mean they don’t care about if you are Calvinist/non-Calvinist/Arminian or Abstentionist/Moderationist, I mean they don’t care if you believe in hell or justification by faith or that Jesus was fully God and fully man.  They don’t care if God exists as three persons in one or if the Bible is truly God’s infallible, inerrant revealed word for us today.  They don’t care one bit.  All they care about is “love.”  And because of this, they are getting an audience with the world.  Never mind if it is grace without truth since there is no one there to bring grace AND truth at the same time anyways.

Is there a need for a Great Commission Resurgence?  I believe there is.  And for those of you who say, “Well golly gee, our church is already focused on the Great Commission,” I present this song, and the rising popularity of man-centered, antinomian, pelagian Emergent “Christianity” as Exhibit A in my defense.

Finally after taking the better half of a year we have managed to work our way through the full of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000.  I think that this is a very important document for anyone who takes pride in being a Southern Baptist to go through, at least on the surface level.  I’ll admit, there are parts that even I read for the first time in preparing this series.

Nonetheless, I have really enjoyed doing this analysis and in particular looking at how the BF&M has evolved over its three incarnations (see a side-by-side comparison here).  To close everything out I have created a tab in the header that lists all of the What We Believe posts along with the texts of the BF&M and various other Baptist confessions for your viewing and/or educational pleasure.  Enjoy and please feel free to raise any further questions as they may come.

BF&M Resources tab

Today we will finish up our analysis of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 by looking at the final two paragraphs of Article XVIII speaking on the practical theology of the family.

3.   The Practice of Marriage

The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.

I love this paragraph.  For all of the flack that Southern Baptists receive as being sexist or chauvanist, I think that this paragraph accurately reflects a biblical theology of marital roles.  I know that this will not satisfy everybody, but I believe the way in which this paragraph has been set out makes it so that any issue someone has with the statement is an issue they have with the Bible.

We must never forget the first line.  Men and women, husband and wife, are both equally endowed with the image of God and thus of equal worth to each other and to God.  This is the key behind the biblical roles described in the remainder that is there to prevent the abuses that might come if left out.  From here, the rest is basically a solid reiteration of Ephesians 5.22-33.  I totally agree with all that is said here.  And since I am only a man, I must say that I believe my wife would agree with it too (and she isn’t the type that would let any abuse slip by).

4.   The Practice of Child-rearing

Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God’s pattern for marriage. Parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral values and to lead them, through consistent lifestyle example and loving discipline, to make choices based on biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their parents.

Finally, after defining family, marriage, and the practice of marriage, we come to child-rearing (which is the proper order, even though I myself failed to follow this route).  The paragraph begins with a strong pro-life statement.  This then flows into what appears to be a veiled admonition against divorce.  Next, we have an explication of Proverbs 22.6 (”Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it“).  And then we round it out with a word to the children coming from the Ten Commandments.

This is certainly a necessary look into child-rearing, and to my tastes a sufficient one as well for a document such as the BF&M.  We don’t get any rules on what music our kids should listen to, if they can date, whether or not to home school.  All of the things which should be left to the conviction of parents with God have been, and I appreciate that.

So, that does it.  We have walked all the way through the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 as I have provided my own personal commentary on it.  Hopefully now we all have a better idea of the core, minimal beliefs that we as Southern Baptists should hold to.  Some parts of it I like, some I don’t, but all things considered, I find it to be a satisfactory document for facilitating cooperation among Southern Baptist churches across the country and around the world.  Thanks for reading along with me.

After leaving off for awhile (accidentally actually) we are finally coming to the end of our analysis of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000.  The last article that we will be looking at is Article XVIII concerning the family:

XVIII. The Family

God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption.

Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.

The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.

Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God’s pattern for marriage. Parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral values and to lead them, through consistent lifestyle example and loving discipline, to make choices based on biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their parents.

Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15-25; 3:1-20; Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Joshua 24:15; 1 Samuel 1:26-28; Psalms 51:5; 78:1-8; 127; 128; 139:13-16; Proverbs 1:8; 5:15-20; 6:20-22; 12:4; 13:24; 14:1; 17:6; 18:22; 22:6,15; 23:13-14; 24:3; 29:15,17; 31:10-31; Ecclesiastes 4:9-12; 9:9; Malachi 2:14-16; Matthew 5:31-32; 18:2-5; 19:3-9; Mark 10:6-12; Romans 1:18-32; 1 Corinthians 7:1-16; Ephesians 5:21-33; 6:1-4; Colossians 3:18-21; 1 Timothy 5:8,14; 2 Timothy 1:3-5; Titus 2:3-5; Hebrews 13:4; 1 Peter 3:1-7.

This last article, which actually did not appear in the BF&M until 1998 (so, 35 years after the second version of the document was published).  It is basically ordered into four distinct parts corresponding to the four different paragraphs.  The parts are (1) the definition of family, (2) the definition marriage, (3) the practice of marriage, and (4) the practice of child-rearing.  In this post we will handle parts 1 and 2 and tomorrow we will cover parts 3 and 4.

1. The Definition of Family:

“God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption.”

From the outset this is a very logically flowing article.  Clearly this article was necessitated by specific societal changes, particularly in regards to the increasing acceptance of  pre- and extra-marital activity and the advance of the “alternative lifestyle” movement in America.  But nonetheless, for what has its impetus as a political response, this article comes across, at least in my eyes, as the most well-reasoned and biblically justified article in the practical living portion of the BF&M (starting from Article XI).

As for the definition itself, it seems airtight biblically.  God did certainly ordain the family within the first two chapters of Genesis, and the reference to “marriage, blood, or adoption” leaps straight from the text of Scripture, where entrance into a family by adoption has such great significance.  This definition, of course, now begs the question which is addressed in the next paragraph, namely, How does one define marriage?

2.   The Definition of Marriage

“Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.”

Wow!  That first sentence carries some serious weight!  We can all agree that marriage is the uniting of two individuals as one (cf. Genesis 2.24), and as long as we are being honest and not just pushing some agenda we can read fairly clearly that this uniting is to take place between one woman and one man.  Yet even after that we get a statement which is likely controversial to many Southern Baptists: ” . . . in covenant commitment for a lifetime.”  Now, I don’t know about you, but that seems to me to be saying that divorce for any reason is not God’s design for his creation, especially since this topic is not spoken to anywhere else in the article.  Many people believe loopholes and exceptions exist for divorce, but if my reading of the BF&M2000 is correct then our organizing document takes a much stricter stance than the norm.

In the next, extended sentence, we find the writers adding detail and explanation to the truth found in Ephesians 5.23-24 as well as addressing several practical concerns.  They take a stance that marriage is intended for biblically appropriate sexual expression (try getting clarification on that one beyond the obvious disallowal of homosexual activity) and that marriage is the appropriate context for producing children (instead of pre- or extra-marital relationships).  All of this I think we can be on-board with without much hesitation.

Now, in the next paragraph we jump into a pot of boiling water by trying to address gender roles in marriage, which we will struggle through in tomorrow’s post.

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5.21)

A Crucifix Necklace

Tarnished silver savior,
Soldered to your cross.
Body gets weighed down
As burden that you bear
Grows and grows and grows.
You hang there, dying,
And daily I deny you.

Are you tarnished from tears
Streaming out your eyes
Every time I strike those nails?
Or is it by crimson falls
Cascading onto floor?
Your blood, should be my blood,
So graciously you give.

Never do you wander.
Never do you get up, walk away,
Though you could.
But today, same as yesterday,
Same as tomorrow, you are there,
Around my neck, calling attention
To price I couldn’t pay.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
‘therefore I will hope in him.’” -Lamentations 3.22-24

The Lord is both steadfast and fresh.  His loving kindness for his people never dies nor grows old.  Those whom he predestined “in love” from “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1.3-6), daily he still has affection for.

How convicting is this?  The greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22.37) and this I can’t do for a moment even though he is so worthy.  Yet for me, God comes up with new mercies every day!  This is solely by his grace, that he forgives my iniquities and transgressions, “remember[ing] that [I am] dust” (Psalm 103.14b) and utterly incapable of showing back his love through my own power.

Father, o how weak I am!  Each hour I fail you countless times, neglecting your sacrifice and making a mockery of the cross by my selfish behavior.  I fall on my face and ask forgiveness.  Thank you for your steadfastness.  Thank you for never tiring of me, even though I tire of following you so often.  Thank you for your Son.  Thank you, Father, thank you!

“Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” -Hebrews 13:13-14

Going into last week’s SBC Pastor’s Conference I had heard a lot about David Platt, pastor of the Church at Brooks Hills in Brimingham, AL, but had never actually heard him preach, and so for me he was definitely the main attraction (much more than, say, Mike Huckabee).  Then, when he announced his sermon text was Hebrews 13 I was practically giddy (both that he was in Hebrews 13 and that he actually had a sermon text, a disappointing rarity among the conference’s speakers).  And then he preached.  Wow!

I say this all to let you know that I just found a blogger who has posted his conference message and I think it would do everyone reading this good to take 36 minutes and set them aside for praising God through the words that Pastor Platt delivered.  Though you may get beat up a little, you certainly won’t be disappointed.  Check it out here.

Despite great encouragement, great ignorance was also shown at the SBC Annual Meeting (and in the most inappropriate of places may I add).  Though I do not have the actual statement, here is a clip of the prepared manuscript of what I’m talking about, which in reality is even less offensive than what was actually said:

The Southern Baptist Convention is experiencing a resurgence in the belief that divine sovereignty alone is at work in salvation without a faith response on the part of man.

Some are given to explain away the “whosoever will” of John 3:16. How can a Christian come to such a place when Ephesians says, “For by grace are you saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8)? I do not rise to become argumentative, or to change minds already convinced of one perspective or the other. But I do rise to state the obvious. Man is often tempted to design a theological theory in light of a biblical antinomy in order to clarify what God is trying to say.

Man’s system will be inferior to God’s system now and forever. Why is it so difficult to accept from God what we cannot fully explain? After all, He didn’t begin to tell us everything He knows, but what we need to know to be redeemed and live righteously. The belief that sovereignty alone is at work in salvation is not what has emboldened our witness and elevated our concern for evangelism and missions through the ages. This is not the doctrine that Southern Baptists have embraced in their desire to reach the world for Christ.

If there is any doctrine of grace that drives men to argue and debate more than it drives them to pursue lost souls and persuade ALL MEN to be reconciled to God – then it is no doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Morris Chapman, EC Report)

This unfortuante rambling during what was supposed to be a simply (and boring) report made me wonder.  Even though there is much good and fair play coming across the aisles between SBC Calvinists and non-Calvinists, there still remains a sizeable and vocal number of people who don’t know the Doctrines of Grace from a bottle of Jack Daniels and yet want to rant about how dangerous it is to evangelism, churches, and even families.  Therefore, I posted an article over at SBC Voices asking the question: why are there still seeds of animosity towards Calvinism in many corners of the SBC?

If you have any insight or just want to see what people are saying in response to this, please click on over and check it out.  the post is entitled, “Calvinism: The New Racism in the SBC?“