Jonathan Leeman has a really helpful article dealing with the proper use of pastoral and husbandly authority. This is really insightful stuff, and I commend it to you. There’s a Satanic version of authority and a godly version of authority. There’s authority as intended in creation and exercised in redemption, and authority as exercised in the Fall. Godly authority authors life, like the root of the word itself. It builds up, equips, strengthens, serves. Satanic authority steals, takes, diminishes, destroys. Godly authority, as set down in Scripture and as I’ve witnessed it, is seldom an advantage to those who possess it. It involves leading and making decisions, to be sure.…
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Eyes Wide Open about Abolitionism
Tom Ascol has written a long essay in which he makes the case for the Abolitionist resolution passed at the 2021 SBC and against pro-life dissensions from it. He also engages my last two posts on the subject, so I thought I would write a brief word of response here. Tom Ascol frames our differences in term of class struggle—the SBC “elites” versus the average man in the pew. He writes: It is the elite class that is woefully out of step with the rank-and-file believers who are working hard to see the scourge of abortion brought to an immediate end in our nation… Six times Ascol uses the language…
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An Appeal to Southern Baptists To Support the Pro-life Cause
I am writing this short essay as an appeal to Southern Baptists who care about the pro-life cause. Right now, there is an effort underway by what I believe to be a tiny minority in the SBC to reverse the SBC’s longstanding commitment to the pro-life cause. They call themselves “Abolitionists,” but they are not the only ones who support the abolition of abortion. All sides of this debate want to see abortion abolished. The Abolitionists, however, condemn and repudiate the pro-life movement’s efforts to restrict abortion in whatever measure possible. After the Roe decision in 1973, the pro-life movement eventually coalesced around an incrementalist strategy to abolish abortion. Pro-lifers…
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Why Pro-Lifers Support Laws to Punish Abortionists but Not Mothers
One of the perennial points of debate between pro-lifers and abortion advocates is why pro-lifers don’t support laws to punish women who obtain abortions. Some abortion proponents even argue that this is some sort of inconsistency on the part of pro-lifers—as if not prosecuting women who get abortions reveals that we don’t really believe an abortion actually kills a human being. More recently, abolitionists have agreed with abortion advocates on this point. Abolitionists contend that consistency requires pro-lifers to support the prosecution of the women who subject themselves to abortion procedures. So what’s going on here? Are pro-lifers inconsistent? Should we be passing laws to prosecute post-abortive women? I don’t…
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Candidates for SBC President Discuss the Issues
The three candidates for the Presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention just completed a two hour discussion about the issues facing Southern Baptists. They discussed CRT, the sex-abuse task force, and a variety of other issues. You can watch the video below.
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Overturning Roe and the Attempt To Delegitimize SCOTUS
I’ve been watching the fallout from last night’s bombshell leak of a draft opinion from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Of course, this is only a draft and not the court’s final ruling. We won’t know for sure how the court has decided this case until the Court releases it final official ruling. But if this one holds, all I can say is Hallelujah. Roe v. Wade has presided over the legal killing of over 60 million human beings since 1973. That is the holocaust times ten. The regime of Roe v. Wade has effectively given us abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy. And with the body…
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Carl Trueman at T4G Warning about Celebrity Pastors
I have lots of thoughts about the final meeting of Together for the Gospel (T4G) last week. I may try to put some of them together at some point, but that is not the point of my post today. The final T4G has given me an occasion to think back to the most memorable moments from T4G over the years. I’ve already written about one of them. Another one that I have always remembered was from 2012, and it involved Carl Trueman. I will never forget it. In the lead-up to T4G that year, Trueman had published a series of warnings online about celebrity pastors (see here, here, here, here).…
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How To Correct False Teaching
I’ve been preaching through 2 Corinthians at our church and recently delivered a message on 2 Corinthians 10:1-6 titled “How To Correct False Teaching.” There is an excerpt printed below. To hear the rest of the message, you can download it here or press play to listen above. Last week, the Biden administration released two documents making policy recommendations concerning the care of children who are experiencing feelings of gender confusion. Perhaps you can guess what the recommendations are. They recommend putting minor children on puberty blockers to keep their bodies from maturing and becoming fully developed. They allow infusion of opposite sex hormones in minor children. They even allow…
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Gay Is Okay at Baylor after All
On Tuesday, an announcement appeared on Twitter about the formation of a new LGBTQ+ student group at Baylor University: IT’S OFFICIAL!!! PRISM is Baylor University’s first chartered LGBTQ student organization! Thank you to all the alumni, friends, administrators, and supporters who helped get us to this historic day. #care #community #connection – #PRISMatBaylor #Baylor #LGBTQ pic.twitter.com/RVW5kbafv2 — PRISM at Baylor (@PRISMatBaylor) April 20, 2022 This announcement was no surprise. Students had been lobbying for the University to sanction such a group for years but had been rejected time and again by the board of regents. A year ago, the board finally relented and signaled that change was coming. The Texas…
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What is conscience, and what happens if I ignore it?
I think I received a copy of the book Conscience back when if first came out in 2016, but I didn’t read it then. That was a mistake. I just finished the audiobook version last week and believe it is one of the most practical, theologically-rich, biblically-saturated books I have ever read. The table of contents reveals what the book covers and its practical nature: What Is Conscience? How Do We Define Conscience from the New Testament? What Should You Do When Your Conscience Condemns You? How Should You Calibrate Your Conscience? How Should You Relate to Fellow Christians When Your Consciences Disagree? How Should You Relate to People in…
