I’ve been preaching through the Gospel of John and have recently begun chapter 4. There is one detail in Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well that caught my attention this time because I think it may be rendered incorrectly in most English translations. The Greek word often rendered as “husband” in John 4:16-18 is the Greek term aner. While “husband” is a possible interpretation and appears in most English translations, the underlying Greek expression isn’t clearly about husbands at all. The reason for the disconnect consists in the difference between the way Greek and English convey the concepts of “man” and “husband.” English distinguishes “man” from “husband” by…
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The SBC Credentials Committee Yet To Recommend Removal of Church that Affirms Female Senior Pastors
The Baptist Press confirms that the Credentials Committee has yet to recommend removal of a church that employs women as pastors and that affirms women serving as senior pastors. This is full-fledged egalitarianism, and now the Baptist Press is reporting that our own Credentials Committee received a referral two years ago and still has made no recommendation for their removal (see update below). The church is FBC Alexandria, VA, and according to Baptist Press the Credentials Committee sent an inquiry to the church in April in the form of a questionnaire. The questionnaire asked the church a variety of questions about their faith and practice concerning the office of pastor.…
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Should we add the Nicene Creed to our confession? Yes, but not like this.
There is a proposal on the table to amend the Baptist Faith & Message from the floor of the convention in Indianapolis next month. The measure specifically calls for adding the Nicene Creed to the end of the Baptist Faith & Message. While I fully affirm the Nicene Creed, I have concerns about this specific proposal and likely won’t vote in favor of it. Here’s why: 1. I think it is imprudent to amend the BF&M from the floor of the convention. It happened at last year’s convention, and I expressed my alarm about it at the time, even though I agreed with the amendment. Our SBC seminaries and mission…
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Another Argument against the Law Amendment and in Favor of Female Pastors
Executive Committee member Russ Barksdale published an article this morning explaining why he intends to vote against the Law Amendment next month at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). He argues that the New Testament allows women to serve as pastors in local churches. He contends that female pastors rightly function as shepherds over the men in the church and even over male leaders in the church. He writes: Does a woman who is leading a children’s ministry “pastor” (verb poimaino) the children? Absolutely! Does she shepherd (verb poimaino) the parents, including the fathers? Absolutely! Does she pastor/shepherd (verb poimaino) the leaders, including the adult males, for…
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SBC Messengers Should Retain Their Right To End Debate
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 (see below). 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. [UPDATE 5/23/24: It turns out that…
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My Thoughts on the Recommendations from the SBC Coop Group
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. That is really impressive given current divisions within the…
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Responding to Three Concerns about the Law Amendment
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 views, Reformed theology, etc.). What are we to make of these arguments? I don’t know Mr. Davis personally, but I am grateful…
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The Voice of the Bridegroom
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. The best man…
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The Real Weezer: Rest in Peace
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 her life and…
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Can Complementarianism include female associate pastors?
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 Danvers Statement as baseline complementarianism, it says that some governing and teaching roles…
