Baptist Press so reports: SWBTS cuts staff due to health care, utility costs

After making “low-hanging fruit adjustments” that included reductions in dining services, copy center hours and the fleet of vehicles at the 200-acre campus, Patrick said the administration decided not to fill...

The hostility toward Christianity is reaching a boiling point in some circles of our society. Evidently, a large segment of our society is offended and angered by the fact that we pray for one another when tragedy strikes.

California representative Ted Lieu walked out of Congress’ moment of...

The good Dr. Scott posted this on Facebook yesterday and gave me permission to post it here. It is great wisdom for us to hear. 

A WORD OF CAUTION TO SOUTHERN BAPTIST PASTORS

In the aftermath of the murder of many of the members of a sister church in Sutherland, Texas is not a time for...

It’s just not safe.  Those are the words I recently heard from a man I invited to church.  We were hosting our Fall Festival at a central location in the community.  As I went around talking with families and inviting them to church, some expressed interest in coming. ...

• An evil man fires on helpless people at a concert in Vegas and we are sickened.
• A lone wolf rents a truck and mows down helpless people on a bike trail in New York and we are angry.

But then a man entered a church – one of ours – in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and opened fire and we have...

That’s what is being reported by numerous sources – here, here, here. Excerpt from WaPo:

The Republicans’ bill would make it legal for ministers and other religious leaders to endorse candidates from the pulpit but stops short of allowing other political participation such as...

I was engaged in a Facebook discussion today with two eminent Southern Baptist scholars who said some of the most inane, silly things in defense of the National League’s refusal to join the 20th Century (yes, I know it’s the 21st Century) and adopt the DH. They were not even persuaded...

Why did Jesus need to be filled with the Spirit?

Luke 4 records the temptation of Christ and the beginning of his ministry here on earth. In verses 1-2 we are told, “Then Jesus left the Jordan, full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days to be...

Suppose, beloved pastor, you wanted to know how much money your church had on hand today. How would you find out?

You could ask the financial secretary and she would give you a number but how do you know this is accurate? (Hint: You don’t).

You could find the latest financial report given to...

I’ve read quite a few articles lately about something sociologists are calling FOMO. That’s short for “fear of missing out”. It’s why you keep your phone with you all the time and are almost constantly checking out social media. But I can save you from FOMO…at...

Tennessee Baptists have drawn their line in the sand and have taken their stand against rallies scheduled for Shelbyville and Murfreesboro, Tennessee tomorrow, October 28th. From the Tennessee Baptist and Reflector:

FRANKLIN – A mix of ethnically diverse Tennessee Baptists gathered in a...

In sorting out some of my material I ran across a folder with the April 26, 1912, local paper, The Athens Banner. The Titanic had just sunk. My parents had not been born. The last member of my family who served in the Civil War had died three years earlier and numerous other CSA veterans had died a...

David Platt, the President of our International Mission Board, recently became the preaching pastor at the Mclean Bible Church, a megachurch in the DC area. There has been a lot of confusion and misinformation about the whole process, and there many who are troubled by this development. Platt is a...

Jim is an attorney (don’t hold that against him) and a frequent reader of Voices. 

I was born in 1947 and attended integrated Army schools.  I learned about white supremacy while visiting family in Alabama.  My cousins would trick me into drinking from “colored only”...

Doesn’t take much to stir me up these days. Consider these.

Who will be the first brave pastor who bans service dogs from his church service? I see these dogs around and read about them being everywhere – airplanes, businesses, schools – you name it. Now, I’m seeing one...

There is a type of shrewdness that is pastoral. There is another type of shrewdness that is Satanic. Knowing the difference is key to church revitalization.

Pastor Jim normally threw away all the ads that piled on his desk on Monday morning. Most of them frustrate him. He’s been pastoring this...

Driving home in my car just now I turned my radio on to the local Christian talk station just in time for the Jay Sekulow Live program. The topic of discussion for today was tax reform. Even though it is not the topic I want to write about, nor what I really want to discuss here, I will come out...

We arranged with Jews for Jesus to have a full seder at our church on the Wednesday night before Easter and they sent a man named Avi Snyder to lead us. Sometimes you hit it off with another and that is what happened that night. He showed up early and we talked. We arranged to go out for breakfast...

In a sense a depressed Christian is a contradiction in terms, and he is a very poor recommendation for the gospel. –Martyn LloydJones (Spiritual Depression)

I’ve labored over this quote for quite some time. I battle depression. So when I read statements like this from a pastor I revere...

Pia Desideria. By Philipp Jacob Spener. Leipzig: Karl Franz Köhler, 1841. 211 pages.

Philipp Jacob Spener was a Lutheran parish minister in Frankfurt on the Main, Germany. He was born near Strasburg in 1635. Devout from childhood, Spener devoured Puritan classics and lived a careful and strict...

Would that it was not so, but controversy drives SBC blogs.

We try to write on a variety of topics here. I am doing a series of posts on the Holy Spirit, which is not exactly breaking records – but I forge ahead! We write devotional posts, theological posts, political posts. We write about...

Guarranteed to stir the clergy masses into paroxisms of righteous indignation would be if congress, as a part of a comprehensive tax reform, attempted to make changes to our Sacred Clergy Tax Break, the minister’s housing allowance.

It’s a little early to speculate but, as pundits are...

 

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Those were the last words Jesus spoke before he was taken up into heaven, a promise of power that was fulfilled ten...

How’s your Greek? I’ve got a book review as well as a freebie that might peak your interest.

Christmas will be here before you know it, and taking the effort to work through the Greek text of the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke might help kickstart a habit that will bless you and...

Evidently, it’s nearly 500 years since old Martin defaced the door at Wittenberg. 

A lot of Baptists are celebrating this anniversary of the Reformation. There have been conferences and symposiums (symposia?) honoring and studying and analyzing every aspect of the work of Luther, Calvin,...