Jason Gray

@colinsmo Fantastic

@Jason_Gray Yes

SBTC showing this kind of language is not only needed, but possible for faithful Southern Baptist cooperation. Let’s take this same idea and momentum to Orlando.

Europe is done.

@graytjason @samwebb1876 Crazy! LOL

@Jason_Gray @samwebb1876 You have a great name!

I’m really happy with how this came out. The unity of the committee was encouraging. I hope the SBTC can be a leader among state conventions when it comes to clarity on this issue.

This looks like a really strong proposal concerning female pastors from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. They propose an amendment that says an affiliated church... “affirms the office, function, ordination and title of pastor/elder/overseer to be limited to men as qualified by Scripture. Title shall include any equivalents of the words pastor/elder/overseer, and preaching to the assembled congregation shall be an exclusive function of pastor/elder/overseer or biblically qualified men.” This is the strongest language I've seen for such an amendment. It would resolve the Fielder Road conundrum if it passes. I hope and pray it does pass at their annual meeting later this year. @SBTexan @NathanLorick

It is impossible to claim the SBC is a "big tent" and ALSO deny the necessity of affinity groups. The only way to "cooperate as the SBC" is to move to greater levels of confessionalism, which will necessarily shrink the big tent, to some degree. Or, we keep the confessional boundary broader (the way we currently affirm cooperation in the SBC) and acknowledge that there will be need for smaller affinity groups/networks to work together for more specific works, be they doctrinally tight or more geographically tight. I think the 'spirit' of cooperation in the SBC is what people want to protect. They want to avoid 'tribalism.' I agree with that being a danger to avoid. We all agree on the mission. Differences arise over how to accomplish that mission. Affinities help protect cooperation while accomodating disagreement. I don't believe affinities by nature degrade such cooperation. Rather, I think constantly fighting over the boundaries, or who controls them, is a real danger if we were to appeal to a simple 'big tent.' Let's affirm and build a network of networks underneath the current approach to the BFM and cooperation. Or, let's move to a more confessional approach. Or both.

People can pretend there is not institutional discrimination and attacks (persecution) against Christians in the US, but they’d be wrong.

@MichaelCarlino @obbietylertodd Such a helpful book. More SBC guys who talk about political theology and religious freedom on this site should read it.

@andrewtwalker @obbietylertodd amazon.com/Let-Men-Free-1…

I have found @obbietylertodd's work on Baptist Republicans vs. Baptist Federalists to be eye-opening. I am growingly convinced that conservative Baptists today would do well to read these debates from Baptists in early America and be less like Leland and co.

Yes!!

Take a listen to this week's episode of the Pillar Podcast! - In this episode, Nate Akin, Dave Kiehn, Brandon Langley, and Ben Wright discuss affinity groups within the Southern Baptist Convention. - t.ly/Ep-107

@GatorDiamondPod Meanwhile, those of us who have watched most games this season have no such expectation. 😂

PEARatings simulated the BA projections and have Florida in Omaha. 👀

What we lose when the Bible is only on a screen: 1. You remember where the verse lives on the page and aids memorization. 2. The page shows you much more at once. You see the context, not just a few verses at once. 3. The page keeps your notes. Years from now they will still be there, in your own hand. 4. The page cannot distract you with a notification. It only asks to be read. 5. The page is something your children watch you open and they know it’s the Bible. The screen gives much. The page gives more.

This is good pastoral advice.

What if I were to tell you the opposite of this is true? What if it is smaller networks that help keep many churches tied to cooperative work and thus stay in the SBC? What if the future hope of the SBC is MORE networks and affinity groups, not less?

Yet another example of why people struggle to trust legacy media.

"Is the law of the Lord perfect, and does it require that our obedience be perfect in its principles, parts, degrees, and continuance? It is impossible, then, that sincere obedience can entitle a sinner to eternal life. A man's faith may be sincere, but if it is not perfect it cannot be a proper condition of life; it cannot procure for him a right to eternal life. His repentance also may be deep and sincere, but if it is not absolutely perfect, it cannot afford him the smallest title either to the progress or the consummation of life eternal. His obedience, in general, may be sincere, yet if it is not absolutely perfect, it cannot give him the smallest degree of title to eternal salvation. These cannot entil him in the smallest degree to life, either according to the law as a covenant of works or as a rule of life. They are necessary as parts of salvation and as means of attaining complete salvation, but they cannot be the grounds of a man's title to salvation. Nothing can be the ground of a believer's title to salvation but the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, received by faith and imputed to him for justification. Is the moral law of perpetual obligation? Then it follows that, as a covenant of works, it retains and will continue throughout eternity to retain its whole authority and obligation over every sinner of mankind who lives and dies under it. In its covenant form, it stands in full force and can never be repealed. It will continue throughout all eternity to hold the finally impenitent under both its commanding and its condemning power. They shall remain forever under an infinite obligation both to yield perfect obedience to its righteous precepts and to give infinite satisfaction for their disobedience of them. There is no possible way in which a sinner can be freed from the perpetual obligation of the law as a covenant but by presenting, in the hand of faith to it, the infinitely perfect and meritorious righteousness of the second Adam as a full answer to all its high demands. When this glorious righteousness is received by faith and graciously imputed to a man, the law in its covenant form is fully satisfied with respect to him, and in that form it has nothing more to demand from him. He now passes from the obligation of the covenant of works and comes under the perpetual obligation of the law as a rule of duty in the covenant of grace, and he will remain under its infinite obligation through all eternity. Even the angels in heaven are under a law as their eternal rule of duty (Ps. 103:20). And if the holy angels are not without law to God, surely glorified saints will be under the law to Christ as the eternal rule of their obedience. And so ardent will their love of this holy and righteous law be that they will account it their highest honor and their greatest happiness to continue eternally under the obligation of yielding perfect obedience to it. No man sincerely loves it, even in an imperfect degree, but the man who hopes to be under the eternal obligation of it." —John Colquhoun

Today, @ChristOverAll begins to look at Eastern Orthodoxy's strange theology. Link below with many iconic pictures to follow.

In light of the most recent wave of Christian celebrity sex scandals, I’d like to encourage everyone that it’s perfectly okay to just be a guy who is a church member. You may be intelligent, well-spoken, well-read; this is not a sign you must be a pastor or theologian.

@GatorDiamondPod This offense is just bad. These stretches are way too typical.

10 straight