J Caleb Jones

If you’ve ever wanted to know what is happening in the sky in Matthew 2 with the star that the Magi saw, the video that is only available at this website will explain everything that is happening. And yes, it actually happened exactly as it is described in the text. The price to watch the video is for you to provide your email address so that you can be informed of future videos, explaining other aspects of the Nativity based on this information about the Star of the Magi. themagistar.com

Not really. It says in Section VI of the BFM “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” It doesn’t define what this office can DO and what actions constitute a person ACTING AS a pastor/elder/overseer. It also doesn’t say whether “teach” or “teacher” (words used in 1 Timothy 2:12, 2 Timothy 1:11, Ephesians 4:11, etc.) is something that “deacons” can do or something only a “pastor/elder/overseer” can do. It also doesn’t even recognize that the Greek word for “minister” is the same Greek word as the Greek word for “deacon.” All that to say: if Baptists want issues to be clear in Baptist practice, you better make them clear in your Baptist documents.

@JCalebJones It's defined in the statement of faith, as decided by the fellowship of churches that make up the SBC. I was there when it was decided. The Scripture is clear on this regardless of whether someone thinks "pastor" is ambiguous.

Friendly Observation: If Baptists are going to kick churches out of friendly cooperation with the SBC for having female “pastors,” they’re going to have to define their terms better. If you define the term, you’re going to discover that “pastoring” is a function. The function is leading, guiding, protecting (etc.) those beings (whether human or not) under your care. That’s an ambiguous word. You’ll also discover the title of “pastor” is a metaphor based on that function. Do leaders of churches pastor? Of course. But so do school teachers and parents. It’s ambiguous. You’ll also discover that the function of “pastoring” is (to some extent) done by all persons over the age of 10 in their relevant spheres. For example, anyone walking a dog is literally pastoring the dog. You will also discover (as Genesis 29:9 explicitly states), women can be “pastors” in a non-metaphorical sense. That’s because the noun of “pastor” in a non-metaphorical sense is someone who watches over livestock. The relevant Biblical NOUNS for offices in the church include (but are not limited to): Minister/deacon (διάκονος): 2 Corinthians 3:6, 1 Timothy 3:8, Philippians 1:1, etc. Overseer/bishop (ἐπίσκοπος): Acts 20:28, Philippians 1:1, Titus 1:7, etc. Apostle (ἀπόστολος): 1 Corinthians 12:28, 2 Timothy 1:11, etc. Prophet (προφήτας): 1 Corinthians 12:28, Ephesians 4:12, etc. Elder (πρεσβύτερος): Acts 14:23, 1 Timothy 5:17, 1 Peter 5:1, etc. Teacher (διδασκάλους): 1 Corinthians, 12:28, Ephesians 4:11, etc Evangelist (εὐαγγελιστής): Ephesians 4:11 And Shepherd (ποιμήν): Ephesians 4:11 These offices DO different things. Many of them are synonymous with non-gendered activities. For example: Women can be “deacons” because deacons are just servants. (But Baptists call their elders deacons, because they historically don’t like hierarchies and bishops - except in situations of multi-site churches - which causes unnecessary confusion.) Women can teach (because everybody can teach), but the prohibitions depends on who they are teaching and how they do it. Women can “pastor,” because any parent not pastoring is probably guilty of child neglect. Therefore, with this background, realize the prohibition on women being what Baptists call “pastors” comes from 1 Timothy 2:12: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” Notably absent is the Greek word “pastor.” Instead, there is a prohibition on FUNCTIONS that are done OVER A SPECIFIC GROUP OF PEOPLE. That being said, the prohibition IS REAL AND BINDING, but I would recommend that conservative and Bible-following Baptists who are resisting feminist and egalitarian impulses do a deep dive on the WORDS that they use to describe these concepts and offices and functions and align them more directly to Biblical descriptions, carefully defining each title and function as they go.

@Pastor_Gabe And because SBC Baptists don’t have consistent definitions between churches (because they’re all independent), that’s why you run into issues of non-elders (as defined by the Bible, and as understood by the individual churches) in SBC churches who get up and preach on Sundays.

@JCalebJones The SBC has literally defined a pastor as an elder or overseer, as defined by Scripture.

@SusanWiseBauer @JennMGreenberg Grammar and developing vernacular aside, we all know what the word means in the context of politicians and kids.

@JennMGreenberg "Trans" is not a verb.

Texans are facing an absolutely deplorable choice between Ken Paxton and James Talarico. Paxton was impeached in 2023 for unethical behavior, including accepting bribes and obstruction of justice. Before that, in 2015, he was indicted and arrested for fraud but managed to settle out of court to the tune of $300K (why that's allowed in criminal cases I have no idea). Over the past two decades he was exposed as a serial adulterer and his marriage ended in divorce. Talarico is a progressive radical; pro-abortion, pro-universal healthcare, wants to trans kids, wants to legalize marijuana, condemns Israel's "atrocities" and "war crimes" in Palestine, and justifies all this by lying about the Bible. He went so far as to suggest that the Angel gave Mary the option to abort Jesus, and claims that Jesus never asked us to worship him. The only thing good about Paxton is that he'll uphold conservative political talking points, at least in public while he's being watched. The only thing good about Talarico is that he's too young to have had any major scandals yet.

Your tweet is proving my point. You’ve just distinguished between doing “the work” of a pastor and having “the responsibility” of pastoring. Based on what you’ve said, women can do some undefined amount of pastoring, but just cannot have “responsibility” for it, whatever that means. Baptists need to give some clarity to their words.

@JCalebJones When we normally say someone is a pastor we know exactly what we mean. When we give them the title pastor, we know what we are conveying. All Christians do some of the work of pastors, but only qualified men are given the responsibility to be pastors. It's really not that hard.

I’m just not convinced that “shepherding” is a carefully defined thing in the Bible. It’s a metaphor for a group of things. Yes, “shepherding” is a part of what elders and overseers do, but it is not an umbrella term for all that elders and overseers do. This is evidenced by the fact that in Ephesians 4:11-12, it says: [11] And he [God] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, [12] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, “Shepherds” is towards the end of the list, and it is not an umbrella term for apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers. Even if it was, we have NT evidence for female prophets (Luke 2:36). Prophesy isn’t “teaching,” because if it was, why would there be female prophets in the gospel of Luke with a prohibition of women teaching in 1 Timothy 2:12? In the same way, “shepherds” are not “teachers,” because why would there be two words used in this list? And are we also to say that women cannot be an “evangelist”? Who’s going to condemn the woman at the well in John 4? I think it’s totally fine to say that women can be “shepherds” (in biblical terms), even though women can’t be WHAT BAPTISTS CALL “pastors” (which are actually elders and overseers). That’s because “shepherd” is not a Biblical title. It’s a description of an activity that everyone (to some extent) MUST do to some extent to obey the commands of scripture. This is not a promotion of egalitarianism. This is my critique of Baptist terminology which I don’t think really aligns carefully with the Bible.

@AezzieUwU If by “Nobody batted an eye” you mean “they passed a constitutional amendment to prevent partisan gerrymandering either way until the Dems broke the truce by putting forward an illegal referendum with a misleading question,” then yeah: nobody batted an eye.

This was the 8-3 Virginia map Republicans used in the 2010s and no one bat an eye. Don’t ever forget about that.

@AJKocman That man seems to have lost a lot of weight. I’m proud of him and his journey.

Seeker megachurch pastors: “Come as you are, we are just like you — we even dress like you” How they dress:

Same.

The prosecution objected to this exhibit being used in court for relevance and foundation reasons, I believe. I got the image from those filings. As such, I think Chauvin would have had to take the stand to have it admitted to the jury. That was a strategic decision not to take the stand, which we can hate in retrospect, but since there was already enough exculpatory evidence to acquit and not enough evidence to convict, it just is what it is.

@JCalebJones @elonmusk That image is the image used in court. The image of me on the ground, FROM OUR TRAINING MANUAL, was not used in court. The prosecution used an outside agency’s photos.

In both cases, police were uncaring, but only in one case does Starmer bend the knee

Everybody thinks that the government is hiding the existence of aliens from us because the government wants to keep that information secret for its own purposes. Everybody thinks the government is working on something and will perhaps even kill to accomplish their secrecy goals. Nobody stops to think that maybe the government is hiding the existence of aliens from us because THE ALIENS want to keep their existence secret for THEIR OWN purposes. Nobody stops to think the government is beholden TO SOMETHING ELSE that will perhaps even kill to accomplish THEIR secrecy goals.

As someone who has dealt with HR departments in employment litigation matters, this should be done 1,000 times over.

@ma1ybe The baby surviving?

Hot take but we literally tried to warn you that this is what happens when abortion access isn’t accessible.

I see it as a PR asset which can of course be passed on and utilized by others, just as a home, copyrighted work, company, or other intellectual property can be passed on. But it completely cuts off the “why are you talking bad about this dead person!” argument. It’s no longer a dead “person.” It’s a living brand.

@JCalebJones The whole posting from deceased peoples accounts has always been weird to me. I understand it, people whose livelihoods were built around the influence of a single personality need to continue leveraging assets of the deceased to keep things going. But, it's still weird.

“Tim Keller died three years ago! Why is everybody talking about Tim Keller!?” Also: Tim Keller’s last tweet was 12 hours ago. His second to last tweet? 12 hours before his last tweet.

Holy crap! Are they teaming up!?

@mattleeanderson Let’s also recognize how terrible of a headline “Men Should Bear the Brunt of Contraception” is to communicate the position that: “Sterilization/Contraception should never be the norm, but when absolutely necessary, it is men who should bear tha burden, not women.”

The responses to this are as predictable as could be imagined. There was really no win for the magazine on this issue and they deserve credit for taking it on the way they did. CT published two articles that argue forcefully against vasectomies, while this modest(!) defense distills where probably 95% of evangelicals are today. And now no one cares about the two critiques because they're too busy rage-dunking this one rather than considering the possibility that a huge percentage of the normie evangelical men over the age of 40 who listen to their podcasts have gotten a vasectomy.

@EWErickson Why?

Every American should pay 10% of their income in federal taxes.