Clear and Unambiguous

When I saw this picture on Zach Nielsen’s blog (Take Your Vitamin Z), I couldn’t take my mind off it. As you can tell, the sign serves as a warning—bluntly, succinctly and to the point. It clearly communicates its message, is free from ambiguity and is universal in its application. It does not waste space with superfluous information. It’s...

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Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is a special day. It’s not a national holiday or a religious festival. It’s not a famous anniversary or day of remembrance, but it’s still a special day. Today is special because it is my mother’s birthday. I won’t tell you which birthday, because I would like for tomorrow to be special as well.Along with my wife, my mom is the strongest...

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Fathers, Teach Your Children

I pastor a church with a vibrant children's ministry. We have age-graded Sunday School and mission classes as well as a thriving AWANA program. Vacation Bible School, Fall Festivals and block parties are the outreach highlights of our church calendar. In addition to our children's ministries, our youth ministries are fantastic. ...

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The Problem of Evil

There are five basic approaches taken by theologians to resolve the problem of evil. The first considers God as not powerful enough to conquer or eliminate evil. This approach is expressed as one of two manifestations. Arminians see God sovereignly limiting His own powers to allow for the existence of evil while dualists see evil as eternally co-existent with God and therefore equally as powerful. Either view sees God as finite...

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Providence

One of the many facts the testimony of Scripture attests to is the sovereignty of God. God’s sovereignty is manifest in His governing activity and His providential dealings with man. The fact that God providentially interacts with His creation results primarily in two things. First, history has purpose and meaning. In all other non-theistic world religions, history has no meaning. It is seen either as an endless cycle, or...

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Things I learned at the 2010 SBC Annual Meeting

Who deserves to hear the Gospel?A disturbing trend in some very influential circles in our convention is the attitude that no one deserves to hear the Gospel twice while there are those who have yet to hear it once. That might sound good. It is certainly emotionally moving and motivating. That mantra is being used to stir people’s hearts...

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God's Gift, Given this Day

On this day a few years ago (I won’t say how many), God blessed our world with one of His greatest masterpieces. He made her beautifulIt goes beyond the physical beauty that all can see. She has a beautiful spirit that is evident in the way she cares for me, our family and our church.He made her tenderShe has the softness of skin and tenderness...

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Things I learned at the 2010 SBC Annual Meeting

Messengers must be allowed to vote online. The only way for our convention to accurately reflect the will of the majority of our churches is to recognize the voice of every possible messenger. It is no secret that over 80% of our churches run less than 200 in average Sunday morning attendance. Because of the outstanding Cooperative Program...

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Things I learned at the 2010 SBC Annual Meeting

Never depend on someone else to do the right thing. Early on in discussions about the interim report of the GCR Task Force, several of us commented on the necessity of voting on the recommendations individually. Although I was fairly confident that the Task Force was going to presented them that way, we discussed the parliamentary possibilities...

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Why Creation Is Necessary

The first vital aspect of the doctrine of creation in theology is ontological in nature. Creation is antithetical to dualistic ideas that have persisted for millennia. Dualism states there are two ultimate principles that are essentially real – good and evil, male and female, hot and cold, forms and ideals, yin and yang. Tied up in the dualistic worldview is the concept that matter is evil. Syncretism with ancient philosophical...

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Things I learned at the 2010 SBC Annual Meeting

It’s hard to see past our immediate context.It's hard to see the forest past the immediate tree we're looking at.  People automatically tend to filter methodological decisions through their immediate contextual grid. Diversity is not only important to our convention, it is essential. Achieving racial diversity, non-essential theological...

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Things I learned at the 2010 SBC Annual Meeting

All issues are theological at their core. The only way to figure out the best methodologies is to have your theology right. While the Southern Baptist Convention has settled the question of biblical inerrancy and authority, there are still great differences of interpretation in what the Bible actually says and its implications for how we...

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Things I learned at the 2010 SBC Annual Meeting

Politics are necessary, but don’t have to be ugly.“Politics” carries a negative connotation in our culture. “Polis”, the word from which we get “politics” simply refers to a gathering of people. In other words, politics is what happens anytime a group of people gather. Despite the negative connotation, we can’t escape the fact that politics...

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2010 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting Follow-up

It's been a few days since the conclusion of the 2010 SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando.  Commentary over the past few days has ranged from utter despair to sheer ecstasy.  Over the years, I have tried to cultivate a teachable spirit.  Whatever circumstance I experience--whether immediately perceived as good or bad--I try to learn...

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Creation and Evolution

When discussing contradictions between two conflicting sources of information, there are three options one can take. Either the first must be true, the second must be true, or neither can be true. So it is between the Bible and science. While this is an overly simplistic statement, it encompasses the debate between Biblical creationism and materialistic theories of origin. Too often, Christians have bent the rod of Scripture...

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Why I Am Running for First Vice President of the SBC

My name is Jim Drake. Odds are, you’ve never heard of me. Let me take a few minutes to tell you about myself. First of all, I am a child of the King—chosen, purchased and redeemed by Jesus Christ. All that I am and all that I ever will be is because of Him. My chief desire is for everything I do to bring glory and honor to His great name. Second, I am a husband to Miranda—the finest woman I know. She has graced me by joyfully...

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Is This the Best of All Possible Worlds?

In his book, Christian Theology, Millard Erickson has developed a unique model for reconciling the perceived problem of the sovereignty of God and the freewill of man. He agrees with the Calvinist in holding to the Biblical notion that God’s decree has predetermined all human outcomes. At the same time, he propounds the notion of human freewill. His definition of freewill is somewhat unique, but not unheard of. Freewill to...

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Does Prayer Really Change Things?

In his book Christian Theology, Millard Erickson puts forth the proposition that prayer really changes nothing with respect to God’s eternal purposes. He wrote, “prayer does not change what he [God] has purposed to do.” That seems to fly in the face of the contemporary Christian conception of prayer. Take for example the huge commercial success of the little book, The Prayer of Jabez. Modern Christian society has fallen for...

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God's Justice and His Love

God’s attributes are the chief way He has chosen to reveal who He is to man. When His attributes are viewed from the perspective of finite man, they can seem contradictory. For years, liberal theologians have tried to drive a wedge between aspects of God’s character. The textual critics have even gone to the extreme of saying the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath and justice and is somehow different than the God of...

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Lord Guard and Guide the Men Who Fly

By Mary C. D. HamiltonLord, guard and guide the men who flyThrough the great spaces of the sky;Be with them traversing the airIn darkening storms or sunshine fair.You who support with tender mightThe balanced birds in all their flight,Lord of the tempered winds, be near,That, having you, they know no fear.Control their minds with instinct...

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June Edition of the West Virginia Southern Baptist

The latest edition of The West Virginia Southern Baptist, the state paper of the WV Convention of Southern Baptists, is available here. You can also use the sidebar link throughout the mon...

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The Unchanging God Who Repents

How can God be described as unchanging when Scripture speaks of Him as repenting, regretting and experiencing pain? This question is at the forefront of the current debate with those who refer to themselves as “open theists”. Open theists such as Clark Pinnock, John Sanders, Gregory Boyd, and others believe God does not exercise complete foreknowledge. This process theology derivative holds that God is forever changing and adapting...

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God's Attributes

God is known by man as He chooses to reveal Himself. Since God is transcendently over and above man, He cannot totally reveal Himself. As God revealed through the prophet Isaiah, “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.’” The only way finite man can know who God...

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The Personal Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit has been recognized as the third person of the Trinity since the earliest days of church history. While this is understood, it is also recognized that the doctrine has not been accepted without its dissenters. The Council at Nicea articulated the doctrine of the Trinity, and Constantine banished those bishops who opposed it. While Chalcedon and Constantinople further clarified the doctrine, there were still...

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A Mother’s Work Is Never Done

Have you ever noticed that we are always looking for a future time in our lives when things are supposed to get easier? The same is true with mothers. Any of us who have gone through all the cycles of raising children know that it never gets any easier. The fact is that a mother’s work is never really done.The manuscript of this Mother’s...

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The West Virginia Southern Baptist

The latest edition of the West Virginia Southern Baptist is available for download here. The latest link is always available in the sidebar of this blog.  In addition to church and mission news from around the state, this edition includes an article from our Executive Director, Dr. Terry Harper, concerning the SBC Great Commission Resurgence...

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The Son of God

As Christians, we have referred to Jesus Christ as the Son of God all of our spiritual lives. The assumption is that those three words connote the same meaning for non-believers as for believers. Unfortunately, this is not true. A regular, historical-grammatical reading of the Bible makes it easy to distinguish the times when “Son of God” speaks of the divine nature of Christ as opposed to mankind, angels, or other created...

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Jesus Is God

The deity of Christ has been under attack since the incarnation. As a matter of fact it was questions about His deity which led to His crucifixion. Throughout the generations of church history, heresy after heresy has arisen denying Jesus’ divinity. Even today, groups like the Unitarians and the Jehovah’s Witnesses deny that Jesus is God. Strangely enough, one of the first heresies (and one with the most profound impact) affirmed...

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The Real Jesus of History

Those such as John Dominic Crossan and his colleagues on the Jesus Seminar who have tried to “demythologize” the Bible have done so largely under the auspices of pursuing the quest for the historical Jesus. One has to look no further than the History Channel or Discovery Network for apparent documentaries that seek to discover who Jesus “really was”. This is not a new endeavor. Thomas Jefferson, one of the most revered founding...

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The Unchanging God of the Old and New Testaments

God chose to reveal Himself very clearly in certain ways in the Old Testament. Since orthodox Christianity holds to the fact that God is immutable, it would stand to reason that He would reveal Himself in the same ways in the New Testament. Were that not the case, it would lend credence to those heretics and cynics who claim the God described in the Old Testament is entirely different than the so-called Platonic, Hellenistic...

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