According to research by Lifeway, the chances are much higher today than they were twenty-five years ago that your future pastor will be a Calvinist.  Quite frankly, this has a lot of Southern Baptists scrambling and nervous.

With the surge in Calvinistic conviction, it wouldn’t surprise me if some pastor search committees begin to ask prospective pastoral candidates, “Are you a Calvinist?” before they query about conversion and call to ministry.

The conversation has become so acrimonious in some places that there has been more heat generated on the subject than light.  I have heard some speak of the resurgence of reformed thought much like the way one would describe a melanoma, and many do see Calvinistic doctrine as a cancer in the body of Christ called Southern Baptists.

For this reason, I don’t want to be known by the term “Calvinist” at the cost of being called and known by an infinitely greater name, “Christian” or “Follower of Christ.”

However, in full disclosure, I am decidedly in the Reformed, Calvinistic, Doctrines of Grace camp. If labels and camps are inevitable, I am convinced from Scripture that what is commonly called the five points of Calvinism (with nuance) is true and sound doctrine.  I also believe that I am well within the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 and the legacy of reformed conviction in Baptist history. I believe that I am in good company with such convictions, both with believers in the past and the present.

I am also a part of a family called the Southern Baptist Convention and of a local church that gives 18% of our undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program; another 2% to a church start seven miles from our location; an additional 3% for the purpose of sending our congregation to the uttermost parts of this earth, including a focus on an unreached people group, and the start of a seminary initiative in East Asia.

In the aforementioned commitments, I see no contradiction between doctrinal conviction and missional living.  Furthermore, I cannot imagine leaving my Southern Baptist family, ever.

So, I am writing as an insider. One who is in the family, and from that perspective, I would like to offer a modest proposal for processing the disagreement over Calvinism. I will hang my thoughts on three “P’s”:

I.  PERSONAL STUDY

On the subject of God’s sovereign grace, I believe there is great promise for spiritual growth for us as a denomination through a prayerful study of the Scriptures.  With the recovery of an inerrant Bible, conversations on the subject of election, predestination, regeneration, and the nature and extent of the atonement are inevitable.

How do you reconcile Romans 9 with John 3:16 and I Timothy 2:4?  2 Peter 3:9 with Matthew 11:25-27 and John 6:44?  The task of every believer, like the Bereans before us, is to search the Scriptures that we might understand them and obey them.

At the heart of growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is the development of a systematic understanding of what the Bible says about everything.  Certainly, examining the tensions between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility falls into that category.

2. PASSION FOR THE GOSPEL AND THE GREAT COMMISSION

Any belief about election or predestination that seeks to quench evangelism, missions, and prayer is patently unbiblical and must be rejected out of hand as sinful.  The God of the Bible saves by grace through faith, not by election.

And since “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17), we must go high and low, far and wide, with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is a trustworthy statement that He saves sinners.  He is our only hope, and the means for that announcement to the world is the faithful witness of God’s people.

The well-meant-offer of the Gospel to every person must be our common conviction as it is based on the commands of our Savior.  Our theology must fuel such obedience.

3.  PATIENCE, FORBEARANCE AND RESPECT

I would urge an honest reading of material from those who embrace the reformed position instead of exclusively from those who write polemics and raise-up straw men against it.  For example, Timothy George provides great help in his work Amazing Grace: God’s Initiative-Our Response. He is a Southern Baptist. The book is published by Lifeway, and he writes from the reformed position.

I am not saying this will bring universal agreement.  Neither am I saying in a condescending tone, “Study what I believe and you will surely see the light!”

I think Dr. Johnny Hunt provided good leadership for us during his presidency by committing to read those from the reformed position.  He said during an interview broadcast on YouTube, “Even though I am not a five-point Calvinist, I have a much deeper respect for those who are and know exactly how they came to that place in their life.”  Can you say that of those with whom you disagree?

In navigating through the shoals of controversy, I would call us in the Southern Baptist family, pastors and congregations alike, to demonstrate love and respect for one another.

For us to understand that this doctrinal diversity has been the DNA of Southern Baptist life from our beginning, and we would do well to seek to understand the Scriptures and our history better.

I would urge pastors to remember that we are called to shepherd, not bully. We are called to teach the Word and trust it to do its work in the life of our congregations. May we lead gently by precept and by example.

For congregations, do not allow the issue of Calvinism to serve as a smoke screen for sinful agendas to be played out in the church.  Do not allow charges of false doctrine to be labeled when the issue is really carnal pursuit of power and control in the church.

Perhaps my words are too simplistic in a raging debate, but for me, I have no intention of having graceless debates about grace. My pastoral purpose is not to lead my congregation to follow any man-made system. My purpose always and only is to lead them to be followers of Jesus Christ.  It really is all about Him.

*Published in Baptist Message-June 2011 and June 2012

There was strong reason why Susan Boyle’s performance on Britain’s Got Talent in April of 2009 received 100 million views in the first nine days online.  It was absolutely astonishing to watch a 47 year old woman, frumpy by any standards, stand before an audience of doubters and scoffers and bring them to cheers and tears by the sound of her voice. We love to watch the underdog climb to the top, and Susan Boyle certainly did that with her singing voice.

However, there was another reason for her viral popularity around the world, and it is found in the emotional pull of the song she sang, “I Dreamed a Dream” from the Les Miserables. The English lyrics were written by Herbert Kretzmer which were based on the original French libretto by Alain Boublil.  The song resonates with the human experience as it speaks of dreams that are dashed and hope that is extinguished. Listen to a few excerpts:

But the tigers come at night,

With their voices soft as thunder,

As they tear your hope apart,

And they turn your dream to shame…..

But there are dreams that cannot be

And there are storms we cannot weather…..

I had a dream my life would be

So different from the hell I’m living

So different now from what it seemed

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed…..

These words seem to be universal and timeless in describing the bitter fallout of sin’s curse.  This could very well have been Adam and Eve’s song as they were the first to taste of hope being torn apart and dreams being turned to shame. The unfolding of human history bears witness to this horror, and honestly every one of us can weigh-in on this reality.  We see it and hear it all around us:

*Like the Father who said to his son, “You are nothing but the product of a one night stand!”

*Where in places like Thailand, for the price of seafood platter, perverted men fly in from all over the world to have their way with children caught up in the         horror of sex trafficking.

*Where loose ends, and irreconcilable relationships and unending bitterness passes from one generation to the next.

*Where “if only” seems to be the refrain of many living in the backwash of failure, grief and pain.

Sin is the great life destroyer. It separates us from God. It disrupts every human relationship. It is behind every broken marriage, every abusive home, every shattered friendship, every evil thought, every evil word, evil deed, every good deed undone, every good word unsaid can be attributed to the fact that we as a race are sinners by nature and by choice.

Into such a world, God has sent forth His Son, Jesus Christ.  This could be the greatest defense of the Christian faith, namely that God came here and breathed our air and became susceptible to the sorrows of this world.  Through His sinless life, brutal death and glorious resurrection, He is the true hope giver for all who turn from their sins and come to Him by faith.

The shortest verse in the English Bible is “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35) He did so at the funeral of a friend named Lazarus. He wept not because he wondered where Lazarus had gone because momentarily He would raise Lazarus from the dead. I believe He wept because He saw the devastating effects of sin upon humanity. Because of sin, there is death.

In this same chapter of John 11, Jesus gives amazing hope as He says to Martha, the grieving sister of Lazarus, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies.” (John 11:25)

Jesus Christ is the true hope giver.  His promises are sturdy, and His compassion is great. Immerse your life in the text of Scripture. Learn everything you can about Him. Bring your broken life and dreams to Him, for He is the only one who can rescue from the judgment to come and give to you a future and a hope.

I remember well my first year at the University of Kentucky walking through the free speech area and hearing a woman with a high shrill voice waxing eloquent in open air.  I remember her name was “Sister Cindy,” and she was quite skilled in enumerating the sexual sins of college co-eds.

Her voice took me back to childhood when one of the neighborhood moms would yell at her son early in the morning to get the trash to curb before the garbage truck passed.

Sister Cindy in the free speech area was a first for me.   As a new Christian, listening to a woman preacher, I can remember at the time sensing something was not right about this.

Certainly, “Sister Cindy” was an aberration.  There are many gifted women in the Body of Christ who teach with great skill, and because of that coupled with cultural pressures, the last thirty years has seen a steamroller movement in the evangelical community to usher women into the role of pastor.  In our day, it is not uncommon to have husband and wife serve as co-pastors.  In many streams of the evangelical community, women are encouraged to pursue such roles, and a number of women hold prominent, global preaching ministries.

As a convention, Southern Baptists have taken a stand on this issue in our statement of faith (BF&M 2000) which reads that “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” This conviction flows from the biblical text which we believe to be foundational for our faith and practice.

The Pastoral Epistles, (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus) were written by the Apostle Paul for the purpose of establishing “how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” (I Timothy 3:15)

In his letter of I Timothy, Paul asserts that leadership in the church is to be given to qualified, godly men (I Timothy 2:8-15; 3:1-7). The apostle links the argument for such practice, not to cultural customs, but to creation.  Paul goes back to the beginning, Adam and Eve, for his basis in delineating role distinctions between men and women in the Church.

The reason men are to lead in teaching, preaching, and leadership in the duly constituted gathering of the church is linked not to intelligence quotients or speaking gifts, but to God’s creative order. Paul’s statements are not the rants of a misogynist.  This text is not a scribal gloss.  On the contrary, these words are the inspired counsel of God given for the spiritual health of the Church and the joy of God’s people.

Some may ask, “On the theological landscape, aren’t there bigger fish to fry? With a world of seven billion people and with over one billion having not even heard the name of Jesus, why are you even talking about this?”  Martin Luther’s conviction comes to my mind as a response, “I would rather the heavens fall than one truth of God be lost.”  I believe this issue of understanding the biblical roles between men and women in the church is critical to the health and well-being of the Body of Christ and to our proclamation and living out of the Gospel.

Additionally, how we do theology on this issue reveals much about our view of Scripture.  I fear we are driven more by the culture and pragmatism than by submission to the biblical text. To this issue, the pragmatist says things like “Well Sister Cindy is a better preacher than Bro. Bob.”  Indeed, she may be, but that does not give warrant to place her in the pulpit on Sunday morning.

Certainly men and women are of equal worth in the presence of God. Both are fellow heirs of the grace of life (I Peter 3:7) and bestowed with spiritual gifts.  However, there exists a distinction of roles in the Body that is of such importance that Paul would admonish Titus to “speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1-5) which he immediately relates to roles in the Body of Christ.  Paul’s summation to this teaching is so that “the word of God may not be dishonored.” (Titus 2:5)

My encouragement to pastors and churches is to spend time wrestling with the biblical text regarding roles in the church. With much confusion over gender and roles, may we look to God’s word to be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.  He is certainly not silent on the issue.

There are excellent resources to help in this journey. I have been greatly helped by Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem; also, God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation  by Andreas Kostenberger has been a great contribution to this discussion.

In preparation for a recent study on heaven, I Googled the word and discovered the first five pages of the 142,000,000 references on the Worldwide Web took me on an incredibly confusing journey.

From this search, I learned from a YouTube clip that Bryan Adams’ song “Heaven” claims that heaven is having your girlfriend in your arms.

When I clicked on Wikipedia for some help, I read for 45 minutes a conflicting survey of heaven among world religions.  From there I consulted the link with ABC News, and Barbara Walters’ attempt to answer questions like, “Where is heaven?” and “How do you get there?”  Trust me on this one, if you want clarity, don’t bother going there.

I also discovered how heaven has been trivialized.  There was a nightclub in Seattle called “Heaven”, and there was a restaurant named “Burger Heaven.”  And of course, Disney has an animated film assuring you that all dogs go to heaven.  The trivialization of heaven has brought a manifest scorn regarding the future hope and home of the believer in Jesus Christ.  Mark Twain speaks for many when he quipped sarcastically, “You take heaven; I’d rather go to Bermuda.”

We live in a culture that in many respects has been inoculated with a Jesus message that falls short of the radical call of Christ to deny all, die to self and follow Him in complete obedience.  It ignores the command of Christ who said, “Enter by the narrow gate….for the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.” (Matthew 7:13,14).  In such a climate, heaven is an entitlement. Heaven is for everyone and where everyone goes, except the really bad people of the world.

I understand how the world would misunderstand the hope of heaven, but what about God’s people?  What about those who follow the One who said, “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places;….I go to prepare a place for you…..that where I am, there you may be also.”?  (John 14:2,3)

Why do we as Christians talk so little about heaven when everything precious to the believer is there?  A survey of the New Testament reveals that for the believer in Jesus Christ: our Father, our Savior, our inheritance, our treasure, our loved ones in Christ, our citizenship and our names are all in heaven.  With such a future and a hope, we must cultivate biblically informed, meaningful conversations about heaven.

However, when the subject of heaven does come up, often the conversation tends to be brief, bland and uninviting.  Like an air conditioner out of Freon in the summer heat, it’s just not refreshing.

How different is the picture in the text of Scripture.   The Apostle John’s inspired words seem to ransack human language in giving us a picture of the New Heaven and the New Earth. (Revelation 21,22)

As we meditate on these texts, questions come. In some instances sanctified imagination is employed to fill in the biblical picture. When is the last time you thought about questions like these:

*What will it mean to see God?

*What will we do in heaven?

*What will our resurrection body be like?

*How can so many be with Jesus and receive personal attention?

*What will we know and learn?

*If loved ones are in hell, won’t that ruin the joy of heaven?

*What will our relationships be like?

*Whom will we meet and how will we experience life together?

I believe there are solid biblical answers and inferences for questions like these.  Such thinking is critical for believers to live with heaven in view and to ponder questions that stoke our longings to be with our God, in the place He has made for us, enjoying all things the way they were meant to be.

With such a mindset it brings to the forefront of our lives the Great Commission and our calling to make Christ known.  If He is the entrance requirement to heaven, Gospel conversations take on new significance.

Jonathan Edwards made great contributions with his thoughts on eternity. He wrote over 250 years ago, “It will take an eternity to have enough time for the human soul to probe the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of the glories of God.”  He continued by describing God as an exhaustless fountain in which even after “the pleasure of beholding the face of God millions of ages it will not grow a dull story.”

Such thoughts are not escapism.  On the contrary, this is robust hope anchored in the promises of God.  And as we think seriously about eternity, the things of this world will grow strangely dim, for in His presence is fullness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore.

I’m wondering if pastors and churches haven’t contributed to the marital malaise of our generation because of a lack of diligence in upholding biblical standards for marriage and weddings?  Sadly, in many instances weddings have become a perfunctory ceremony devoid of preparation, reverence and significance.

I have a pastor friend who recently attended a wedding conducted by one professing to be a minister of the Gospel. The ceremony lasted about ten minutes.  No Scripture was read and no prayer was offered.  The vows exchanged were so vague he scarcely could establish that it was a Christian gathering. The ceremony seemed only to broadcast a disconnect from any biblical foundation.  To me it just seems certain that this is one of the reasons that biblical marriage is increasingly undermined by a divorce culture that sees marriage as a temporary social arrangement.

Of all human commitments, second only to following Jesus Christ, if any deserves the taking off of our shoes because we are on holy ground, it is the occasion when a man and a woman unite before God in the covenant of marriage. Furthermore, at the heart of the Great Commission is the command to make disciples, and I can’t think of a better strategy for disciple-making than to prepare the church to honor God in marriage.

Tragically, however, marriage is esteemed lightly even in the church as pastoral responses to weddings have been all too accommodating in a culture that has lost its way and is vastly ignorant of the demands and expectations of Christ-centered marriage.  This mindset has bled into the body of Christ leading to an abysmal affect on the state of marriage among God’s people.

Many pastors flippantly entertain weddings with little thought of upholding biblical standards.  To borrow a phrase from Dr. Seuss used in another context, many pastors’ wedding policies sound like this, “I will marry you in a box, I will marry you with a fox; I will marry you with a mouse, I will marry you in a house; I will marry you here or there; I will marry you anywhere.”

It is time for God’s people to honor marriage by creating a discipling-mentoring atmosphere within the church to prepare future generations to honor the Lord.  I am submitting that one of the greatest opportunities for pastoral impact is preparing couples to enter married life.

This preparation should actually begin earlier than one might think.  It is not when the couple is talking about cakes, dresses, cumberbuns and honeymoons.  It should begin among the children and youth of our church family.  They should be challenged, along with their parents, to prepare for the next ten to fifteen years in their lives, and for most that will include marriage. Diligence on the front end, will save a lot of heartache later.

How does a pastor lead in this area? How does a church collectively move in this direction?  I think it begins with biblical teaching on marriage from the pulpit to summer camp.  Additionally, I would urge pastors to think through their wedding policy and have it in writing. The policy should emphasize that marriage is a covenant between believers, and is a profound picture of Christ’s relationship with his Church (Ephesians 5:22-33). There should be a challenge to biblical purity in the face of proliferating cohabitation (Hebrews 13:4; I Thess. 4:3). Mandatory pre-marital counseling should be established with a series of meetings for the purpose of biblical instruction and prayer.  This counseling should also include practical training like requiring the couple to prepare a budget, discussing conflict resolution, marital intimacy and establishing spiritual disciplines together as a couple.

Not all are interested in such preparation. Many want the “Marrying Sam” Pastor who doesn’t ask any questions and doesn’t uphold biblical truth. They don’t want to answer the hard questions.  However, setting such a standard helps eliminate those gut-wrenching encounters when a couple presents themselves for marriage but have given no spiritual preparation to what that means.

In my experience, I have found that wedding preparation without spiritual commitment is very bad ground for evangelism.  It is bad ground because often the couple wants to get married in the church, and most know that in order for the pastor to be involved in the wedding they must give at least a tacit acknowledgement that they are believers. The meeting with the pastor therefore becomes a forced conversation, a hoop to jump through, and I believe that is bad ground for serious Gospel conversation.

Such experiences have led me to establish a wedding policy that states that not only must the couple be a member of our church, but that membership must be seen by faithfulness in worship and in small groups. In forging pastoral conviction, I have resolved that there are 100 people within a ten-mile radius of my desk who can handle the paper work for a legal wedding, but I believe the Lord has called me to invest in those who are committed to honoring marriage evidenced by a life of obedience to the Lord.

One of the great joys for me as a pastor is to stand with a couple as they exchange marriage vows. In this time of preparation, I have come to know them deeply as we have talked about Jesus Christ and His call on their lives. I believe this is one of the greatest aspects of discipleship I can be engaged in as a pastor. I am confident that it offers the strongest strategy for multi-generational faithfulness to the Gospel, for the church can seldom resurrect what the home puts to death.

I think an important part of the Christian life is for believers to remind themselves, and one another, of the blessed hope of heaven.  By God’s grace, we come to know salvation when we turn from our sins and enter the narrow gate of Christ.  Through faith we receive Him as our Lord and Savior, and upon receiving Him, we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God’s dear Son. (Colossians 1:13)  To know Christ is to be made a child of God and a citizenship of heaven. (Philippians 3:20)  Like Abraham, the believer in Christ is looking “for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”(Hebrew 11:10)

Is this the way you live?  Do you live with a vision of these eternal realities?  Think with me for a moment as I list seven reasons why we should think of heaven and why this is critical to victorious, kingdom-focused living.

I.  Our Father is in Heaven and He is the source of everything, “Our Father, who is in heaven Hallowed be Your name.” (Matthew 6:9) He knows the sparrow that falls in the field along with the number of hairs on your head. (Matthew 10:29,30)  Before Him “we live and move and exist.” (Acts 17:28)

II. Our Lord and Savior is in Heaven, “Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” (Hebrews 9:24)  In the book of Revelation we read with breathtaking splendor of the Lamb who was slain and worthy to receive the praises of Heaven’s choir. (Revelation 5)   One of the puritan writers said that for the first thousand years in heaven all he wants to do is look at Jesus and then he will consider looking around.

III. Our Brothers and Sisters in Christ are in Heaven.  “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” (Psalm 116:15)  The Apostle Paul writing to Corinthians makes an incredibly hopeful statement when he states that he preferred “to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 5:8b)

IV. Our Names are in Heaven. In Luke 10:20, Christ told His disciples, who were casting out demons, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.” By saying that our names are written in heaven, Christ assures us that we have a title deed to property there.

V.  Our Inheritance is in Heaven. I Peter 1:3,4 is one of my favorite doxologies in the Bible,  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.”

VI. Our Citizenship is in Heaven. The Apostle Paul taught the Philippians that “our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior.” (Philippians 3:20)

VII. Our Treasure is in Heaven. Jesus said that the only treasure we will possess throughout eternity is in heaven, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Truly, everything precious to the believer is Heaven and these are seven great reasons to keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. (Colossians 3:1) Treasure this hope in your heart and live for that day you will appear before Him.