Posted: 9/01/06

Florida interview stirs controversy

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) —Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) has caused a major stir with comments, published in the Florida Baptist Convention’s newspaper and picked up by national media, suggesting the separation of church and state is a lie and failure to elect Christians to public office will cause governments to “legislate sin.”

The Florida Baptist Witness recently published a package of articles and interviews with candidates in the state’s primary elections for governor and United States Senate.

In response to a question about why Florida Baptists should care about the primary election, Harris said, “If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin.” When asked about the role people of faith should play in politics, Harris seemed to disparage church-state separation, referring to it as “that lie we have been told.”

“And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women and if people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected, then we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that’s (sic) certainly isn’t what God intended,” she said.

Several Florida politicians—Republican and Democrat alike —lambasted Harris’ remarks. Harris’ campaign released a “statement of clarification” Aug. 26 attempting to douse the firestorm.

“In the interview, Harris was speaking to a Christian audience, addressing a common misperception that people of faith should not be actively involved in government,” the statement said. “Addressing this Christian publication, Harris provided a statement that explains her deep grounding in Judeo-Christian values.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 9/01/06

Texas Baptist Forum

Special in God’s sight

Thank you for your 2nd Opinion column on stem-cell research (Aug. 21). Please allow me to put a personal face on an aspect of that discussion. 

Letters are welcomed. Send them to marvknox@baptiststandard.com; 250 words maximum.

“While the Lord loves the Jewish people as he loves all people, the church is now the people of God. Events related to the modern state of Israel are not to be connected specifically with Revelation or other books of biblical prophecy.” Jim Denison Pastor of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas and daily blogger (GodIssues.org) “The United States, a so-called Christian country, has a double standard. With one hand, it gives bombs to Israel, and with the other, it gives milk and flour to those affected by the bombs. Is this Christian? Forget Christian, is this human?” Albert Isteero Editor of the Arabic-language edition of The Upper Room daily devotional guide (United Methodist News Service/RNS) “The terrorists sent bombs and bullets. … Let’s respond with Bibles.” Johnny Hunt National spokesman for Muslim Bible Day, a project that distributes Bibles in Muslim countries. (www.muslimbibleday.org /RNS) “In terms of a religion, it’s not the religion that is the terrorist.” Robert Mueller FBI director, speaking about the arrest of an alleged Islamic terrorist cell in Miami. (Congressional Quarterly/RNS)

My grandson was adopted as a frozen embryo by my son and daughter-in-law. Because another couple with leftover embryos viewed these “preborn babies” as special in God’s sight, they allowed them to be adopted. As a result, our grandson was born. He has made two trips to the White House in his short life, and hopefully he will be used of God powerfully in whatever he chooses to do.

Again, thank you for the article. May we always be challenged to take the moral high road, for in so doing, we will always be right.  Misunderstood, probably; considered taking our standards from another world, hopefully; achieving the only recognition that will ultimately matter, assured.

Jack L. Jones

Tyler

God, Israel & ‘End Times’

Wayne Allen couldn’t be more wrong (Aug. 21).

Israel is a vastly secular state. Even if it were an orthodox religious-Jewish state, the promises their ancestors looked forward to were fulfilled in Christ. Christ came to establish a kingdom not confined to Palestine, but one that would cover the whole world. Abraham had prototypical faith 430 years before any law established national identity. “The Scripture has shut up all men under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe” (see Galatians 3:15-22).

To deny that Christians are the true, spiritual, Israel of God is to deny our relationship with Abraham and his seed—Christ (Galatians 3:16, 29).

Allen goes against such Baptists as Gill, Fuller, Dagg, Boyce, Hovey, Broadus and Carroll, just to name a few.

I’m all for evangelizing Israel, but don’t think for a minute that they are still related to God’s promises by faith.

Ben Macklin

Fort Worth

Get rid of Marv Knox as Joyce Slaydon suggests? (Aug. 21)  God forbid. Who would we have to create all this controversy? 

If every subscriber will be honest, the first thing they turn to when they receive the Standard is the letters, then the editorial. Then they write a letter or want to. 

You keep the hair raised on the back of our necks. Although I don’t always agree, I love your “mischievous streak.” 

One other thing though: If Wayne Allen said it (Aug. 21), I believe it.

F.A. Taylor

Kempner

I am still shaking my head and wondering how someone with such complete ignorance of Scripture has gone unchecked in what should be an authoritive position as editor of the Baptist Standard. I have noticed your carnal statements in years past, but none has disturbed me as I am now.

Your statement about “End Times” (Aug. 7) is so unscriptual and dangerous to the church. I consider your words a warning to those of us who hold to the teachings of Christ: Beware of the tares among us who come in sheeps’ clothing to mislead and fill the mind with lies.

He who touches Israel touches the apple of God’s eye.

Judy Brown

Sulphur Springs

I heartily endorse the “End Times” editorial. It eloquently reflects the teachings of Jesus.

Tim LaHaye and John Hagee are disciples of John Nelson Darby, a defrocked 19th century Church of England priest, who is responsible for the “rapture” theology. Theologians and biblical scholars generally do not recognize the “rapture” theology.

Darby’s strange biblical interpretation has become the 21st century basis for America to start World War III and the Battle of Armageddon. In many respects, it’s like David Koresh on a much larger scale.

Hagee, probably the most radical of the Darbyists, recently formed a new Christian Zionist organization called Christians United for Israel. According to The Nation, CUFI says supporting the aggressive policies of Israel is a “biblical imperative.”

Condoleeza Rice quoted Hagee’s words about “birth pangs” to justify hers and the president’s opposition to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Israel’s war against Lebanon. While opposing a cease-fire, they rushed rockets to Israel and sent humanitarian aid to Lebanon.

It appears that Hagee and other Darbyists openly oppose the separation of church and state, but they have no problem with the separation of church and ethics.

Charles Reed

Waco

I re-read Romans 10 and 11 right after reading Wayne Allen’s letter (Aug. 7) and still have no problem at all believing that the Apostle Paul “writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, believed the church was the New Israel.” 

I would encourage Allen to re-read Ephesians 2 and 3, particularly 2:11-3:6.  Saying the church is the New Israel doesn’t exclude Jews, but rather includes all believers in Christ Jesus—Jew and Gentile, alike.  After all, Paul writes that God’s ultimate purpose was not to graft believing Gentiles into the Jewish nation, but to take both believing Jews and Gentiles and make “one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility” (Ephesians 2:15b-16). 

And Allen needn’t worry about “our laymen” being led astray by the Standard.  Many so-called laymen and women are incredible students of God’s word, as much or more so than some so-called clergy.

Pamm Muzslay

El Lago

Complements and compliments

In his response to Bubba Stahl’s June 26 letter, Davy Hobson (July 24) seems to not take note that “compliment” and “complement” are not synonyms. 

Doubtless Stahl’s intent was to call attention to the fact no one denomination of Christians stands totally alone in having a sincere desire to spread the gospel of Christ around the world. Therefore, we seek to work alongside those who hold to the central truths of the word of God, rather than loudly and publicly competing with them for the attention of the unevangelized.

Having been many years on the mission field, and having observed the effective work done by other denominational groups in bringing people into a personal saving relationship with Christ, I know full well that our efforts are “complementary” to those of other groups.

Like Hobson, I would find it difficult to pay “compliments” to doctrinal errors or distortions. But our emphasis should be more on proclaiming the straightforward gospel truth than on carrying on a public debate over minor doctrinal issues.

Incidentally, I would be interested in knowing about whatever denomination it is he has found where everyone can “completely agree” on all its precepts. Certainly it is not the Southern Baptist Convention I have known and loved for some 60 years.

Charles Alexander

Benbrook

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 9/01/06

Evangelicals part company
with Bush on North Korea

By David Anderson

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—When evangelical pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren announced he would undertake a preaching mission to North Korea next year, it raised a number of eyebrows in the conservative religious community.

North Korea, after all, is a keystone in President Bush’s “axis of evil” and, according to the State Department and human rights organizations, a gross violator of human rights and religious freedom.

Heightened tensions between the reclusive regime and the West over North Korea’s test of seven missiles forced Warren, author of the hugely popular Purpose Driven Life books, to cancel a preliminary trip this summer to Pyongyang.

But Warren insisted his preaching visit would go on next year despite criticism from some evangelicals and the Bush administration’s efforts to totally isolate the country.

“Regardless of politics, I will go anywhere I am invited to preach the gospel,” Warren said.

Warren’s stance is just one of a number of indications that, at least on foreign policy issues, the president no longer can automatically count on the support—or at least quiet acquiescence—of conservative and moderate evangelicals as he did in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Whether the differences on North Korea will translate into differences on other issues remains to be seen. Evangelicals have been mostly silent—neither critics nor cheerleaders—on the continuing crisis in the Middle East and the Bush administration’s unrelenting support of Israel’s offensive in Lebanon and Gaza.

Only one evangelical organization—the International Chris-tian Embassy in Jerusalem—has said it “will pray for Israel’s unqualified victory” over Hezbollah and Hamas, according to a summary of position statements compiled by two major Jewish groups.

Evangelist Franklin Graham, head of the relief agency Samaritan’s Purse, forcefully has laid out evangelical differences with the administration regarding North Korea.

Graham, who has visited North Korea, recently told the PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly he wanted to encourage the administration and Congress to change the U.S. approach to the communist nation.

“We need to talk to the North Koreans face to face, period,” Graham said. “Eyeball to eyeball. And there is a lot that can be accomplished if we simply do that.

“I think probably North Korea is the most dangerous place on the face of the earth right now. You’ve got a country that I feel is kind of backed up against a wall.”

North Korea has indicated it will not engage in talks with the United States until Washington ends its financial sanctions against the country.

Graham took a dim view of the value of the sanctions.

“Whatever sanctions, what little we may be able to bring to bear on North Korea, it’s just going to end up hurting the people worse,” he said. “It’s not going to hurt the army, and I don’t think it’s going to hurt (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Il.”

Graham said he was “not breaking ranks with the president” but was “encouraging the president to change his strategy, just a little bit.”

Separately, two other high-profile conservative evangelicals—Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals—signed on to an effort pressing a joint humanitarian and human rights approach to North Korea rather than the administration’s single-minded focus on arms control.

The coalition includes such liberal groups as Americans for Democratic Action, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the American Humanist Association.

“At the earliest practicable date, the United States should propose an unconditional humanitarian aid initiative to improve the health and lives of the people of North Korea, doing so in such form as will ensure that the benefits of the initiative will be provided on a needs basis,” according to the 18-point plan announced in recent weeks.

The coalition cannot be accused of taking a “soft” stand on the erratic North Korean regime, but it also represents a break from the administration’s approach.

Churches in South Korea—mostly associated with mainline Protestant denominations—also are pressing Bush to change U.S. policy toward North Korea. They, like Graham, want Washington to lift sanctions and move toward stabilizing diplomatic relations.

“It is generally understood (in South Korea) that the sanctions against North Korea since 1950 have been enforced by the U.S.A. in its own political interest,” the head of South Korea’s national Council of Churches told Bush in a July 7 letter.

“Experts indicate that the sanctions against North Korea have been one of the significant causes of the increasing suffering of the North Korean people,” Anglican Bishop Kyung Jo Park said in the letter.

Park urged the United States to look toward normalizing relations with North Korea.

“We believe that the (July 5) missile testing by North Korea contributes to the deterioration of relations between North Korea and the U.S., and between North Korea and Japan,” Park said.

“Therefore, we strongly assert that true peace in Northeast Asia cannot be established without normalizing diplomatic relations between North Korea and the United States, and between North Korea and Japan,” the letter said.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 9/01/06

On the Move

• Gerald Bastin has resigned as pastor of Tilden Church in Tilden.

• David Bush to Six Mile Church in Six Mile as founding pastor.

• Jeff Huckeby has resigned as pastor of First Church in Earth.

• David Keith has resigned as interim minister of music at Broadway Church in Fort Worth, where he served 12 years.

• Phil Moore to Northside Church in Corsicana as minister of music and media from First Church in Dumas.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 9/01/06

Seminary pulls plug on trustee’s online sermon

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

FORT WORTH (ABP)—A trustee at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary endorsed the concept of a private prayer language in an Aug. 29 chapel sermon at the school, setting off a wave of discussion in the Southern Baptist blogosphere and triggering the seminary’s leaders to ban free distribution of the sermon through the school’s website.

Dwight McKissic, a new Southwestern trustee and pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, delivered the sermon in which he recounted how, while a Southwestern student in 1981, he had an experience of speaking in a “private prayer language” and that the experience has repeated itself.

McKissic also offered criticism of a policy, recently established by the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, that would ban the appointment of missionaries who practice the private version of glossolalia, or speaking in tongues.

“I couldn’t figure out how a policy that contradicts the teaching of many of our believing theologians could be enacted like that. That was amazing to me,” McKissic said in an interview after his chapel address. “I was so disappointed by the policy that I gave serious consideration to leading my church out of the Southern Baptist Convention.”

He said he believed the policy—which disqualifies candidates for appointment as international missionaries if they practice private glossolalia—“is an intrusion of privacy, an invasion of privacy, totally unnecessary, and would exclude a great number of Baptists who would make excellent missionaries.”

McKissic called the IMB policy “extra-biblical.”

Word of the sermon spread quickly among the numerous Southern Baptist bloggers who have been critical of Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson and others in the denomination’s elite cadre of top leaders. Many have noted that Patterson, on recent occasions, has opposed the practice of speaking in tongues.

Pastor Art Rogers of Tulsa, Okla, writing on his “12 Witnesses” website, said “McKissic set off the political equivalent of a nuclear device” with his statements.

The seminary recently has begun live streaming-video telecasts of its chapel sermons, which enabled several bloggers to hear the comments. An Aug. 24 news release announcing the feature noted, “Audio and video recordings of each chapel service will be archived immediately after each service is over.”

But bloggers began asking why McKissic’s morning sermon was not yet posted by the late afternoon of Aug. 29. Neither Patterson’s assistant nor officials from the school’s communications office responded to phone messages requesting an explanation until the early evening hours.

Jon Zellers, the seminary’s associate vice president for news and information, directed a reporter to a statement posted on the school’s website that said, while the seminary “is honored to have Rev. W. Dwight McKissic as a trustee” and “honored to have him in chapel this morning,” the seminary would not disseminate copies of the chapel sermon free of charge.

“While Southwestern does not instruct its chapel speakers about what they can or cannot say, neither do we feel that there is wisdom in posting materials online which could place us in a position of appearing to be critical of actions of the board of trustees of a sister agency,” the statement said.

“Any trustee or faculty member is free to communicate his concerns to the boards of sister agencies, but it is difficult to imagine a circumstance that would merit public criticism of the actions of a sister board.”

It continued: “Furthermore, though most of Rev. McKissic’s message represented a position with which most people at Southwestern would be comfortable, Rev. McKissic’s interpretation of tongues as ‘ecstatic utterance’ is not a position that we suspect would be advocated by most faculty or trustees. In keeping with Baptist convictions regarding religious liberty, we affirm Rev. McKissic’s right to believe and advocate his position. Equally in keeping with our emphasis of religious liberty we reserve the right not to disseminate openly views which we fear may be harmful to the churches.”

The statement said Pat-terson had made the decision to limit distribution of the sermon, “lest uninformed people believe that Pastor McKissic’s view on the gift of tongues as ‘ecstatic utterance’ is the view of the majority of our people at Southwestern.”

Prior to the statement’s posting, McKissic said he didn’t believe Patterson had a problem with him or his view of tongues. “He has not in any way indicated that he has issues with what I have to say,” he said.

He noted that he had lunch with Patterson and his wife, Dorothy, following the chapel service. “I love Dr. Patterson; Dr. Patterson loves me. We had rich fellowship today,” he said. “If they had a problem with it (the sermon), they didn’t utter it to me at all.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 9/01/06

Sweet dreams of urban transformation

By Angela Best

Communications Intern

DALLAS—Metaphors, dreams and emotion provide the keys to transformation, Leonard Sweet told inner-city ministers in a conference sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Implementing change effectively requires three steps—reframing concepts into metaphors, sharing big dreams and ambitions, and achieving an emotional engagement with others, Sweet said during the Urban Training Institute of the Southwest.

The basic language of the human brain is metaphor, so the key to reframing issues is through metaphor or image, said Sweet, a professor of evangelism at Drew Theological School in Madison, N.J.

“How do you dream?” he asked. “You don’t dream in words; you dream in images. So don’t give (people) new words or concepts, but give them a new alternative picture or metaphor.”

Jesus taught in metaphors—or parables—and was one of the greatest reframers who ever lived, Sweet said, noting Christ provided a new vision of what life could be.

Jesus wants people to be more than merely like him, he added. Christians are to be Christ to the world. “The greatest failure of the church today is that we have not provided this culture of consumption with an alternative dream,” Sweet said. “We critique it, we condemn it, but we have not presented an alternative to it.

“The alternative dream is a dream of conception—God made us not to be consumers, but to be conceivers, and the ultimate thing we are to conceive is the very being of Christ himself.”

In providing that vision of a new reality, Christians may have to appeal to a person’s desires, Sweet said.

“Somehow and in some way, (emotional engagement) is the key to moving people and transforming institutions and cultures. It’s the power of an emotional engagement, and not leaving it as an intellectual thought, but drive it down into the heart and into the emotions.” News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 9/01/06

Texas Tidbits

BGCT sponsors battle of bands. A battle of the bands will highlight Weekend Fest activities leading up to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting in November. The event is scheduled Nov. 11 in the Dallas Convention Center. The next day, the convention will sponsor a festival at the convention center for families. The BGCT annual meeting begins Nov. 13 at the same location. Bands endorsed by a BGCT-affiliated church or institution are eligible to compete for recording time and opportunities to perform at the BGCT-sponsored Youth Evangelism Conference and Texas Baptist Youth and Singles Congreso in 2007. Band members must be between the ages of 13 and 24. For more information, call (888) 244-9400 or send an e-mail to bob@bgct.org. For information about the BGCT annual meeting and related events, visit www.bgct.org/annualmeeting.

Baptist fellowships send medical volunteers to Lebanon. A new Baptist medical disaster relief effort has sent a physician and a nurse to serve north of Beirut two weeks, treating refugees of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. They are the first two people to serve through the Baptist Medical Disaster Relief Ministry—a joint effort between the Baptist Nursing Fellowship, the Baptist Medical and Dental Fellowship and Texas Baptist Men. For information about how to serve through this ministry, call (214) 828-5359 or e-mail Shirley.Shofner@bgct.org.

Baylor Specialty Health Centers president named. Baylor Health Care System has named Scott Peek, vice president of Baylor Medical Center at Garland, as president of Baylor Specialty Health Centers. Peek’s responsibilities will include overseeing Baylor Specialty Hospital in Dallas, an inpatient hospital that cares for chronically ill patients who need additional medical care before returning home, as well as the hospital’s satellite locations in Garland and Irving. In addition, Peek will oversee Our Children’s House at Baylor, a licensed pediatric hospital that specializes in the treatment of children with developmental or birth disorders, traumatic injury or severe illness. Prior to joining Baylor Garland in 2003, Peek worked as financial analyst at Richardson Regional Medical Center and with the Coopers & Lybrand accounting firm. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University and earned master’s degrees in business administration and health care administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

BGCT helps Mexican Baptists rebuild in Juarez. The Baptist General Convention of Texas has given $15,000 to Mexican Baptists to rebuild homes in the Juarez area damaged by flooding. Baptist leaders in Juarez have identified homes for 67 families that churches will help rebuild in the area across the Rio Grande from El Paso. The money for homes is the third wave of financial assistance for Mexican Baptists from Texas Baptists in the wake of flooding. The BGCT provided $2,000 to Juarez Baptists to feed flood victims in shelters and $3,500 for Mexican Baptists to provide medical care for shelter residents.

Ministry launches new website. Children at Heart Ministries—formerly Texas Baptist Children’s Home and Family Services—recently launched a new website. The organizations that make up Children at Heart Ministries—Gracewood in Houston, Miracle Farm in Brenham, STARRY in Round Rock and Texas Baptist Children’s Home in Round Rock—can be accessed through www.childrenatheartministries.org. A related organization, Children at Heart Foundation, will provide development and communications functions for the ministry. Its website address is www.cahfoundation.org. News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 9/01/06

TOGETHER:
Make an eternal difference in a life

I recently attended a church where a new pastor was being received, and the deacon who prayed for the new pastor warmed my heart and caused me to rejoice that this new pastor would have people praying for him like that.

Prayer makes a difference, and Texas Baptists are now entering the time of year when we pray specifically for the missions needs of our state. The Week of Prayer for Texas Missions will be Sept. 10-17.

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas already has spent the summer laying the groundwork for the missions needs in our state and beyond. Texas WMU launched a new ministry called “Awakening.” In several locations across Texas, WMU involved women and girls in times of awakening. More than 3,000 gathered to network, study, learn and pray. They have taken a huge step forward in their ability to help churches through awakening the prayers and mission passion of women.

Carolyn Porterfield, executive director of Texas WMU, has a heart for prayer that makes me anticipate so much the annual week of prayer. Our WMU leads the way in most of our churches in encouraging all of us to pray for the spiritual and physical needs of Texas and the world.

Prayer turns our hearts toward God. And when we pray, we feel the needs of the world pressing down on our souls.

Those needs are great in Texas, and in September and October, churches will be collecting funds for the annual Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions. The Mary Hill Davis Offering gives every one of us a chance to do something really big for the sake of the gospel and for the needs of lost Texans.

This time of prayer and giving offers you an opportunity to give above and beyond your regular tithes to your church and combine your gifts with the gifts of 2.3 million other Texas Baptists. Why?

• So clean water can quench the thirst of a child along the Rio Grande.

• So people in apartments and mobile home parks can have Bible study and church in their own communities.

• So new churches can be started that will reach hundreds of people for Christ who likely would not have been reached otherwise.

• So college scholarships can be awarded to worthy young people who often are the first in their family to go to college.

• So churches can be helped to start ministries of compassion and evangelism in their own communities.

• So BaptistWay Press Bible study curriculum can be produced in seven languages.

I invite you—in fact, I urge you—to be involved in this great offering to help us get our arms around Texas.

What should you give? Pray and ask the Lord to give you a generous heart. Some of us can give a $1,000. Some can give $500 or $250 or $100. But whether it be $1,000 or $5, when we give the best we can, it stretches our hearts and calls us to a new level of difference making.

I encourage you to make this mission offering a time of stepping up to the challenge of Texas and doing more than you ever have before. I believe God has blessed us so that we can be a blessing.

Here’s your chance to make a difference—an eternal difference—in someone’s life.

We are loved.

Charles Wade is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board. News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 9/01/06

CYBER COLUMN:
Talking to God

By Berry Simpson

I remember being surprised once at a men’s spiritual retreat when a speaker had to defend and explain his direct communication from God. Growing up Baptist, I was more than comfortable with praying directly to God and expecting God to talk to me; I thought it was the standard expectation. It never occurred to me that maybe some Christians from different traditions found that a strange and frightening concept.

I’ve learned in the past few years that some people, nonbelievers and believers alike, are offended when someone like me talks about hearing directly from God. They think we’re being arrogant and presumptuous. Who are you to expect God to talk to you? Do you think you are that much better than the rest of us? Isn’t God busy enough already without having to deal with your personal trivia? Didn’t God say all we needed to know in the Bible?

Well, I ask the same question of myself: Who am I to expect God to speak to me directly? But God does; it is unmistakable. And like Bob Sorge wrote (in Secrets of the Secret Place), “Hearing God’s voice has become the singular quest of my heart, the sole pursuit that alone satisfies the great longings of my heart.” I want more of it.

One of the reasons I read so many books is to understand people who are different from me. I like reading memoirs by Christians who found Jesus in their adult years, because their experience is so different from mine. I recently read a book by novelist Nevada Barr, a woman who stumbled into believing God after a life of substance abuse and bad relationships and fruitless attempts to find peace in every other source. In her book Seeking Enlightenment, Hat by Hat, she writes about certain people in her church who claimed to have heard directly from God in answer to their prayers: “When people talk to God, it makes everybody nervous. There is the creepy feeling that those who talk to God actually think he is listening; that they believe they’ve got an edge you lack.”

And we’ve all read similar reactions to comments President Bush has made about praying for guidance. It makes some people mad that Bush thinks he can hear from God.

Maybe some of the hostile reaction is our own fault. Maybe we come across as people who have a corner on the truth. Maybe we sound like people who have an exclusive insight into the ways of God.

Here is another story from a different viewpoint: I remember a few years ago at a particularly contentious church business conference over a proposed expansion of our buildings, a church member got up to address the crowd, saying he had prayed over the issue and learned it was God’s will for our church to turn down this proposal.

Well, my first thought was: Who are you to hear God’s will for all the rest of us? How presumptive to think you are the one God spoke to, at the exclusion of everyone else. Had he said he knew it was God’s will for him to cast his own personal vote against the issue, I would have thought, “Good for you.” But I balked at the idea that God told this member it was God’s will for all of us to vote against the proposal.

So his comment made me angry, yet I’m not one of those like Nevada Barr who gets nervous any time anyone says they heard from God. In fact, I expect believers to say things like that. So why did it bother me this time? Was it simply because I disagreed with him? Was it because I was in favor of the proposed building project? Would I have felt better about his insight into God’s will if I’d been on his side of the issue? I don’t know.

But if it made me uncomfortable to hear another believer, in church, say they heard from God, I can only imagine how nervous it makes people who don’t expect such intimate conversations with God.

I think one of our biggest challenges as Christians living in the 21st century is to learn how to talk about the things that are important to us, like prayer and hearing from God, without scaring our neighbors. Not that we have to backpedal what we believe; we just have to learn how to communicate better. We earn the right to proclaim God’s will by the way we live our lives. If our life is consistent with what we say we believe, maybe we won’t be so scary, even to those who disagree.

Berry Simpson, a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland, is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and member of the city council in Midland. You can contact him through e-mail at berry@stonefoot.org.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 8/25/06

Explore the Bible Series for September 3

Hold fast to the message of Christ

• Hebrews 1:1—2:4

By Howard Anderson

Diversified Spiritual Associates, San Antonio

When the various New Testament books were formally brought together into one collection shortly after A.D. 100, the titles were added for convenience. This epistle bears the traditional Greek title, “To the Hebrews,” which was verified by at least the second century A.D. Within the epistle itself, there is no identification of the recipients as either Hebrews or gentiles. Since the epistle is filled with references to Hebrew history and religion and does not address any particular gentile or pagan practices, the traditional title has been maintained.

The author of Hebrews is unknown. It is significant that the writer includes himself among those people who had received confirmation of Christ’s message from others. Whoever the author was, he preferred citing Old Testament references from the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, rather than from the Hebrew text. Ultimately, the author was the Holy Spirit.

God’s Son and salvation (Hebrews 1:1-3)

This is God the Father; the head of Christ and the Holy Spirit. God spoke “at sundry times,” which means he spoke in many ways over the course of possibly 1,800 years—from about 2200 B.C. to around 400 B.C. The Old Testament was written in 39 books reflecting different historical times, locations, cultures and situations.

God spoke “in divers manners” is translated in various ways that included visions, symbols and parables, written in both poetry and prose. Though the literary form and style varied, it was always God’s revelation of what he wanted his people to know. The progressive revelation of the Old Testament described God’s program for redemption and his will for his people.

From these many parts and ways, we get a perfect harmony, as in musical sounds made up of different parts. God has only one plan for humankind. All the prophets gave perfect and harmonious testimony that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and Savior of the world. The Book of Hebrews begins with Jesus. Total confidence in him must be the basis of our new life and of our identity as Christians.

The Jews understood the “last days” to mean the time when the Messiah (Christ) would come. Since he came, it has been the “last days.” In the past, God gave revelation through his prophets, but in these times, beginning with the Messiah’s advent, God spoke the message of redemption through the Son.

The “brightness” is a term used only here in the New Testament and expresses the concept of sending forth light or shining. The Son is not just reflecting God’s glory. He is God and radiates his own essential glory.

The Son is the ideal imprint, the exact representation of the nature and spirit of God in time and space. The universe and everything in it is continually sustained by the Son’s powerfully effective word. His word “purged our sins” by the substitutionary sacrifice of himself on the cross. The right hand is the place of power, authority and honor. It also is the position of subordination, implying the Son is under the authority of the Father. The seat Christ has taken is the throne of God, where he rules as sovereign Lord. This depicts a triumphant Savior, not a defeated martyr.

God’s Son and angels (Hebrews 1:4-14)

Christ is better than the angels. Christ obtained a more excellent name. He was the only begotten Son of God. Angels worshipped him. He was the creator of angels. Christ was a member of the godhead. Christ was an eternal being—an eternal king, and not a creature. He was God’s only Anointed One, the creator of material worlds, renewer of all creations, the only exalted one and director of angels.

Angels share in some sense the divine as contrasted to human nature; yet they are subservient beings with an appointed ministry. No divine initiative belongs to angels, and they can serve only in their places

God’s people and salvation (Hebrews 2:1-4)

The writer of Hebrews fears his readers are in danger of drifting away from the message concerning Jesus Christ and urges them to hold fast for two reasons: (1) because of the judgment that awaits those who neglect it and (2) because the message has been “declared … by the Lord” himself and affirmed by “signs and … miracles” worked by God.

The message of the old covenant “declared by angels was valid.” Everyone who transgressed it came under the judgment of God. This is the premise the writer and his readers share. But if this message is valid and brings judgment to those who disobey it, how much more serious it is to ignore the message brought by the Son. Jesus himself gave this message. He is the greatest of the prophets and speaks the word of God with authority, not simply as one who hands on a tradition. “Those who heard him,” i.e., the apostles, transmitted his message through their preaching, bringing it to people like those addressed here.

Their testimony was not by words alone, but was accompanied by miracles and by “gifts of the Holy Spirit.” The early church did not regard miracles as objects of faith or as ends in themselves but as corroboration of the testimony given by Christ and his apostles. The object of faith is Christ himself; the miracles are signs that command attention but point to the person whose message and mission they accompany and celebrate.

Discussion questions

• What parts of Christ’s message are hardest for you to hold fast to? Are there some you believe to be true but have a hard time putting into practice?

• What would help you to be more intentional in carrying out all Christ’s instruction?

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 8/25/06

CYBER COLUMN:
What kind of witness am I, anyway?

By Jeanie Miley

“My friend hurt my feelings,” someone told me recently. “She said I was too much of a Jesus freak, and she really couldn’t talk to me about her problems.”

I waited, curious about where this conversation was going. I had noticed this person was pretty out-there with her religious language, but it wasn’t my business to try to edit or inhibit her.

“She said that every time she tries to talk to me about something that is bothering her, I pull out the ‘Jesus card,’ and it turns her off.”

We who call ourselves followers of Jesus hold this treasure of the Good News of the saving, healing, transforming, liberating and empowering life of the living Christ in the imperfect clay vessels of our minds and hearts. We have the capacity to turn people on or off to this Jesus by what we say, what we do and how well we love each other. Truly, that burden/blessing is a huge responsibility.

When we suffer an attack of inflation for bringing people into the kingdom of God, we are also called to ask ourselves the hard, cold questions about if we might also have made it hard for other people to want to have a vital, personal, dynamic love relationship with the living Christ by our words or our actions.

Those of us who grew up under the burden of that old adage about how our lives might be the only sermon some folks ever hear may need to face the truth that we do, in fact, witness by our deeds even more than with our words. We shout our faith by what we don’t say and what we don’t do, as well as what we actually do say and do. Our lives in the boardrooms and the sanctuaries, the convenience stores and the mission sites are sermons, whether we like that or not, and how we represent Jesus is vitally important.

Being a witness to the presence and power of Christ is a challenge, calling us to balance speaking and acting with integrity while we maintain sensitivity to the needs of the person to whom we are communicating the love of Christ.

Just because I have a need to unload my opinions and my testimony about Christ doesn’t mean I have the right to do it in a way that offends another person. Just because I am eager to share the Good News with someone else doesn’t mean I can do that without considering how that message is going to be received and accepted.

If I am going to represent Jesus, I need to have a current relationship with the Real Jesus based on the biblical revelation and not on some cultural caricature that sells T-shirts and bumper stickers.

If I am going to call myself a follower of Christ, I need to have a clue what that means, and I need to have his sensitivity to the needs of the other person I’m so eager to witness to and the appropriateness of the moment. I need to know whether I’m witnessing to the presence of Christ for the benefit of the other person or because I need to count my contacts for the week.

If I am going to invite people to open their minds and hearts to Christ, I’d better make sure my own heart is full of that love instead of my need to look good, gain power or win points.

Jesus of Nazareth—the Living Christ—warrants a witness that is authentic, appropriate and respectful of others.

Jeanie Miley is an author and columnist and a retreat and workshop leader. She is married to Martus Miley, pastor of River Oaks Baptist Church in Houston, and they have three adult daughters. Got feedback? Write her at Writer2530@aol.com.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 8/24/06

BaptistWay Bible Series for September 3

Meditate on the words of Scripture for wisdom

• Psalm 1

By David Wilkinson

Broadway Baptist Church, Fort Worth

Imagine for a moment that the numbering system was eliminated from the Bible’s 150 psalms, and you were an editor given the assignment of choosing the psalm to place at the beginning of this collection of hymns, poetry and prayers. Which of the 150 psalms would you select, and what criteria would guide your decision?

We don’t know the process that led to this psalm being selected as the first psalm, but these six verses serve well as a prologue to the final collection we know as the Psalms.

Psalm 1 is one of nine wisdom psalms (1, 37, 49, 73, 112, 119, 127, 128 and 133). This psalm, as with the whole of Scripture, is concerned first and foremost with God and with God’s redeeming relationship with humanity. But within that context, the Bible deals straightforwardly with the human experience, with real life. So it is fitting that wisdom—how to find genuine happiness and meaning and purpose in life—is the theme of this opening psalm. The reader is invited to learn and live by the deep truths of Scripture.

Rather than a hymn or a prayer, Psalm 1 begins with a beatitude: happy (or blessed) are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked … but their delight is in the law of the Lord. The psalm begins with a statement about the human experience and the fundamental choice life presents us: Following God’s way as taught in the Scriptures or the way of the “wicked”—those who do not choose God’s way. For the psalmist, a blessed life, a life filled with true happiness, derives only from the former.

In this extended beatitude, the writer offers a series of contrasts: In verse 1, what the blessed or the righteous do not do; verse 2, what they do; verse 3, an image of the righteous; verse 4, a contrasting image of the wicked; and verses 5-6, a concluding contrast on the outcome of the way of the righteous versus the way of the wicked.

Verse 2 states a central theme of the Psalms in particular and the Bible in general—the essential place of God’s word in the life of the person who chooses God’s way. The one who immerses his or her self in the Scriptures, meditating on them “day and night,” is obeying the command of Joshua, also expressed in the form of a beatitude: “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful” (Joshua 1:8).

“Law”—or torah—refers in a generic sense to any authoritative religious teaching (from parents or priests, for example) or especially the instruction and guidance of God. In its more specialized sense in the context of the written books we know as the Old Testament, Torah refers to the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible, which the Jews understood as central and authoritative for life individually and corporately as the people of God.

To “delight” in God’s law and to “meditate” on it (v. 2) is an exuberant expression of the central place of Scripture and the essential spiritual disciplines of study and meditation. The psalmist’s language suggests a devotion to the Scriptures akin to the passionate interest one would have in a chosen field of study. The righteous person studies Scripture with the kind of intensity and interest a doctor pores over literature related to his or her practice.

The translation “meditate” incorporates not only the meaning of “study” in a cognitive sense but also the spiritual sense of prayerful reflection. We cannot be true to the spirit of this psalm—or to the Psalter—if we limit our interaction with the words to an intellectual exercise. There is much to be learned from the Psalms, but there also is much to be experienced.

This opening psalm is a reminder of meditation on Scripture as a rich and rewarding discipline of faith. Thus, this nine-session study of the Psalms is an opportunity to “practice the practice” of meditation before moving to verse-by-verse study.

The psalmist uses symbols to paint a picture of the contrast between the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. A symbol points beyond itself to a deeper reality. The image in verse 3 of trees planted by a life-giving stream is a powerful, universal symbol that points to deeper truths of our relationship with God.

As you meditate on this psalm, allow the image of trees planted by a stream to open your mind and heart to ways the Holy Spirit can lead you from the visible to the Invisible.

Discussion questions

• Take a few moments to practice the wise counsel of the psalmist and the ancient practice of people of faith by meditating on this psalm. Consider the image of a tree planted by a stream. What characteristics of trees and water might have made these symbols especially meaningful for the ancient Hebrews? How do these symbols speak to you? How can you be “planted” in ways that lead toward stability, nourishment and growth? What are streams that nourish your relationship with God?

• How does the kind of “happiness” the psalmist refers to differ from the definitions of happiness commonly portrayed in American culture?

• How does an understanding of the “wicked” as anyone who does not follow God’s way, rather than primarily a moral category, impact your understanding of this psalm?

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