Posted: 7/06/06

BaptistWay Bible Series for July 16

Invest yourself in the spiritual life of another

• 2 Timothy 1:1-14

By Joseph Matos

Dallas Baptist University, Dallas

A couple of months ago, I received a phone call from Rob, a friend I grew up with in our church youth group more than 20 years ago. He had been on my mind often over the years, but we had lost contact as each of us moved from place to place. I repeatedly failed in finding his contact information.

So, I was overjoyed when he called. Then I was humbled by the reason he gave for seeking me out and calling me. He is an elder in his church now, and in the days preceding his calling me, he was challenged to recall someone who had an impact on his spiritual growth. When presented with the challenge, Rob thought of me.

It was not that he had not sought me out before. But this challenge gave him new resolve to do so. Thus, he contacted John Bell, our youth minister growing up. Somehow, he had my new phone number, even though I could not remember giving it to him after our recent move.

For a printer-friendly version, click on the printer icon at bottom of page.

Rob proceeded to express appreciation for the role I played in his life while we were teenagers. He had many friends, but he said with me alone could he share spiritual matters.

Now, I am no spiritual giant, and as I look back on my youth, even as a Christian I was immature. I mentioned how much it meant for him to say this, especially since such conversations did not dominate our friendship. It truly was humbling, because I could not remember making an overt attempt to influence him. I still was growing myself. But he assured me I had shared in shaping a life.

According to tradition, Paul’s second letter to Timothy was written during Paul’s second and final imprisonment. The time of Paul’s death was drawing near. While this letter includes instructions to Timothy in his task as leader in Ephesus—in similar fashion to the first letter—it is much more reflective and personal in tone. The letter reads more like a farewell address than a platform for instruction.

Contained in the first chapter are Paul’s words of recollection, encouragement and exhortation to Timothy. Paul reminded Timothy of the people and events that shaped his life. In light of these, Timothy was to carry out his mission.

What shaped Timothy’s life? Clearly, his experiences traveling and ministering with Paul made an impact on him. Only briefly in this letter (3:10-11) did Paul mention any specific example of Timothy’s travels with Paul, but these must be in the background here.

The book of Acts, however, and others of Paul’s letters illustrate how closely Paul and Timothy were joined in ministry. In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul recalled being present at the beginning of Timothy’s ministry. Also, Paul exhorted Timothy to pattern his teaching after the example set by him (v. 13). Even now, as Paul was writing the letter, he could shape Timothy’s life through intercessory prayer (v. 3).

Paul recognized, as well, that even before Timothy partnered with him in ministry, Timothy’s grandmother, Lois, and mother, Eunice, played a key role in his spiritual development. He acknowledged that the sincerity of faith Timothy exhibited first lived in them (v. 5). We can infer from this that Timothy gleaned spiritual insights from his mother and grandmother. Beyond that, Paul offered no other insight into their impact on Timothy. But perhaps Paul made allusion to their influence on Timothy when, in 3:15, he reminded Timothy he had learned the Scriptures from his youth.

Paul’s reminders to Timothy of the many factors which influenced his life served as impetus for further encouragements and exhortations. Timothy was to rekindle the gift of God imparted to him (v. 6). He did not receive a spirit of fear, but “a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline” (v. 7).

Consequently, Timothy was not to be ashamed to testify about Christ or to be ashamed of Paul, who was in prison for the gospel. Paul then exhorted Timothy to join him in his suffering for the gospel (vv. 8-9), which he further described (vv. 9-10). To this gospel, Paul was appointed “a herald and an apostle and a teacher” (v. 11).

Though his loyalty to the gospel was the reason for his present suffering, Paul himself was not ashamed. For he knew the one he believed, and he was convinced he would guard it for “that day” (v. 12).

Paul concluded with two further admonitions to Timothy. First, he exhorted Timothy to continue in following what he heard from Paul “as the pattern of sound teaching” (v. 13). The words which shaped Timothy should continue to do so.

Second, Timothy was to “guard the good deposit” entrusted to him (v. 14). The word “guard” is the same as used in verse 12 for the Lord’s activity of protecting what Paul entrusted to him. Timothy would be able to do this “with the help of the Holy Spirit” which lived in him.

Indeed, Timothy, like my friend, Rob, could acknowledge those that shaped his life. He could draw on his upbringing by his grandmother and mother. This letter recalled the direct impact Paul had on his life. These guiding influences served as the foundation for his continued service to the Lord.

Rob’s call prompts me to recall those who shaped my life. I have some calls to make myself.

Discussion questions

• Who has shaped your life? If possible, would you consider contacting that person?

• Are you in need of hearing more encouraging words?

• Whose life are you shaping? What can you say or do to prepare them for service?

• Could you present your words as a “pattern for sound teaching?”

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: 7/06/06

Family Bible Series for July 16

God guides believers with strength

• Exodus 13:17-18, 20-22; 14:5-6, 10, 13-14, 31; 15:1-2, 11-13

By Greg Ammons

First Baptist Church, Garland

A boater was rescued after being lost for a brief time. Authorities asked if he had a compass and what caused him to be lost. The relieved boater replied: “Yes, I have a compass. But no matter how much I tried to make the needle point north, it continued to point southeast.”

As Exodus opened, the Israelites must have felt much like the rescued man. God was leading in a direction which made them uncomfortable. No matter how much Moses tried to divert God in another direction, the Lord kept staying the course.

For a printer-friendly version, click on the printer icon at bottom of page.

The Israelites had to answer a basic question, which Christians must answer today as well. Can I be sure God will guide and protect me if I follow him faithfully?

God takes into account our weaknesses (Exodus 13:17-18)

After the death of the firstborn throughout Egypt as the 10th plague, Pharaoh allowed God’s people to leave the land. Yet, God did not lead his people by way of the Philistines as they left. He did not want their hearts to become afraid when they saw war. Perhaps they would change their minds and return to Egypt (v. 17). Instead, God led them through the wilderness by the Red Sea (v. 18). He knew their hearts and took into account their weaknesses.

The Lord deals with his children the same today. He fully is aware of our circumstances and even how we will respond to them. The psalmist worded it beautifully when he wrote: “For he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14).

Yet, it is our weakness that often fits us for his service. Paul spoke of a thorn in the flesh that gave him strength (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, once said, “I am thankful that God looked long enough to find someone as weak as myself so he could use me.” Be assured today that God knows your weaknesses but will use you through them.

God gives his constant presence (Exodus 13:20-22)

As the Israelites ventured into the wilderness, they camped at Succoth (v. 20). It must have been a frightening time for them, so God gave physical evidence of his presence. “The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night, in a pillar of fire to give them light” (v. 21). He did not take the pillars away, so the Israelites would be assured of God’s presence.

Often, Christians are in situations in which they simply need to know that God is near. Perhaps you are in such a situation now. God promised he would never leave nor forsake his children (Hebrews 13:5).

Corrie ten Boom experienced God’s presence in the most extreme of circumstances. Placed in a Nazi concentration camp, along with her sister, Betsy, Corrie would write her thoughts in a journal. She often wrote of a peace which passed all understanding as she was comforted by God’s presence, although she was surrounded by torture and death. You can be assured of God’s presence today, as well.

God fights for his people (Exodus 14:5-6, 10, 13-14)

Soon after the Israelites left Egypt and camped in the wilderness, Pharaoh changed his mind and went after them (vv. 5-6). Naturally, the Israelites were afraid and wondered what God would do (14:10). Moses calmed the heart of the people when he told them to “stand still and see the salvation of the Lord … the Lord will fight for you” (vv. 13-14). We know what happened next as the Red Sea parted, the Israelites safely crossed over and the Egyptians perished in the waters.

John Paton, a missionary to the New Hebrides Islands, spoke of a time when he was surrounded by hostile natives. He simply looked up to the Lord and asked for protection. God fought for the missionary as the natives were thrown into confusion and retreated.

Christians today can know God will do battle for them. There is never a situation in which God will leave believers powerless or defenseless. Claim this promise the next time you are in such a situation.

God guides believers with strength (Exodus 14:31-15:2; 11-13)

The Israelites saw the great miracle God performed at the Red Sea and feared him (v. 31). As a result, they sang a song of praise and spoke of the Lord being their strength (15:2). They sang, “the people whom you have redeemed, you have guided them in your strength” (v. 13).

A simple fact of Scripture is that God loves you today as much as he loved the Israelites in the Old Testament. You can trust that God will guide you with strength today in your fearful situations, just as he led the Israelites. God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). You can demonstrate your dependence upon God by following his leading. He will guide and protect you throughout the journey.

Discussion question

• Name a time when God took into account your weakness to give you strength.

• Which attribute of God brings you the most comfort in troubled times?

• Name specific ways God may fight for his people today.

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: 7/06/06

Explore the Bible Series for July 16

Beware of speaking rashly for God

• Job 38:1-42:17

By James Adair

Baptist University of the Americas, San Antonio

Job has suffered incredible loss, indescribable pain and extraordinary sorrow. His three friends have added insult to injury, and the interloper Elihu has added his opinion. Job has expressed his outrage and called for justice.

At the end, the only one who has not yet been heard from is God, who now prepares to speak from the midst of a whirlwind. God’s message to Job is simple: I am sovereign, you can’t understand my ways, and you’ll just have to accept it. Is that the answer Job was looking for? Can he “just accept it”?

Job 38:1-41:34

An old preacher went to the hospital to visit a middle-aged man who had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He brought along a young man studying for the ministry. “How do you feel?” the old preacher asked. “I’m really mad at God!” the patient replied. “Why is he doing this to me? I don’t need a God who would do this to me, and I don’t want a God who’s too weak to stop it from happening. I hate God, I hate him!”

For a printer-friendly version, click on the printer icon at bottom of page.

And he began to cry. The old preacher spoke a few words of comfort, offered a brief prayer and left the sick man to himself. After they were out in the hall, the seminary student said to the preacher with astonishment: “How could you just stand there and not say anything while that man was raving? All those things he said about God just weren’t right! Why didn’t you set him straight?”

With a look of compassion, the old preacher put his right hand on the student’s shoulder. “Son,” he said: “Don’t you worry about anything. God’s a big boy; he can take care of himself.”

Like the young man, and Job’s friends, we often feel the need to correct those who are railing against God. “No, God’s not unfair! God’s not capricious! God does care!”

Elihu is an enigmatic character who suddenly appears at the beginning of Job chapter 32 and disappears just as suddenly at the end of chapter 37. He criticizes Job’s friends for failing to answer Job’s complaints, he criticizes Job for justifying himself before God, and he claims his words are the words of God. God is not unjust, he says, for God knows everything people do, so God’s actions always are right.

Elihu’s understanding of God and the universe is comprehensive, logically consistent and wrong.

Though the opening words of God’s soliloquy in chapter 38—“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”— might have originally applied to Job, in the canonical structure of the book, they also apply to Elihu, perhaps primarily to Elihu.

God rebukes Job for his lack of understanding, but God’s dismissal of the words of Elihu as “words without knowledge,” without any further reference to him, suggests a greater condemnation. One thing Job had in common with his three friends and Elihu is that none of them understood as much about God as they claimed. God’s speeches illustrate his great power and wisdom, and the implication of the speeches to Job and the others is this: “If you can’t understand my works, and you can’t replicate my power, how can you debate with me about my justice?”

Job 42:1-17

When my daughter was about 3 years old, my wife was trying to get her dressed to go somewhere, and she was putting up a fight about wearing some pants. The phone rang, and my mother-in-law was on the phone, so my wife talked to her for a few minutes in Spanish.

After she got off the phone, my daughter, still adamant about not cooperating, said to her, “Ooga booga!” “What does that mean?” my wife asked. “It means I don’t want to wear pants, and I don’t have to!” my daughter replied. In her ignorance of the ways of the world, she assumed that since she couldn’t understand Spanish, it must just be a bunch of gibberish, so she figured she could make up her own language as well.

Comparing a 3-year-old child’s understanding of the world with an adult’s is analogous to comparing an adult’s understanding to God’s, as Job discovered. Job had been through a lot in recent days: The loss of his possessions, the loss of his children and the loss of his health. He thought he understood how God worked, and he was mad because God seemed to be violating God’s own code of conduct.

Why had God allowed all these terrible things to happen to him when he was God’s faithful servant? Why did God let the wicked run roughshod over the good? God had to be called to account!

In his ignorance, Job challenged God to appear before him. Much to his surprise and chagrin, God took him up on his challenge. It is interesting to note that God never answers any of Job’s questions directly. God refuses to be judged by humanity’s puny intellect.

Instead, God issues intellectual challenges to Job to ascertain whether he really is ready to sit in judgment upon God. Since Job is completely unable to answer God’s questions, it is clear the trial of God will not occur with Job as judge.

Instead, recognizing the profundity of his own ignorance, Job humbly repents, and God accepts him.

Verses 7-9 are crucial to understanding this chapter and the whole book. God is angry with Job’s friends because they have not spoken correctly concerning God, while Job has.

What? Job said God was unfair, that God allowed injustice in the world and that God had punished him for no good reason. Was he right after all?

Yes! By human standards, at least, everything Job said was true, and God praises him for his perception. Job may have spoken in ignorance, but his friends spoke in presumption. Job may not have had a very good understanding of the ways of God, but his understanding was much better than his friends.

Furthermore, while Job spoke rashly to God, he didn’t speak rashly for God, as his friends had. Job prays for his friends’ forgiveness, God accepts his prayer, and all is restored. Job’s family and friends bring him gifts, and before too long, Job has twice as much wealth and 10 new children.

Contrary to expectations, the story of Job has a happy ending. The present form of the book may mask the fact that many, perhaps most, who suffer do not end their lives in prosperity. Their personal book of Job stops at the end of chapter 41.

For them, the words of Job—which God praised as right—are their own words, which they address to those of us who are not suffering: “Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!” (Job 19:21). Let us respond to our own suffering with faith and to the suffering of others with mercy.

Discussion questions

• What do you think Job’s reaction would have been had God revealed to him the wager between God and Satan? Why did God decline to mention it?

• Is it appropriate to express our true feelings about God to God or others?

• Is “praise the Lord anyway” appropriate or realistic in every situation?

• What is the difference between speaking to God, speaking about God, and speaking for God? What are the potential benefits and dangers of each?

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: 7/03/06

CYBER COLUMN:
'Living the rightness'

By Jeanie Miley

“I don’t have to prove myself right,” the movie character told his movie son. “I just have to prove them wrong.”

Those words flew off the screen and into my head, and I’ve been pondering them ever since. I was stunned by them and shaken by the awareness of how many times I’ve seen that very principle at work.

The next day, a man tried to impress some of us that he was doing the work of the Lord by showing how wrong other groups of people are. He didn’t achieve his purpose with us, I’m afraid, and I heard later that he had a lot to say about how wrong we were because we didn’t latch on to his point of view and give him stars for his effort to prove other people wrong.

Making other people wrong can become a full-time job, if you let it. You can use that tactic to put other people on the defensive, control and intimidate them. You can use it to make other people think you know what you’re talking about. You can use it to try to make yourself look good and other people bad. You can use it to win competitions and elections and fights, and you can destroy other peoples’ reputations and opportunities, just by making them wrong.

When your agenda is to make other people wrong, you learn how to manipulate facts and data to support your effort, but after awhile, you lose something precious and that is your own personal integrity. Along that slippery road of making other people wrong, other people become objects to you, and you lose your respect for other human beings who are, after all, made in the very image of God.

The truth is that some people are wrong and some people are working with wrong facts, and that needs to be exposed. Some systems are wrong, and those systems need to be changed. Some things are wrong, and those things needs to be addressed and made right, for sure!

I’ve thought a lot about this precious gospel of Jesus Christ that we who call ourselves followers of him hold in the frail and fallible clay vessels of our humanity.

I’ve thought a lot about how this gospel of Jesus Christ is life-changing. The Good News of Jesus Christ has the power to heal us at the deepest level of our brokenness, if we will let it. A personal, vital, dynamic love relationship with the living Christ, made possible by the mystery and power of the Holy Spirit, can transform us, from the inside out, if we will cooperate with that process. We can be liberated and empowered, set free and redeemed by this amazing grace if we will agree to that process of transformation.

I just keep wondering what would happen if we who call ourselves disciples of Christ would focus more on living the rightness of that relationship more boldly and beautifully. I keep thinking about how things would be different if we were more proactive in making sure that we are right about loving with Christ’s love, giving with Christ’s generosity and forgiving with Christ’s compassion.

I keep on wondering how things would be if more of us would be more intentional about living and proclaiming the rightness of an authentic relationship with Christ. I keep on thinking about how things might be if we were more passionate about following Christ more nearly day by day.

I keep wondering if living what is right might come a little closer to taking care of what is wrong.

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: 6/28/06

BaptistWay Bible Series for July 9

Investigate your heart’s desire

• 1 Timothy 6:2-16

By Joseph Matos

Dallas Baptist University, Dallas

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett made the news recently. Gates announced he would soon step down from overseeing the operations at Microsoft and dedicate himself to his charitable foundation. Buffett will donate in excess of $30 billion to philanthropic ventures (much of that given to Gates’ foundation).

I don’t know the spiritual condition of either person, but what a gesture. They are doing the very thing Paul told Timothy to teach the rich (1 Timothy 6:18). You may protest, “Well, they can afford to give away billions and still have billions.” Admittedly, this is an extreme example. After all, they are the world’s first- and second-richest men. But it would be wrong to suggest one must have billions (or millions) in order to be generous. Besides, Paul did not condemn wealth. He condemned an unhealthy desire to gain wealth.

For a printer-friendly version, click on the printer icon at bottom of page.

In his final comments, Paul charged Timothy to offer correct teaching regarding wealth. In those comments, he addressed the false teachers’ wrong motives for godliness (6:3-5), listed the dangers associated with unhealthy attitudes toward wealth (vv. 6-10), warned Timothy against such temptations and exhorted him to righteous living (vv. 11-17), and advised Timothy on what to teach those who were rich. These words are as timely today as they were when Paul first penned them.

False teachers (6:3-5)

As previously in the letter, Paul used a characterization of false teachers as preface to his instructions to Timothy. Verse 3 opens with a hypothetical—“If anyone teaches false doctrines …”—but the situation at Ephesus hardly was hypothetical.

False teachers were present. Paul used this device simply to offer up a description of them. Here the list is long again of the many errors of the false teachers (vv. 4, 5). Anyone who teaches what is contrary to sound Christian doctrine is both arrogant and ignorant (“conceited and understands nothing,” v. 4).

Further, the results of their activity are many, but they can be summed up briefly: They bring controversy that leads to disruption. One characteristic serves as Paul’s transition to the topic he addresses in the remainder of the letter. The false teachers believe godliness is only a means to securing financial gain (v. 5). That their teaching was riddled with error wasn’t their only problem; their motive for godliness was wrong, as well.

Unhealthy attitude toward wealth (6:6-10)

Paul defined true gain: it was godliness with contentment. Financial gain, though not wrong in itself, does not bring contentment. It doesn’t go with us when we die (v. 8).

Paul declared we should be content with food and clothing. The point is, if our needs are met, we should be content. The struggle nowadays is grasping the difference between our needs and our wants.

Paul then went on to warn that people who desire wealth face temptations. Even ruin and destruction can result.

At the heart of Paul’s comment is an axiom often misquoted: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (v. 10). He did not say money was the root of all evil. Money is a medium of exchange and a tool; it is neither good nor evil. It is the love of money that is the problem. Some who loved money, Paul illustrated, wandered from the faith and encountered many griefs.

Exhortation and encouragement for Timothy (6:11-16)

In light of those dangers, Paul exhorted Timothy to “flee from all this” (v. 11). The drive for wealth should not characterize Timothy’s life and work. Rather, he should follow a six-fold higher pursuit—righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.

Paul then repeated his earlier command to Timothy: “Fight the good fight of the faith” (v. 12; see 1:18). Perhaps as a direct comment on the false teachers’ misplaced value on money, Paul commanded Timothy to take hold of the eternal life to which he was called. He also encouraged him to do these things until the appearing of Christ (v. 14). The reference to the coming of Christ, which God would bring about in his own time, caused Paul to break out in doxology (vv. 15-16).

A word to the rich (6:17-19)

Paul did not call for the wealthy to repent of anything; he did not tell Timothy to confiscate the wealth of the rich. Rather, he provided clear instruction on the proper attitude toward their wealth. The rich should avoid arrogance and should not put their hope in their wealth. Money is not certain; it can be here one day and gone the next. Just follow the stock market to see. Sooner or later, we and our wealth eventually will be parted (one need only be reminded of verse 7). The only certain hope is God, for he is the provider.

Paul required two things of the rich—doing good deeds and being generous to share with others (v. 18). With language that echoes Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:19-21), Paul offered assurance such generosity would lead to treasures for the coming age. The rich, then, would take hold of what is “truly life” (v. 19).

Perhaps the Gates/Buffett example is not extreme after all. For it is not about one’s wealth; it is about one’s desire for wealth. The object of our desire is what matters. Your money or your God, Jesus said as much (Matthew 6:24).

Discussion questions

• What are the signs indicating that money has taken priority in our lives over God?

• How do we identify and avoid the “temptations” and “trap” Paul mentions (v. 9)?

• What are ways we can show generosity with our money?

• What kinds of evil can result from the love of money?

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: 6/28/06

Family Bible Series for July 9

God can be trusted to help in times of struggle

• Exodus 3:4-8, 19-21; 4:10-12, 27-31

By Greg Ammons

First Baptist Church, Garland

Perhaps we have voiced the questions openly or wondered them secretly. Does God truly have a purpose for my life? Does my situation really matter to him? Does he have the power to help me in situations that appear overwhelming?

As the book of Exodus opens, the Israelites wondered the same things. They faced an overwhelming situation as slaves in Egypt and needed to know God had the power to act. His people needed to know God was able and willing to help in their situation.

God takes the initiative to help (Exodus 3:4-8)

Pharaoh’s heavy hand made life almost unbearable for God’s people. They labored each day in the hot sun and cried out to the Lord for help. God noticed their trials and heard their cries. So, he took the initiative to help them.

For a printer-friendly version, click on the printer icon at bottom of page.

God ignited a bush in the desert near Moses as he tended the flock of Jethro. Moses decided to see the strange sight of a burning, yet unconsumed, bush (v. 3). As Moses turned aside, God called to Moses from the bush and assured him of his presence (vv. 4-6).

The Lord said: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. … I am concerned about their suffering. … So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians” (vv. 7-8). God saw the desperate situation and took the initiative to provide help in calling Moses to lead the Israelites.

In a letter from William Tecumseh Sherman to U.S. Grant in 1865, Sherman wrote he was assured of Grant’s help. “I knew that whatever situation I was in, you would come to my aid, if you were still alive.”

God can be trusted much more than even a close friend. Whatever situation you find yourself in, you can know God will take the initiative to help you. He can be trusted.

God’s power exceeds any other (Exodus 3:19-21)

Pharaoh appeared all-powerful to the Israelites. They needed to know God’s power was far superior to any other. God told Moses the king of Egypt would not release the people unless a mighty hand compelled him (v. 19). God said, “So, I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all of the wonders that I will perform among them” (v. 20). When Pharaoh saw the power of God, he would let the people go.

A seminary professor struck up a conversation with a young boy on a bus. He wanted to instruct the young lad about the power of God, so he offered, “I’ll give you this shiny apple if you will tell me something that God can do.” The young boy replied, “I’ll give you a whole barrel of them if you tell me something God can’t do!”

The young boy knew what we often need to know today. God’s power far exceeds any other. Whatever your circumstance, remember this powerful fact.

God knows how to help (Exodus 4:10-12)

Moses was skeptical about his new assignment. He told God he had never been eloquent (v. 10). God asked Moses: “Who gave man his mouth? Is it not I, the Lord? … Now, go. I will help you speak and will teach you what to say” (vv. 11-12).

Often, Christians are in overwhelming situations and wonder if God truly knows best. They ponder the possible solutions to their plight and secretly wonder if God knows how to help.

Later, God reminded his people through the prophet Isaiah his ways were not their ways. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways than your ways" (Isaiah 55:9). When faced with seemingly impossible situations, remember God’s ways are not your ways. He knows exactly how to help, although it may not be what you had in mind.

God can be believed (Exodus 4:27-31)

God sent Moses’ brother, Aaron, to reassure the new leader. Moses told his brother all God had told him to do (v. 28). So, the brothers brought all of the people together and told them what God had said (v. 29). Also, Aaron performed the signs God gave him before the people and they believed. When they realized God could be believed, they bowed down and worshipped him (vv. 30-31).

God is trustworthy and can be believed. One theologian estimated there are more than 2,000 promises in the Bible. When God makes a promise to us, we can know for certain he will accomplish whatever he says.

We all know people whose word is not trustworthy. If they make a promise, we listen to it cautiously. However, God is completely trustworthy. His word is backed by his character. Whatever your situation, you can know with certainty that God can be believed. You can trust both his purpose and his power.

Discussion questions

• Describe a situation in which God took the initiative to help.

• Why do you think many Christians doubt God’s power?

• Describe a time when you simply took God at his word.

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: 6/28/06

Explore the Bible Series for July 9

Elihu seeks to set things straight concerning Job

• Job 32:1-37:24

By James Adair

Baptist University of the Americas, San Antonio

In the 1960s TV show Bewitched, nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz regularly snooped on the strange goings-on at the house of Darrin and Samantha Stephens. Although warned by her husband not to stick her nose where it didn’t belong, she did so anyway, often with comic or even disastrous results.

In the book of Job, the enigmatic figure of Elihu appears suddenly in chapter 32 and also sticks his nose into the discussion. As the first few verses of the chapter tell us several times, Elihu is mad, and he’s not going to take it any more.

Who is Elihu, and why does he feel compelled to participate in a discussion in which he previously played no part whatsoever?

Most commentators believe the Elihu speeches of Job 32-37 are a later insertion into the text, perhaps added by a critic of the book who wasn’t happy with the conclusion of the cycle of speeches involving Job and his friends. There are a number of characteristics of these chapters that suggest a different, probably later, author.

For a printer-friendly version, click on the printer icon at bottom of page.

First, Elihu appears suddenly in the story, without having been mentioned in the prologue, where all the other characters were introduced. Even more surprisingly, after his speech, he never is mentioned or directly referred to in the speeches of Yahweh (Job 38-41) or in the epilogue (Job 42).

Second, Elihu is the only character in the story with a Hebrew name. His name means “he is my God,” and it perhaps suggests that Elihu’s words more closely reflect correct divine teaching than those of Job’s three friends.

Third, Elihu is the only one of Job’s critics who ever mentions Job’s name, and he does so frequently.

Fourth, several stylistic differences appear in Elihu’s speeches contrary to the normal style of the rest of the book, including different vocabulary and an increased preference for Aramaic rather than Hebrew words.

Job 32:1-5

If the words of Elihu are a later insertion, what does that mean for modern readers of the text? If we adopt a canonical perspective, which reads the biblical text in its present form regardless of its compositional history, we will take the words of Elihu seriously.

The brief prose introduction to Elihu’s speeches indicates Elihu was dissatisfied with the three friends’ inability to answer Job satisfactorily, and he also was unhappy with Job’s self-justifying argument.

Some textual traditions in verse 1 say Job’s three friends stopped speaking because Job was righteous in their eyes—that is, Job’s arguments had convinced them of his innocence—and thus they declined to speak any further. This reading seems unlikely. It is more probable the friends on the one hand and Job on the other had stated their cases, each without convincing the other.

In verse 3, Elihu is angry with Job’s friends because of their inability to refute Job. The Hebrew text says despite their inability to answer Job, they still condemned him. Although this reading is possible, Elihu’s anger at the friends seems misplaced. An alternative reading, recording by Jewish scribes, makes more sense: The friends’ inability to refute Job effectively resulted in God standing condemned, a good reason for Elihu’s anger. If this reading is correct, it accords well with another similar scribal alteration of the text in Job 2:9.

Job 33:8-11; 34:1-37

Elihu has two main problems with Job’s arguments. The first is Job believes God is punishing him despite his innocence. Although the speeches of Elihu may be somewhat more nuanced on this point than the speeches of Job’s friends, Elihu shares the same basic view of God’s relationship with humanity: God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. In other words, we live in a moral cause-and-effect universe.

Elihu is quite concerned to protect God’s righteousness: “God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice” (34:10). Job must have sinned, Elihu says, or else God wouldn’t have brought this punishment upon him. Even if Job’s former sins were not great, his recent claims that God is unjust certainly qualify as sins worthy of severe punishment (34:34-37).

To prove his point, Elihu even resorts to quoting Job out of context in 34:9 (referring to 21:15), attributing to Job words Job had earlier said were characteristic of the wicked. Perhaps Elihu reasoned, “Well, Job really did say these words, so it’s fair to throw them back in his face.”

Job 33:13-33

Elihu’s second major problem with Job’s defense of himself is Job’s claim that God refuses to answer him. On the contrary, Elihu argues, God speaks to people all the time, in many different ways, but people don’t always perceive it. Sometimes God speaks to people through dreams or visions. Sometimes God’s communication comes through pain and suffering. God might even send an angel with a message. All the ways in which God communicates are designed to bring a person back into a proper relationship with God. After all, Elihu says, God does not want to punish the righteous but to restore them after a fall.

Elihu makes a good point: God does speak to people in a variety of ways, but people often are unaware of what God is trying to communicate because their hearts are not attuned to God. Too often, Christians who await a specific word from God are oblivious to the many ways in which God is at work around them.

Having said this, however, I can’t agree with Elihu’s conclusion that because Job hasn’t heard God, Job must not have been listening. Sometimes God’s “answer” to our plight is silence. It is entirely possible for a righteous person to seek the presence of God and be answered only by God’s apparent absence. God is never truly absent, of course, but God, for reasons which we may never know, may choose to remain silent in certain situations.

Elihu's claim that God constantly is communicating with the righteous ignores the sovereignty of God. God often speaks, yes, and we need to open our ears—and our hearts—to hear what God is saying, but sometimes we have no answer from God, and that is just as God intends.

Discussion questions

• What does Elihu contribute to the conversation about Job and God’s justice? Would the message of the book of Job have been significantly different without these speeches?

• Does it offend us when people say things about God that we believe to be false? What about when people make what we consider to be weak arguments in God’s favor?

• Do we ever resort to taking another person’s words out of context in order to win an argument? Do we approve of politicians and other public figures who do so, as long as they’re just arguing with those with whom we happen to disagree?

• In what ways does God communicate with us today? Have you ever experienced a time when you felt God was absent?

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: 6/27/06

Lotz: Be more like the early church

By Tony Cartledge

N.C. Biblical Recorder

ATLANTA (ABP)—Western Baptists need to leave Christendom behind and become more like the early church, Baptist World Alliance General Secretary Denton Lotz told a BWA dinner held in conjunction with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly.

Many Westerners still hold a “Christendom-based” model of thinking—characterized by the dominant cultural role played by the Christian church in Western history, particularly in Europe, where national churches were granted privileged status, he said.

“But the fact is, there is a new paradigm,” said Lotz. “Christianity has moved to the southern hemisphere.”

When the BWA—a global network of 213 Baptist organizations—was formed 100 years ago, 85 percent of all Christians lived in the northern hemisphere, Lotz said. Now 60 percent of Christians live south of the equator.

“Baptists work best outside of a Christendom model,” Lotz said. As a result, Africa and Asia are on their way to becoming the center of Christianity, he said. And a day will come, he said, when America and Europe will need to be re-evangelized.

The establishment of Christendom moved Christianity from the margins of society to the center, leading it to rely on the church’s power rather than on divine power, he said.

The early church was voluntary, but Christendom made it compulsory, Lotz explained, making it at home within the culture. The image of Christ changed from that of a loving shepherd to that of a cosmic Lord, he said, and the energy of the church was shifted from mission to maintenance.

Lotz illustrated a movement from the Christendom model to the early church model by describing rapid church growth in Moscow, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Aremenia, and China.

“There is a great movement of the Holy Spirit around the world,” he said.

The Western church should learn to think of itself “as a colony of faith, as a prophetic movement,” Lotz said.

Earlier, Lotz interviewed visiting Baptist leaders from Romania and Liberia. Paul Montacute, director of Baptist World Aid, talked about recent disaster relief work following the earthquake in Indonesia, and continuing recovery work in Sri Lanka, where a Baptist children’s village now serves orphans left by the tsunami that struck Dec. 26, 2004.

BWA was also instrumental in arranging a meeting with Vietnamese officials to discuss religious liberty in that country, according to Alan Stanford, president of the North American Baptist Fellowship, one of six regional groups within BWA.

Using funds contributed by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, several Baptist leaders traveled to Vietnam and arranged to sponsor a celebratory dinner for about 600 Vietnamese Baptist leaders who had not been able to meet together since the fall of Hanoi in 1975, he 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: 6/27/06

CBF broke tradition in commissioning service

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA (ABP)—The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship broke tradition during its annual general assembly in Atlanta by commissioning only short-term and self-funded mission workers, rather than any fully funded career missionaries.

The group commissioned 19 new affiliated workers during the service, which has become a tradition on the last night of the Fellowship’s annual meeting. Of those, six were funded for one-to-three-year posts under the aegis of the group’s Global Service Corps.

The remaining 13 were self-sustaining missionaries appointed as part of CBF’s AsYouGo program, which provides CBF affiliation and some support to workers whose careers take them to mission fields or whose full-time missions work is funded completely by a church, donors or themselves.

CBF, whose missions giving has lagged in recent years, will not appoint any career missionaries this year. Appointments during the last two years benefited from a multimillion gift from a single donor.

With the latest appointments, CBF has 107 active career missionaries, 20 Global Service Corps workers and 38 other missionaries affiliated with CBF through AsYouGo and other programs in the United States and abroad.

In a charge to the new missionaries, Jack Snell, interim CBF global missions coordinator, gave a candid assessment of the situation into which the missionaries entered.

“There is so much to be done, and we are doing so little,” he said. “Our offerings are flat; we have not reached our goal in the Offering for Global Missions in several years. In many cases, our passion is dull and our compassion is diluted by fatigue. …

“And yet there continues to be unbelievable statistics that tell us that one out of every four persons in the world still has not had the chance to hear the gospel of Christ. … The inequity between the haves and have-nots widens even as we are here tonight. The world is groaning.”

“Will we simply bless these (missionaries) tonight and go home and feel good that we had a part in this service?” he asked. “What we’re talking about tonight involves all of us—not just for tonight, but for the future. Because each of us is being called to show compassion. Each of us is being called to enter into the pain of the world.”

General assembly participants heard a video presentation on the work each missionary will do, followed by an endorsement and commitment voiced by a representative of their home church or a congregation with which they will work.

Global Service Corps personnel commissioned included Susan and Wes Craig of Waco, who will work with the Romany people in Bucharest, Romania, and Elizabeth Fortenberry of Waco, who will work with international women and families in Los Angeles’ academic community.

AsYouGo affiliates commissioned included Connie and Rod Johnson of Houston, who will facilitate teams helping with medical and other physical needs in far southern Mexico.

New CBF Global Missions Coordinator Rob Nash, who was elected two days earlier, prayed for the appointees at the end of the service.

“We pray for their hearts, that you might fill them with an overwhelming love that emerges out of their own brokenness and humility,” he said. “We pray for their minds, that you might open them up to even deeper truths about you and about the world to which you’ve called them.”

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: 6/27/06

CBF, emergent church good fit, Myers says

By Tony Cartledge

N.C. Biblical Recorder

ATLANTA (ABP)—Atlanta church planter Jake Myers used the images of beer, candles and theologian Soren Kierkegaard to describe the “emergent conversation” taking place within Christianity, which he said could be a good fit for members of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Myers, who leads an emergent community in the Little Five Points area of Atlanta, led a breakout session during the CBF general assembly. He also serves on staff at Wieuca Road Baptist Church in Atlanta as a church planter and mission leader.

The “emergent church” movement is a decade-old movement of Christians—both mainline and evangelical— exploring new expressions of Christianity within a context of postmodern thought and culture. Led by proponents like Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt, the emergent community interacts through blogs and websites like emergentvillage.com.

Myers suggested “generative friendship” as a two-word definition for the emergent movement—a place “where we can come together and talk about what it means to be Christ-followers in a postmodern, post-Holocaust, post-colonial, post-Christendom world.”

Myers used beer as a rubric for the conversational and inclusive aspects of the emergent-church movement, suggesting that beer is commonly shared by friends and accompanied by conversation. That conversation crosses theological and generational lines to support “the church in all its forms,” he said, from new monastic communities to house churches and from coffee shop groups to larger gatherings.

Ethics, social justice, and hospitality are central to the movement, he said. Among evangelicals, he said, the emergent movement has sparked a greater concern for justice issues, he said.

Candles “transform space” and “create a more somber, sacred environment,” Myers said, thus serving as an appropriate metaphor for a discussion of “how we connect with God in our postmodern world.”

Some emergent Christians have embraced ancient liturgical practices, he said, finding in them an openness to mystery not found in worship that is primarily rational.

Whatever the shape of it, liturgy needs to be organic, not imposed from outside but emerging from within the community of faith, Myers said.

The emergent conversation promotes a different model for doing church, Myers said. It is not an “attractional model” based on investing resources and doing marketing designed to attract as many people as possible, but a more incarnational or missional model that places more emphasis on being the church than on going to church.

Myers cited Danish existentialist Kierkegaard as a theologian who dealt with an apathetic, bourgeois church that didn’t really impact its culture but became assimilated to it. The emergent church, like Kierkegaard, calls on believers to follow Christ more than culture.

“The emergent conversation allows everyone to be a theologian,” Myers said, adding that “theology gets a lot of us into trouble” with critics.

Some emergent Christians are rethinking concepts like the penal substitution theory of atonement and challenging the idea that the primary reason for becoming a Christian is to avoid going to hell, he said.

Emergent Christians place a “huge emphasis on the kingdom of God,” Myers said, and on becoming “missional.” To be missional “is to be passionate on purpose,” he said, worrying less about whether people come to church and more about how “we participate in God’s mission in the world.”

Myers' audience included older Fellowship members wanting to learn about the emergent-church movement and younger Fellowship participants interested in ministering in such a setting.

Myers stopped short of identifying CBF with the emergent movement, but he said they have some similarities. Both think of themselves as renewal movements, he said. CBF describes itself as a “fellowship”; the emergent church describes itself as a “generative friendship.” Both CBF and the emergent movement were birthed through crisis. Both emphasize autonomy. And both have made theological education a big part of the conversation, he 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: 6/27/06

Hudson: Step out of bubble and hear God

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA (ABP)—A Methodist from South Africa told a group of Baptists in the American South that they need to wake up to reality and challenged them to “step outside your own little bubble” in order to hear God’s call.

When Trevor Hudson spoke at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s general assembly in Atlanta, his speech—which complemented the session theme, “For the healing of the nations, Jesus wept”—was received with thunderous applause.

But listening to the groans of the world won’t always be easy, Hudson said. If Christians are going to open their hearts, they need to do something often difficult: Step out of their protective bubbles and embrace the world around them.

“Please never turn your back on the world—never!” Hudson said.

Reciting the words of a popular chorus, he added, “‘The cross before me, the world behind me’—that is heresy. Jesus is the light of the world. He lights everything up. Those songs betray the love of God for this world. God’s loving arms encircle the globe. God is wanting to redeem the whole of creation. Listen to the groan.”

Hudson cited the eighth chapter of Romans, in which the Apostle Paul wrote that all of creation “has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

The groans, he said, come from creation, from Christians and, most notably, from the Spirit, which constantly prays the “prayer of Jesus” in Christians’ hearts. He told the audience the Spirit’s prayer calls for the kingdom of God to come quickly, for the “universe to be mended,” and for everything to be reconciled together in Christ.

Illustrating the global nature of their concern, assembly participants sang worship songs from Argentina, South Africa and Liberia.

Hudson told the Fellowship assembly their group is moving in the right direction toward spreading the gospel.

“I have a sense that the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is on a train, and it’s moving,” he told participants. “I’ve really appreciated the energy that I sense in the movement. To me as an outsider, it seems that you’re on a journey toward greater missional faithfulness, to deep recognition in your life of the inner and outer journeys of faith.”

The important thing about that “train” ride, however, is whether you have a ticket, Hudson said. Hudson defined the ticket as “an open heart” ready to hear the groans of the world and the Spirit.

Hudson has spent 34 years ministering in a congregation in Benoni, South Africa, “seeking to grow the people of God in a very turbulent context.” Reconciliation shows the true love of Christ and makes a difference in the Christian life, he said.

An advocate for social justice, Hudson started a project in the 1980s that gave white, middle-class South Africans the chance to experience the suffering caused by apartheid and poverty in their own country. The project is detailed in A Mile in My Shoes, one of Hudson’s seven books.

After Hudson’s address, CBF participants gave $23,095 to the CBF’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Offering for Religious Liberty and Human Rights. Two-thirds of the offering is designated for the Fellowship’s religious liberty and human rights ministries, and one-third goes to the Baptist World Alliance.

“As you know, religious liberty and human rights issues are at the center of our hearts and work,” Rosalynn Carter said via video. “We continue to advocate for those who do not have the right to vote, who cannot worship as they please or who dare not act as their conscience leads.” 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: 6/23/06

TROUBLED WATERS:
Are Baptists watering down commitment to baptism?

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

Disputes about baptism are troubling the waters in some Baptist circles. From Southern Baptist International Mission Board guidelines that narrow the parameters for acceptable baptism when it comes to missionary candidates, to churches that wrestle with the perennial question of how to handle new members from other denominations, questions swirl around an issue most Baptists considered settled more than 350 years ago—believer’s baptism by immersion.

“Believer’s baptism has long been a distinctive mark of Baptists,” Baylor University religion Professor Bill Brackney wrote in a paper published by the Baptist History & Heritage Society and the Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society. “All Baptists, to one degree or another, recognize the importance of a believers’ church and the signal rite or ordinance of baptism.”

The earliest English Baptists believed only adults who professed faith in Christ should be baptized, but they initially practiced sprinkling or pouring. However, by the mid-1600s, immersion became the standard mode for Baptists, Brackney noted.

But some modern observers believe that distinctive mark is being diluted by factors ranging from postdenominationalism to postmodernism to pragmatism.

A variety of reasons may cause some modern Baptists to downplay believer’s baptism by immersion, said Bill Pinson, director of the Texas Baptist Heritage Center and executive director emeritus of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Possibilities include the influence of “ecumenical evangelicalism” that stresses commonly held beliefs over denominational differences; the influence of Calvinism in some Baptist circles; a desire to be nonjudgmental and tolerant; a postmodern worldview that questions exclusive claims of truth or “right” methods; and a lack of understanding about distinctive Baptist beliefs, Pinson noted.

Baptists who champion immersion as the proper method of baptism have appealed both to the original Greek meaning of the term and to the symbol of being “buried in the likeness of Christ’s death and raised to walk in the newness of life”—a phrase commonly used by Baptist ministers as they immerse a new believer.

New Testament baptism requires a proper subject (a believer who comes to faith in Christ voluntarily), the proper mode (immersion) and the proper meaning (a symbol of death, burial and resurrection), Oklahoma Baptist pastor-theologian and 20th century Southern Baptist statesman Herschel Hobbs wrote in a study guide to the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message.

“Change the mode, and the meaning is lost. Change the meaning, and the mode loses its New Testament significance,” Hobbs wrote.

Traditionally, most—but not all—Baptists have understood believer’s baptism by immersion as an ordinance that is “prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper”—language common to both the 1963 and 2000 versions of the Baptist Faith & Message.

“This is the oldest and most divisive theological question in Baptist history,” said Bill Leonard, dean and professor of church history at Wake Forest University Divinity School. “Early Baptist churches divided over closed and open membership regarding baptism.”

Landmark Baptists—an ultra-conservative group that seeks to trace Baptists’ origins directly to New Testament times and believes Baptists are the only true church—draw the circle narrowly. They grant membership only to Baptists who have been baptized in like-minded Landmark Baptist churches and limit participation in a church’s observance of the Lord’s Supper only to members of that local church.

But as far back as John Bunyan in the 1600s, some Baptists have argued for open membership—granting membership to sincere Christians whose baptism was by sprinkling or pouring.

Class lets students get feet wet: Ryan Vanderland baptizes fellow ministerial student Jon West during a practical ministry class at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology. Vanderland reported: “The water in the baptistry is cold—not ice cold, but colder than I expected. The first thing I learned is to make sure the baptistry heater gets turned on so that the water is warm.” In addition to giving students hands-on experience in a baptistry, church ministry Professor Ronnie Prevost also took students to a funeral home to learn about grief ministry and to Crescent Heights Baptist Church in Abilene to practice conducting a Lord’s Supper service.

“However, Bunyan held that believer’s baptism was the ideal and pleaded for baptism by immersion, but he asked for ‘a bearing with our brother that cannot do it for want of light,’” Pinson said.

“Such an approach to baptism and church membership was in Bunyan’s day, and has been since criticized by most Baptists for various reasons, including weakening or undermining other basic biblical beliefs precious to Baptists.”

Leonard contends most Christian communions have “broken baptism” in some sense in that they do not literally follow the New Testament norm of “adult believers’ immersion—in cold running water.” For instance, the practice in some Baptist churches of baptizing children—some as young as age 4 or 5—deviates from the biblical standard, he insisted.

“When Baptists started baptizing children, especially preschool children, they departed from the New Testament norm so they can claim to have believers’ baptism, but not adult believers’ baptism, which is the only kind practiced in the New Testament church,” Leonard said.

Some churches continue to wrestle with the issue of whether believer’s baptism by immersion must be prerequisite to church membership.

Last year, elders at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minn., recommended a policy change that would have allowed the church to accept as members—under certain conditions—Chris-tians who gave evidence of conversion but who were sprinkled as infants.

In a widely disseminated 85-page position paper, Pastor John Piper and the council of elders asserted belief that “the door to local church membership should be roughly the same size as the door to membership in the universal body of Christ.”

But three months after the church’s governing body introduced its original motion, some elders reconsidered their position, and the group withdrew its proposal.

Still, the church’s website acknowledges “the issue cannot be dropped because the majority of the elders still favor the motion, including almost all the pastoral staff. …”

Other Baptist churches have found different ways to include in their membership Christians who have not been immersed.

Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall has carved out a special niche—“alternative baptism”—for Christians who are baptized as believers but not by immersion.

“As long as a person’s baptism comes after salvation and is done for the right reasons but by a different mode, we accept it,” Pastor Steve Stroope said.

People who enter the church by alternative baptism are granted full membership, except for limits on their ability to serve in some leadership positions, he explained.

“We have not changed our theological position on baptism by immersion, but we are not making it a test of fellowship,” Stroope said.

Lake Pointe Church rejects infant baptism and believes immersion is the clearest symbol of identification with Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, he stressed. But the church does not deny fellowship to a person who becomes a Christian and subsequently is baptized in a church that teaches pouring or sprinkling as an acceptable mode.

He compared differences about baptism by immersion—as opposed to sprinkling or pouring—to varying opinions about the millennium or Calvinism among “conservative evangelicals.”

Alternative baptism has served as a gateway through which people from other denominations have entered Lake Pointe Church. Once they become a part of the church, about 85 percent eventually ask to be baptized by immersion, he noted.

Some churches provide a special category for people who want to be part of the church but are not ready for membership—watchcare.

In part, watchcare provides a way for college students who temporarily live in the area to become part of a local fellowship without moving their church membership. But it also provides a transitional step for people who have questions or concerns about baptism or some church doctrine.

“Watchcare is for those who are not yet ready to become a Baptist,” the website of Williams Trace Baptist Church in Sugar Land notes.

People who seek to enter under the watchcare of the church are not entitled to full voting membership, but it allows them a way to be included in the life and fellowship of the church, Pastor Phil Lineberger said.

“We tell them: ‘We’ll watch over you. We will care for you. You are a part of our congregation; you’re just not officially a member of the church,’” he explained.

People under the church’s watchcare cannot serve on committees involving the congregation’s legal status, such as personnel or finance, and they are not permitted to be teachers. However, many of them serve as ushers or greeters, participate in church-sponsored mission trips and work on ministries such as Habitat for Humanity building projects, Lineberger noted.

“We want them to be a part of the family and to be in a place where they have the chance to hear the gospel presented in a friendly, nonthreatening way,” he said.

Typically, people under the church’s watchcare are part of a family that includes some church members, he noted.

“Usually, it’s the father whose wife and children may come to join the church, but he’s not ready,” Lineberger said.

While the family member under watchcare often is a Christian from a different denomination, William Trace Baptist’s watchcare ministry also includes non-Christians, he added.

“We have a Muslim family in which the son has accepted Christ as his Savior, but the mother and father have not, but they’re in our watchcare,” he said.

“We’ve had three Jewish men under our watchcare, and one of them—the grandson of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi—came to faith in Christ.”

Watchcare offers churches an avenue for evangelism, Lineberger noted—including people within the circle of fellowship who haven’t been immersed as believers without watering down distinctive Baptist beliefs.

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.