On Aug. 8, 2024, I woke up to find my wife Ashley unresponsive. No one expects this in their 30s. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was suffering from a cardiac arrest event.

Those moments are hard to describe—calling 911, performing CPR (Ashley endured around 90 minutes of CPR), watching first responders do all they could do to save my wife.

When she was transferred to a hospital in Plano, I remember praying over her with two close friends: “God, I am praying for my wife to be healed. But you love her more. May you use her life for your glory.”

Unknowingly, God had been preparing me for this season.

What’s next?

In August 2023, I graduated with my second degree—a doctorate in ministry—from Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University. It was an amazing experience and renewed my sense of calling to the local church.

After five years at First Baptist Church in Eastland, I began to ask a question familiar to many pastors after a season of completion: “What’s next, Lord?”

What I didn’t realize was God already had been answering that question long before I asked it.

In fall 2022, a church member approached me one day and asked if I had any books on prayer. He recently had retired and was praying through what God had in store for him in this new season. He informed me he was going on a prayer retreat in Colorado with a ministry called Strategic Renewal.

When he made it back to Eastland, he simply told me, “I know what I’m supposed to do.”

Over the next year, he and three others committed to praying every Sunday evening for their pastor, his family and their church.

A year later, on a Sunday evening, after Ashley had made homemade pizza, I told her I felt an urge to go and join these men in prayer. I left home, arrived late and planned to attend this one time to show my support for them.

The Lord, however, had other plans for that night. I didn’t know it then, but God brought me to this prayer gathering exactly one year after these men began praying faithfully for me and our church. In that moment, praying with them, my perspective on the importance and power of corporate prayer was changed.

A burden for corporate prayer

That fall 2023, I began reading about pastors and churches that had committed to making prayer central to their church.

To be honest, I believed in prayer and prayed as a pastor. I knew my prayer life could improve, but praying corporately with other believers was not part of my life.

I soon realized how prayer easily can become one ministry among many, rather than the foundation of all ministry. Prayer is not just the responsibility of a few while others “do” ministry. Rather, prayer is the power from which ministry flows.

At a Strategic Renewal conference that September, a speaker quoted Jesus’ words from Matthew 21:13: “My house shall be called a house of prayer.”

In that moment, conviction filled my heart. I had led in many areas but not in this one. I could not say I was a praying pastor or that I was leading a praying church.

Our Sunday evening prayer gathering remained small, but we prayed for vision and clarity on next steps.

While attending church during a Christmas trip to Oregon, I sensed God’s leading. Our church was to gather every Sunday evening for one hour of prayer. Since then, we’ve built a rhythm of corporate prayer that shapes everything we do.

I often tell our congregation our Sunday evening prayer gathering is my favorite hour of the week.

What does our Sunday prayer gathering consist of? Our entire hour is filled with Scripture-based prayer and worship. We spend half our time in praise and thanksgiving before we ever get to requests, and you always must pray your requests.

Creating a culture of prayer

Creating a culture of prayer doesn’t mean prayer is the only thing we do, but we want it to be the first thing we do.

We seek to spend half our time in prayer before committee meetings, and we have started praying in small groups during our Sunday morning worship service. Our ministerial staff is weaving corporate prayer into the rhythm of their ministries.

We are a long way from where I want us to be as a church, but I’m thankful for the Lord’s faithfulness.

When Ashley was in the hospital, she was on the most critical life support. On Saturday, Aug. 10, doctors wanted to bring her out of sedation. Two days prior, our music minister Mandi had called our church to pray corporately on Saturday, Aug. 10.

More than 200 people gathered to pray for Ashley that morning. Thankfully, Ashley would be spared and healed through the power of God in response to the prayers of God’s people.

Vision for the future

We still are striving to be a praying church, and I’m still striving to be a praying pastor. We haven’t arrived.

I’m often encouraged to hear how other pastors and churches are making corporate prayer the foundation of their churches. In these places, prayer is not a strategy, but it is woven into the culture of that congregation.

Over the past three years, the Lord has done something special in my life and in First Baptist Eastland. It’s our story, but it is a work God alone has done through the power of corporate prayer.

I tell my congregation this regularly: Even if God never answers another prayer you pray, he still is worthy to be praised because of the hope we have in Jesus.

My desire is to see co-laborers in the kingdom—especially those in rural churches like mine—seek the face of God through corporate prayer and, in doing so, become a house of prayer.

Kevin Burrow is the senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Eastland. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

On Sept. 27, the Israeli government filed a FARA request with the United States government.

A FARA request—Foreign Agents Registration Request—is simply a request to lobby the citizens of the United states on behalf of a foreign government.

This particular FARA request was filed so the Israeli government could have the right specifically to lobby evangelical Christians regarding their opinions about the state of Israel and their opinions about Palestinians.

My concerns

Foreign influence

The first reason I find this troubling is any foreign government requesting permission to influence specifically Christians, specifically churches, and then the United States government granting that is troubling.

It doesn’t matter if it is Israel, who is an ally of the United States. It is really troubling that a foreign government would want to be involved in lobbying evangelicals at all, and that our own government would allow it. It sets a really bad precedent.

Involuntary

Second, if you read the filing, I’m worried about it, because it’s involuntary.

They use geofencing. Geofencing is a technology where, if you drive onto a church campus, one of those listed in the filing, and your phone is then picked up, you will be served up targeted messages.

One could call those messages propaganda designed to get you to have a different opinion regarding the nation of Israel and/or the Palestinians.

I mentioned this because you don’t get to opt in.

So, the pastors of these churches don’t get to decide if they want to be part of this program. The leadership of these churches, the membership of these churches, don’t get to decide. They’re just targeted, because the government has given permission to a foreign actor to target the phones of these particular groups.

Dangerous precedent

The next reason I’m really worried is it sets a really dangerous precedent.

If we allow a foreign government to request and get permission to lobby our churches, what might happen next?

Now, I don’t want to act like churches have been political neutral zones, but I really do think this is a step that is a little dangerous, where we allow a foreign entity to begin to lobby and to do so openly.

I really worry about it opening Pandora’s box here, specifically with political influence on churches, specifically when pastors and church leaders don’t have the opportunity to reject that.

What to do

If you’re worried about this and you’re wondering what you can do, you can read through the filing and see if your church is listed. There are a lot of churches listed in Texas. There also are some in California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada.

If you see your church listed, you might want to make your church leadership aware they’re being targeted. They might want to think about how is best to handle that in whatever way is appropriate in your particular church setting.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The full list of targeted churches begins on p. 34 of the FARA filing. An interactive map of targeted churches is available here. Numerous Texas Baptist churches are included.

Steve Bezner is associate professor of pastoral theology and ministry at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary and has served churches throughout Texas. This opinion article is an edited transcript of Bezner’s Facebook story posted Oct. 21 and used by permission.

Contrary to the belief of a lot of church-going folks, pastors are not hired servants.

They are servants, for sure, just as police officers and firefighters and nurses. But they are servants of God and, as such, are here to help each of us to garner a better understanding of how we can glorify God and please him.

The pastor is not there to wait on us. The pastor is not there to unplug our toilet or change our flat tire. The pastor is there to help with our spiritual needs the same as a nurse helps with our medical needs or a police officer with our legal issues.

Pastoral salaries

Pastors have families and need downtime. Our churches must require our pastors and their families to take vacations and time off. They cannot be treated as robots to hop and jump for our pleasure.

Is your congregation aware of the salary being paid to your pastor? Is it enough for the pastor to live on? Is the pastor stressed due to financial worries? If we get stressed over money issues, have we ever thought our pastors might have the same problem as well?

What can we or our church do to help them?

Our churches give millions of dollars annually to various ministries across the globe, but look at that 15-year-old car our pastor is driving around in. What can we do to make driving safer for the pastor and the pastor’s family?

Weddings and funerals

While we are at it, what days off does our pastor have?

Let’s see, weddings usually take place on Saturdays, with rehearsal dinners on Friday nights. Funerals often are on Saturdays, as well. These are scheduled for the convenience of the families, to allow for their family members to travel for the event.

While these might be joyous in the case of weddings or sad in the case of funerals, the pastor may not know the participants and probably doesn’t feel the same emotions as the families, especially if the pastor has lost a day off.

There’s also the matter of paying pastors an honorarium for services rendered. In many cases pastors receive little or nothing for performing weddings and funerals on their days off.

Of course, weddings and funerals are part of any clergy’s duties and responsibilities, but the timing of these events should be considered in relationship to the pastor’s working schedule. Events scheduled outside of normal working hours should be compensated.

Churches could give out a pamphlet explaining how funerals and weddings work and that payments for these services are appreciated, even suggesting customary amounts. At a minimum, a pamphlet can explain the pastor’s responsibilities during weddings and funerals.

At my age, I might die at any time. Do you think it is going to matter to me who presides over my funeral service? I am not going to be there. I don’t care if some associate pastor or someone else takes charge of my service.

Weddings and funerals are significant rituals of our lives, but let’s get real and consider what it takes for a minister to officiate at these events.

The pastor’s family

Our pastor has a family. Our pastor may have kids who go to school, play in sports, perform recitals, have roles in drama programs. They also have birthdays and anniversaries and may be taking care of their own parents.

When our pastors’ daughter stars in a play at school on the night we want our pastor to attend a rehearsal dinner for our daughter’s wedding, how do we think our pastor’s daughter is going to feel? Is she going to be happy or resentful? We know the answer to this.

Is our event so important and so special we couldn’t consider the church providing us with some other staff member to perform our service?

Pastors have the same stresses and problems we do. They can’t complain about their issues. They certainly can’t discuss their issues with members of the church, and they certainly can’t afford to offend their largest “donors” who want them to perform some special function.

In short, they are not free or at liberty to use a truly short word: “No.”

Our church’s largest tither wants the pastor and only the pastor to perform the marriage service for his only daughter on the weekend the pastor had scheduled a trip to Paris for the pastor’s wedding anniversary.

Tickets are paid for, passports secured, hotels booked, and now Mr. Warbucks comes and tells the pastor his daughter must be married on such-and-such date because it has major significance for one reason or another. No other date will do.

What the pastor wants to do and what the pastor feels has to be done probably don’t match.

But that’s not the question. The question is what are we going to do?

Are we going to be inconsiderate Christians demanding things that give rise to resentment, or will we be Christlike and realize our pastor has feelings and needs like all the rest of us?

The choice is ours and ours alone.

Peary Perry is an author and husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. To learn more about him, you can visit www.pearyperry.com or email him confidentially at pperry@pearyperry.com. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

Since joining Texas Baptists by way of assuming the pastorate of a historic Texas Baptist church, I have grown to love and deeply respect Dr. Julio Guarneri. He and the whole of our network of churches have been nothing but kind and welcoming.

What follows in no way is a contradiction of what Dr. Guarneri wrote and expressed in his recent weekly update, but rather a continuation of the thoughts he raised, at least from my perspective.

Guarneri’s weekly update

In his weekly update, dated Oct. 15, 2025, Guarneri laid out a convincing plea for churches to work together in what he refers to as doctrinal affinity. As he states it:

“Doctrinal affinity is not the same as doctrinal uniformity. While there are Christian doctrines and Baptist principles that are non-negotiable, there are beliefs and practices where local churches have freedom. It is enough for a church to hold to Christian orthodoxy and historical Baptist principles to collaborate with Texas Baptists for the cause of missions.”

I wholeheartedly agree.

As he also reminded us, “We should resist the temptation to demand uniformity in every secondary issue, because that diminishes our ability to work together for the sake of the gospel.”

That truth is both freeing and motivating, allowing us to be generous with one another in areas of freedom.

Where I would offer caution, however, is in urging readers to think through these things with greater nuance—especially as it relates to different groups and organizations within our convention.

The local church: Doctrinal alignment

The Bible repeatedly calls for unity and for believers to be of the same “heart and mind.” The early church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and that shared doctrine fostered unity, generosity and love. For that reason, a local church must expect doctrinal alignment among its leaders and teachers.

Alignment means walking in the same direction together, united in core convictions and practices. No other group or organization should force a local church to abide by their particular standards, but within the congregation itself, there must be a shared commitment to doctrine and mission.

This means one church may organize its staff differently than another or may arrive at a different conviction about, say, women preaching on a Sunday morning. Each local body should have the freedom to determine what it believes best aligns with Scripture. But within that body, clarity and alignment are essential.

The network of churches: Doctrinal affinity

When we gather as a network of churches, doctrinal affinity is both necessary and sufficient. As Guarneri emphasized, “It is enough for us to be orthodox Christians and historic Baptists in order to lock arms for missions.”

This “big tent” approach allows us to pursue missions together without demanding identical positions on every issue as it relates to the local church. What binds us together is a family resemblance of belief and practice rooted in Christian orthodoxy and historic Baptist principles.

Affinity makes cooperation possible, even across lines of difference.

The entities we support: Doctrinal agreement

Entities—our seminaries, universities and mission boards—are in a different category altogether.

These organizations exist to serve and resource the churches. Because they are entrusted with teaching, training and sending, they should be expected not only to share doctrinal affinity, but to fully affirm and champion the doctrinal stances of the network as a whole. In other words, our entities must operate in doctrinal agreement.

Agreement conveys a binding commitment to the statements of faith adopted by our network. These standards are not restrictive for the sake of control, but for the sake of confidence. They ensure those who are trained and sent out by our entities faithfully reflect Baptist convictions.

This is how we, as churches, can support them in good conscience—knowing they are aligned with us in belief, conviction and mission.

A framework of use

Doctrinal statements are valuable so long as we recognize their different uses in different contexts:

• The local church: Doctrinal alignment—leaders and members walking in the same direction.
• The network of churches: Doctrinal affinity—a generous, cooperative spirit across differences.
• Our entities: Doctrinal agreement—formal affirmation of Baptist convictions.

None of this is about control or restriction. Rather, it is about fostering genuine partnership, mutual assurance and a free, open spirit of cooperation.

We are a large body of churches, and while we will not all agree on every particular, we should be confident those who represent us—especially in education and missions—do so with convictional faithfulness.

Conclusion: Cooperation with conviction

I am deeply encouraged by the vision Dr. Guarneri has cast. His call for doctrinal affinity is a much-needed reminder we are better together when we unite around the essentials and extend grace in areas of freedom.

By carefully distinguishing between doctrinal alignment in the local church, doctrinal affinity in our cooperative network and doctrinal agreement in our entities, we can remain both convictional and cooperative.

We do not have to choose between clarity and cooperation, between conviction and unity. We can hold fast to the truth with courage, while also locking arms with one another for the mission of Christ.

That balance—anchored in Scripture, guided by Baptist principles and motivated by the gospel—will allow Texas Baptists to flourish as a centrist, cooperative, mission-minded family of churches clear on what we believe and eager to work together for the kingdom.

Josh King is pastor of Valley Ridge Church, formerly known as First Baptist Church of Lewisville. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

I received an email from a business associate in New York. We were supposed to visit this week about a launch date for one of my books. She apologized for not following through.

She emailed in part: “Hello, Johnny. I was going to contact you yesterday, but honestly, my heart was too heavy. The overwhelming senseless loss of life lately is truly awful.

“I can see it in my own life,” she continued. “Friends I have had for most of my adult life are suddenly questioning our friendship all based solely on different political views. It’s just awful. I pray the angels in heaven will somehow show us the way to peaceful debates again.”

There is a division because of a broken cord. Let’s visit about this.

Two instances of brokenness

Charlotte, N.C.: A young woman from Ukraine, looking for a better life, boards a train heading home after taking care of some errands. A few minutes later, she is stabbed repeatedly.

The young girl is left in her seat, bleeding and horrified. She knows she’s been hurt, but that’s not her thought. Her confusion is: What just happened? Why did this man attack me?

She might not even have known for sure she was stabbed, nor was she aware she was bleeding out. Silently, 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska slumps, dead within minutes. Why?

Orem, Utah: A man not much older than Iryna takes his seat under a portable white tent. He has a heart for young students. He does not use a gun or a knife. He chooses to use the instrument of words.

He chooses to speak the truth as best he can and to encourage others to dialogue with him, to prove him wrong when possible. He believes the truth can permeate even the darkest thoughts. Charlie Kirk’s influence is effective. He is holding court with 3,000 students hanging on every word.

Charlie can be seen on a little platform, under his tent, in clear view from 22-year-old Tyler Robinson’s vantage point. The man has climbed a building 200 yards away, lying on a perch with his rifle and scope. He has decided to silence Charlie rather than debate him.

At exactly 12:23 p.m., Robinson squeezes the trigger. In a millisecond, Charlie is hit by the bullet, right after speaking of his faith in Jesus.

A cord has been broken in our nation, which has brought division. What cord? The cord of truth. When people leave truth, division follows.

Our nation is divided. We have been here before. In the Civil War, half the nation walked away from the truth that no man ever should own another. Because the South walked away from that truth, our nation divided. A Civil War ensued to decide if we would stand with the truth or stand with a lie.

Truth versus division

I am not writing about my truth or your truth. There is no such subjective thing. There is only the truth.

For years our nation was united in the truth that life begins at conception. But half of our nation has moved away from that truth. So, now there is division.

The truth is every person should be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. This is the truth that united us, thanks to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, but we have moved away from this, and there is division.

The truth is a man cannot become a woman, nor a woman a man. The history of civilization once was united in this truth. But now a large percentage of our nation and world have moved away from the truth. So, there is division.

The truth is a person who wants to live, eat and enjoy life should work and earn their own way if they are physically able. We once held to this biblical mandate as a nation. We were in agreement. But many have left this truth out of misplaced compassion, and there is division.

Truth can be found in the sacred unit of the biblical family. Husband, wife, children once were revered. As a result, our nation thrived. Now, we have left this life-giving unit, and there is division, especially in our own homes.

The truth is there is one God who reigns in heaven. That God sent his Son Jesus to save us by dying for our sins and defeating death for us through his resurrection.

The truth is God’s word is inerrant, unchanging, authoritative and the reference for all truth. Throughout the history of our nation, we believed this, and we righted our wrongs, we healed the breaches, and we reunited time and again.

But now we have left God, his Son, his word, saying all should do what is right in their own eyes, and there is a division for which we have no reference for healing.

Praying for return to truth

Those who speak truth are hated. Truth, God’s word, is called “hate speech” and has been forbidden at every sector of society.

Truth is not subjective. Truth is as irrevocable as gravity. DNA tells us the truth. Mathematics tells us the truth. Nature around us declares the truth as all creation bows down before our shared Creator God.

The truth: Life is valuable. Life in the womb. Life on a Charlotte train. Life in the center of Utah Valley University. All life, which God gave.

Pray with me that we return to the truth as a nation. If we do, divisions will be sewn back together in unity and senseless murders will become a rarity.

Johnny Teague is the senior pastor of Church at the Cross in West Houston and the author of several books, including his newest The Lost Diary of Mary Magdalene. His website is johnnyteague.com. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

Aug. 15, 2025, was a difficult day for First Baptist Church and the community of Muleshoe. Within a 24-hour period, three influential men passed away.

The first was Dr. Bruce Purdy. Jim Daniels was the second. The last was James Byers. Each of their funeral services was held at 11 a.m. on three consecutive days. Jim’s service on Thursday, James’ on Friday, and Dr. Purdy’s funeral on Saturday.

Jim Daniels

Jim Daniels was a much-beloved agriculture and world geography teacher. Before coming to Muleshoe, Jim was a nomadic “ag” teacher. He and Lynn settled in Muleshoe and stayed for 18 years.

He possessed a warm personality that drew students to him. He gave most students a personal nickname. Jim taught with a relaxed demeanor, while John Wayne kept an eye on the students from an obvious bulletin board. In retirement, Jim won a seat as a Bailey County Commissioner.

He was a living lesson: Regardless of our profession, we are first and foremost in the relationship business.

Yadira Garcia was the lead paramedic on the Bailey County Ambulance Crew who carried Jim home to begin his hospice care.

Yadira told Jim’s wife, Lynn: “I am a paramedic because Jim told me, ‘You can do whatever you believe you can do.”

His funeral service was well attended by Muleshoe Independent School District faculty, former students, community members and church friends.

James Byers

James Byers was a model of Christian service and marital devotion. James’ wife, Terry, passed away in October 2024. She struggled with Crohn’s disease for more than 50 years.

They lived most of their married life with an immediate medical need. James retired from the local phone provider to give 24-hour care to Terry. He learned to lift, manage medication and operate a home dialysis machine, along with many other tasks. He was a model of constant selfless giving.

After Terry’s death, James told his doctor, “I am having trouble swallowing.”

The series of tests revealed James had throat cancer. It was beyond treatment.

I asked, “James, have you been ill for a while?”

“Yes, I knew something was going on, but I could not go to the doctor. I needed to care for Terry.”

It was another example of James giving himself for Terry. Members of the church, phone cooperative and community came to pay tribute to a man who lived out Christian service.

Bruce Purdy

On Saturday, patients, nurses, physician assistants, the community of Muleshoe and friends from across Texas gathered to say, “Thank you,” to the hometown doctor who served our area 44 years. Bruce’s highest ambition was to be the town doctor in the place where he grew up.

Dr. Purdy delivered more than 2,000 babies, traveled to the emergency room at 4 a.m. countless times, stitched endless cuts and set numerous bones. He practiced medicine in both English and Spanish.

His best friend noted Bruce was willing to give anything for any patient. At 44 years of age, he had his first heart attack. The helicopter waited on the pad while Bruce wrote prescriptions for his hospital patients.

Bruce was also the Boy Scout troop leader, who assisted 14 young men in earning Eagle Scout badges. Eagle Scout projects dot the landscape of our small town.

Dr. Purdy enhanced the landscape and the lives of the people in Muleshoe.

Three funerals

On three consecutive days, First Baptist Church in Muleshoe held funeral services for beloved members of our church and community. Behind the scenes, dozens of people gave their time, energy and gifts to support these families.

There is a locally owned funeral home with deep roots in the community, offering personalized service and meticulous attention to detail. The staff of the flower shop was sleep-deprived.

Two of our members took care that our grounds were presentable each day. The pianist gave time and effort to meet the requests of each family. The sound and video team was present early to ensure the equipment was ready, livestreamed every service and made sure the unique elements of each service were provided at the right time.

The deacons of First Baptist Church were present and prepared to assist the families and those who attended the service. If the sanctuary was filled, they were prepared to provide additional seating.

The security team was at their post before, during and after each service.

The hospitality committee served two meals to large families. For the third service, the committee provided a dessert reception for more than 300 people. Innumerable members of the church provided food for all three services.

Also, unseen in those days was the custodian who cleaned the sanctuary and fellowship hall four times in one week, the music minister who organized and sorted out the various media requirements for each service, the youth minister and children’s minister who learned to test the video feed, just in case.

Our media manager was paying attention to every detail during each service.

The reality of ministry

When young ministers struggle with a call to serve and the realities of life, we often say things like, “I just want to love Jesus and help people.”

When we say that—at least when I said it—it is a statement of ignorance. We assume loving Jesus and people are easy. I uttered that pseudo-spiritual phrase trying to justify my poor effort in a college algebra class.

The reality of ministry is helping people in the name of Christ requires a great deal of time, energy, organization, commitment and flexibility. It involves stamina.

We all can be grateful for the body of Christ that rallies with great effort and energy to give witness to the gospel in acts of kindness and respect.

Stacy Conner is pastor of First Baptist Church in Muleshoe. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

Violence is one of those features of the world we no longer recognize so much as simply live with. School shootings, international wars, political killings and suicides now are just background noise to the daily hum. The wars and rumors of wars barely register notice.

But let us suppose violence is not a blessed feature of the world, not part of what God intends for creation.

If we begin from this very bland presumption, a lot of things we assume as necessities for creation come into sharp relief. Instead of being background noise, they become signs of contradiction to God and offenses to the life in which the people of God are intended to share.

This is complicated further by the paucity of Baptist thought on the matter beyond the occasional appeal to Romans 13: Because governmental entities commend violence, it must be commendable.

Much needs to be done to remedy this situation, particularly in a violent world like ours. But even the best education on this question cannot forget questions of violence are, for the Christian, matters of theology as much as they are social policy.

This brings us to this week’s comments by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Warfighting words

Speaking to a room full of top military officials this week, Hegseth laid out an agenda for America’s military future, one departing sharply in dramatic ways from the last 75 years. As with any speech, much of the text of his was for the people in the room, filled with marching orders and new directives to modernize America as a warmaking country.

For context, the years since the Second World War have been ones of ascendant international laws of war, rules that exist to moderate and mitigate violence, even if many of them are openly violated.

In his comments, Hegseth addressed issues of combat readiness, and took issue with past policies of promotion, religious accommodation and gender identity. To the outside observer, it could be simply a laundry list of procedural changes.

But within the speech is a distinctly different vision of how this new age of war is to be fought:

“We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”

For Hegseth, this is precisely because the people in the room represented a kind of people who he at one point called “created in God’s image,” but later refers to as those who “kill people and break things for a living. You are not politically correct and don’t necessarily belong always in polite society.”

It is easy, in appealing to a text like Romans 13, to simply say the government is able to do as it wishes and to walk past these sentiments. But let us look again: These statements allow us, as Christians, to see what is behind the curtain in the otherwise mundane list of orders for top military officials.

The operating assumption behind turning America’s attention away from peacekeeping and restraint and moving toward a focus on lethality is the people doing the killing are just those kind of people already. They are, for Hegseth, loving children of God created to kill and destroy.

Demonic nature of war

In his fifth-century masterpiece, The City of God, the church father Augustine described the Roman army as those whose “peace will not be everlasting” and stated “the earthly city is generally divided against itself by litigation, by wars, by battles, by the pursuit of victories that bring death with them or at best are doomed to death.”

His description of Rome throughout the book is one of an empire that wages unbridled wars, drunk on the worship of the goddesses Injustice and Victory.

Baptists are not quick to speak about angels and demons, but it is with good reason we ought to, particularly when it comes to violence. For if the final enemy—of both God and creation—is death (1 Corinthians 15:26), then what are demons but those entities that justify death, celebrate the destruction of life and encourage humans to bake death into our very structures of living?

By Augustine’s lights—and by Scripture’s—to promise safety and security through unrestrained violence—through the willing proliferation of death and the dehumanizing even of our own soldiers—is the work not of the wise or the just, but of the demonic.

A different way than war

For the people of God, it is not permitted to think of even our enemies as anything other than those for whom Christ has died.

As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So, from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.”

The “message of reconciliation” Paul invites the Corinthian church into just after this is not reconciliation of the soul alone, but of the whole person. Those Christ has died for are meant to be raised up again, body and spirit.

The Christian just war tradition—thrown out in the trash in Hegseth’s comments—holds, above all things, war is for the sake of peace, correction must be the intent even if fighting occurs, and war is lamentable and to be mourned. For there is never a case when an enemy is anything other than one for whom Christ has died.

We routinely struggle to name violence not just as a problem for flesh and blood, but of the powers and principalities. We grasp vainly to name it, not just as a lamentable problem for civic life, but as that which the demons celebrate, for it brings more of God’s creation into the grips of Death.

It is time for Christians to shake off the slumber we are accustomed to surrounding violence and to say once again Christians are those bound to working for a better and different peace—with God, with our neighbors and even with our enemies.

Such a calling invites us to a very different kind of preparation, into a very different kind of way.

Myles Werntz is director of Baptist studies at Abilene Christian University. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

Why does a person stay with the pastoral life? How does one endure when it gets really hard?

Most reading this will know the answer: the call of God. But what is it about the call that sustains a pastor in a life most people would abandon?

One of the elusive mysteries of life for many people is they never discover who they truly are and who God created them to be.

If the person actually is called to ministry, that mystery is settled when she accepts God’s claim on her life to serve as a pastor. When he says, “Here am I,” he begins to live with a uniquely clarified identity.

God’s claim leads one to bypass vocational options in disregard of fanciful imaginings of an ideal life. You are seized at the depths of your being and drawn into the very center of God’s work on earth.

Your life is bound to his mission. You can do nothing else. As you give in to this call, any ambiguities about the purpose of your life fade into the distance.

When my call was made clear

How does one sense such a singular and profound awakening to one’s true self?

For me, it was one word from God: “You!”

I had started school at a local community college not knowing what to do with my life. It was one of those springs when friends were dying in an unpopular war, the culture and nation were in chaos, leaders were being assassinated, and buildings on college campuses were being blown up.

I was deeply disturbed by a world gone wrong and entered a season of questioning, lament and prayer.

One day, I drove to my favorite prayer spot by the ocean and, in a moment of audacity, began to tell God someone needed to do something to keep our world from coming apart.

Right then, God called me.

It was less than a whisper, but I heard God say, “You!”

God’s claim on me went to the depth of every fiber of my being with that grasp I already knew would not let me go. But at that moment, it was like that double-grasp letting me know neither would he let me off.

I looked down at the New Testament I was holding in my hands and instantly realized I was called to preach and serve as a pastor.

Not always immediately clear

I am aware the awakening to how to live out a vocation is not always sudden and instantly clear for all. In fact, it now seems fairly common for God to lead his servants through a process. But for those led by God to be pastors, that tenacious and unyielding grasp is all-encompassing of every part of who we are.

When the call came upon me, it came with an enveloping peace. There was a rightness about it and a singularity of purpose that left for me no desired alternative. When I sensed that “You!” and surrendered my life, I instantly was enlisted into the royal pastoral office of our Lord Jesus Christ to preach his gospel and serve his body, the church—the local church.

God’s call sustains

Most candidates for the pastoral life are challenged by other pastors to pursue any alternative life or calling if they can. No pastoral candidate at the threshold of ministry or in the early days possibly could know what lies ahead.

From my own observation and anecdotal research, I can tell you only the called survive in the pastoral life.

Many superb men and women have stepped aside from the pastoral life for a season to preserve mental and physical health or pursue the calling in another way. For most, the call remains, and they continue to serve faithfully in ministries complementary to and flowing out of local churches.

Every veteran I know of the challenges and heartaches of pastoral ministry, the chaos and the battles, will tell you the call of God sustained them. No pastor can endure the immense stresses of the pastoral life unless they are seized at the depths.

The ordinary challenges alone can be barely survivable. Add the complex pathologies of human systems, compounded by the forces of evil, and it is just too much.

A hard yet magnificent calling

In my 18 years of teaching in a theological seminary following 30 years of pastoral ministry, I pondered and agonized about how much to share with younger pastors. I usually took the edge off such conversations and stories. I still wonder if that was what I should have done.

Too many already cross the threshold into ministry skeptical and averse to the pastoral life, because they have seen and heard too much in the church.

Early on, I dove deeply into the pastoral life and was jostled immediately by human pathologies and evil forces that threw me on my knees. Many nights I wondered what strange land I had entered and how I could journey on.

Always … always … for me at least, I sensed deeply and profoundly the grasp of God upon my life. I would not trade any life in this world for that.

I know my purpose and who holds me in it and for it. That is probably why I have taken some of the edge off when I talk to younger pastors. You have to be grasped deeply and forged in steel-like resolve to make it, and God does that work individually, uniquely and day-by-day.

The pastoral life is magnificent, but it is hard. Only the grasp of God upon your life will keep you in it. But no life is more meaningful and none more personally fulfilling. I have more on that in future reflections.

Ron Cook is retired from the faculty of Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University. He also served as pastor and interim pastor in several churches. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

This is the fourth and final article in a series focused on what Baptists can learn from the Wesleyan tradition.

Growing up as a Texas Baptist at First Baptist churches in Wichita Falls, Meridian and Waco, I knew nothing about John or Charles Wesley in general and next to nothing about Wesleyan, particularly Methodist, Christians and churches.

Over my childhood and teenage years, I occasionally would hear the need for us to “beat the Methodists to lunch at the cafeteria” after church, or an affirming description of a local Methodist minister as “Metho-Baptist.”

Beyond noting Methodists were seemingly as widespread as Baptists in my neck of the woods, however, I was woefully ignorant.

Much to my chagrin and shame, I carried an overall ignorance of Wesleyan/Methodist life and theology through university, seminary and my early professional life. Be it a lack of curiosity or being preoccupied with other matters, I was blissfully uninformed.

To be fair to myself, I had picked up a few tidbits along the way, such as:

1. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, was a tireless evangelist.
2. John’s brother, Charles, could write a hymn with the best of them.
3. United Methodists and Texas Baptists differed to some extent in theology and practice, most visibly in baptism and in the placement of pastors, including female ministers. I was also aware of differences related to communion and sanctification.

Blessings of relationships

When I came to Truett Seminary in the early 2000s, however, my awareness would begin to change over time, largely through relationships I was blessed to develop with Methodist friends.

Some of them are well known, at least in Wesleyan circles, including Ben Witherington, Steve Moore, Ryan Barnett, Leah Hidde-Gregory, L. Gregory Jones, Lacye Warner, Robert Beckham, David Watson, Kevin Watson, Sandy Richter and William “Billy” Abraham, among a number of others.

It was primarily through the rekindling of a long-lost childhood friendship with Rusty Freeman, who lived on the same street in Wichita Falls and whose older sister I had a fourth-grade crush on that was not reciprocal.

Rusty eventually would be one of the leaders in the launch of the Wesley House of Studies at Truett Seminary in the summer of 2020, helping my still-nascent knowledge of Wesleyan thought, life and practice begin to grow.

Both Jason Vickers and Scott Jones teach in Truett’s Wesley House of Studies, whose mustard seed beginnings now enrolls more than 100 degree-seeking students and more than 150 certificate program students.

I doubt I would be able to ace one of Vickers’ exams in Wesleyan theology or breeze through Jones’ class on Wesleyan history, liturgy and polity. However, through countless hours of conversation, careful observation, frequent participation in worship and some instruction, there are a few things I have found to be outstanding regarding the Wesleyan way.

A growing appreciation

1. I have been impressed and encouraged by the Truett Wesleyans’ commitment to community.

Week by week they gather for prayer and communion, and not a few participate in weekly “band meetings” or covenant/accountability groups. Such disciplines are related in no small measure to their concern for sanctification. While I never get the impression they think more highly of themselves than they ought, they are demonstrably concerned about personal and communal holiness.

2. If for Wesleyans a commitment to community is conjoined to a desire to be sanctified through and through (1 Thessalonians 5:23), vital piety is linked to a quest for spiritual knowledge and an emphasis upon the importance of biblical/theological education.

To be sure, anti-intellectualism exists in Wesleyan circles, as it does in Baptist ones. Yet, at least among the Wesleyans with whom I am most familiar and most connected, the admonition of Charles Wesley continues to ring true: “Let us unite the two so long divided, knowledge and vital piety.”

3. Additionally, I have been impressed and encouraged by the global vision and concern for evangelism among the Wesleyans I know and with whom I work most closely.

In one of his journal entries, John Wesley famously wrote:

“I look upon all the world as my parish; thus far I mean, that, in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation.

“This is the work which I know God has called me to; and sure I am that his blessing attends it. Great encouragement have I, therefore, to be faithful in fulfilling the work he hath given me to do.

“His servant I am, and, as such, am employed according to the plain direction of his word, ‘As I have opportunity, doing good unto all men’; and his providence clearly concurs with his word; which has disengaged me from all things else, that I might singly attend on this very thing, ‘and go about doing good.’

4. Finally, and importantly, my Wesleyan friends have a passion for and confidence in the gospel, its proclamation and its impact for time and eternity that I have found to be compelling and contagious.

Once again, John Wesley, whose heart had been “strangely warmed,” memorably articulates such a commitment in a letter he wrote at the age of 87 to one Alexander Mather.

Wesley writes: “Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen, such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven upon earth.”

Appreciative and still Baptist

All of this should not be construed as my saying I cross every theological “t” and dot every theological “i” where my Wesleyan/Methodist friends do (and vice versa).

I can say unequivocally, however, my life as a Baptist Christ-follower and theological scholar/educator/administrator has been enriched immeasurably by those people called Methodist, and I count many of them to be among my closest friends in the faith “delivered once for all to the saints” (Jude 3).

Todd Still is DeLancey Dean and Hinson Chair of Christian Scriptures at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this article are the responsibility of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Baptist Standard.

Editor’s Note: This is the third article in a series focused on what Baptists can learn from the Wesleyan tradition.

I came to Asbury Theological Seminary with a Baptist background and an Arminian theological orientation shaped by my upbringing as a Texas Baptist.

I had long valued the Baptist emphasis on Scripture, personal conversion and congregational life. But I hadn’t yet grasped how deeply the Christian life could be shaped by the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit and sustained through consistent spiritual practices.

In the Wesleyan tradition, I’ve encountered a vision of sanctification—being made holy—that doesn’t end at the altar call but extends into every corner of life.

At the center of this vision is a dynamic understanding of grace and a deep openness to the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. Wesleyans, like Baptists, affirm salvation by grace through faith alone. But they also emphasize that God doesn’t stop working once a person is justified. God continues shaping believers through what John Wesley called the “means of grace,” practices like Scripture reading, prayer, communion, fasting and Christian fellowship.

These aren’t works we perform to earn God’s favor; they are time-tested channels through which God pours out his transforming presence.

A holy expectancy

This idea hit home for me when I realized how often Baptists, me included, emphasize spiritual disciplines but tend to frame them mostly as duties, important, yes, but often grounded in obligation or gratitude rather than expectancy. We encourage Bible reading and prayer, but sometimes without the deep theological assumption that God will meet us in those moments—not just to inform, but to transform.

Wesley’s understanding of the means of grace helped me recover a sense of holy expectancy. Scripture became not just instruction, but encounter. Prayer became more than petition, it became participation in God’s renewing work. And the Lord’s Supper became not only a memorial but a real means through which Christ strengthens and sanctifies his people.

Wesleyan theology insists the means of grace are experienced both personally and communally. We meet God in solitude, but also through gathered worship, mutual confession and shared burdens. Fasting and intercession have their private place, but grace is never purely individual; it flows through the body of Christ.

The means of grace create a sacred rhythm, drawing us back again and again to the places where God promises to be present. They remind us that sanctification isn’t self-improvement, but surrender. Not isolation, but communion.

The ongoing work of the Spirit

Wesleyans speak boldly and expectantly about the Holy Spirit, not just in the New Testament, but here and now. In many Baptist settings, certainly in my own experience, the Spirit is affirmed in doctrine but not always emphasized in discipleship.

We believe the Spirit inspired Scripture, regenerates the heart and seals salvation. Yet we often grow cautious, even silent about the Spirit’s ongoing work of shaping us, empowering us and guiding us into deeper obedience.

Wesleyan spirituality places the Spirit front and center—not as a background presence, but as the active agent of transformation: assuring salvation, convicting of sin, gifting for mission and forming Christ within us. And the Spirit doesn’t move only in private. The Spirit inhabits worship, small groups, accountability bands and the vulnerable grace of confession. The Spirit calls the church, not just individuals, into deeper holiness.

Wesley even dared to speak of something he called “entire sanctification,” a term that can sound foreign, even suspect, to Baptist ears. But if we push past the label, the idea itself is deeply scriptural and compelling: that God doesn’t merely forgive us but can also set us free. Free from the grip and rule of sin. Free to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Free to love our neighbor not just in word but in action.

Wesley believed that through the ongoing work of the Spirit, believers could be so filled with God’s love that it governed their motives, their habits and their relationships. This was not a call to spiritual perfectionism, but to perfect love, a life wholly yielded to God.

The Spirit-empowered life

Do all Wesleyans believe in a single, instantaneous experience of entire sanctification? No. There’s a range of perspectives, just as there is among Baptists about spiritual growth and maturity.

What the Wesleyan tradition offers is a hopeful insistence that grace doesn’t stop at justification. Salvation is not only about pardon, but also about healing. Grace doesn’t merely cover sin; it restores what sin has broken.

Holiness, in this light, isn’t a burdensome list of rules or a badge of honor, it’s the fruit of divine love poured into the heart by the Holy Spirit. And that’s something all of us, Wesleyans, Baptists and every follower of Christ, can long for with joy and hope.

I now serve at a multi-denominational, evangelical seminary rooted in the Wesleyan tradition, Asbury Theological Seminary, but I haven’t left behind my Baptist roots. If anything, I’ve found them enriched.

I still long for revival. I still treasure baptism. I still believe the church should be a community of disciples on mission. But I’ve learned to see the Christian life not only as something to believe in or strive toward, but as something God empowers us to live through grace.

Baptists don’t need to become Wesleyans to benefit from these emphases. But in a time when many, especially younger Christians, are longing for depth, healing and hope, I believe we’d do well to recover a Spirit-filled vision of transformation.

According to a recent Pew Research report, the decline of Christianity in the United States may have slowed or even leveled off, but younger adults remain significantly less likely to attend church, pray regularly or say religion is very important in their lives.

This moment calls not just for better messaging, but for a deeper reality. People aren’t looking for performance, they’re looking for power. And the Wesleyan tradition reminds us that God isn’t finished with us yet.

He’s not just calling us to believe, but to become. And God has given us everything we need to grow: his Spirit, his people and his means of grace.

 Matthew Barnes serves as vice president of student life and formation at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is a former Baptist pastor and currently is pursuing ordination in the Global Methodist Church. The views expressed in this article are the responsibility of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Baptist Standard.

Editor’s Note: This is the second article in a series focused on what Baptists can learn from the Wesleyan tradition.

When I first arrived to teach theology at Truett Seminary, I became friends with an administrator who happened to be Methodist. After a few years, he was let go by the university. He told me some of the leaders of the university, presumably regents, objected to having a Methodist administrator.

The times have changed. Now the university has Methodist regents. And the seminary has a Wesleyan House of Studies. I applaud those changes. However, many Baptists still harbor prejudices against Methodists and non-Methodist Wesleyans. I hope to help them reconsider those prejudices.

I have never been a Methodist or a Wesleyan, but I have been enriched by the Wesleyan tradition. “Wesleyan” refers to any form of Christian life descended from evangelist John Wesley, founder of the Methodist tradition. “Methodist” refers to specific denominations in the Wesleyan tradition.

Not all Wesleyans are Methodists. For example, the Church of the Nazarene is Wesleyan but not Methodist. My grandparents, great-grandparents and many of my aunts and uncles were members of the Church of God, a non-Methodist but Wesleyan denomination.

Wesleyans who remain true to Wesley’s teachings have three main beliefs and practices that I, as a Baptist theologian, appreciate even if I do not fully embrace them. Such Wesleyans can be found in the United Methodist Church, the Global Methodist Church and the so-called “holiness” churches such as the Church of the Nazarene and the Church of God.

Perfected in love

First, I appreciate Wesleyans’ emphasis on the holiness of life. John Wesley wrote a little book titled A Plain Account of Christian Perfection in which he described a Christian existence “perfected in love.”

He denied sinless perfection but promoted a Christian life where the person’s heart is perfected in love with his or her motives always pure. This, he believed, is a work of the Holy Spirit and not a human achievement.

A person perfected in love loves God and loves what God loves, meaning all of creation, and never deviates from that. Such a person still will commit sins of omission and needs to repent, but he or she acts only out of love.

This is more than merely forgiven; it is forgiven and transformed. I believe many Baptists can be challenged by this Wesleyan belief.

Congregational connectionalism

Second, Wesleyans emphasize congregational connectionalism. It’s a big word that means individual congregations cooperating with each other and even being accountable to each other.

Connectionalism is worked out differently in different Wesleyan denominations, but it always means something more than congregational autonomy. Some Baptists have taken church autonomy to an extreme where the individual congregation has no real connection with sister congregations in the same conference or convention.

Wesley himself believed in a semi-episcopal form of church government with bishops. The UMC has bishops who have some authority and even power. For example, they appoint elders (pastors) to churches and they can remove them as well.

Other Wesleyan denominations experience church connectionalism differently. Some have bishops who serve not with authority but with guidance. Some have no bishops. In some, the individual congregation can freely withdraw from the denomination, taking their property with them. For the latter, connectionalism means a strong fraternity with other congregations.

I believe that many Baptists could benefit from modifying the “autonomy of the local congregation” to “fraternity among the local congregations.”

Wesleyan Quadrilateral

Third, Wesleyans have traditionally held to a four-sided model of theology where four sources and norms determine what is to be believed and taught. One Wesleyan scholar called this the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.”

Wesley himself did not lay it out in explicit detail, but he used it anyway. It is discernible as Wesley’s theological method.

I believe many Baptists can benefit from learning about the Wesleyan Quadrilateral and following it in considering and reconsidering Christian doctrines and teachings.

The Quadrilateral has four “sides,” four sources and norms. Theology is, in a sense, a conversation among them. They are Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.

Many Baptists think it is possible and even desirable to go by “Scripture alone” (sola scriptura). However, there are times in Christian life and thought when Scripture does not clearly answer a question that needs to be answered. That is when tradition comes into play.

In any theological, doctrinal or ethical decision, tradition gets a vote even if not a veto over Scripture. Scripture gets the final say, but tradition, the great tradition of Christian belief, ought to be studied and taken seriously as a secondary authority. That includes, for example, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Definition, the consensus of the church fathers and reformers and for American Baptists, for example, the New Hampshire Confession of Faith.

What about reason and experience? Wesley was, to use the phrase of one of his biographers, a “reasonable enthusiast.” Enthusiast means passionate believer devoted to Jesus Christ and the gospel.

In earlier times it was an epithet for Christians considered fanatical. But Wesley was a reasonable fanatic. He used reason as a tool for interpreting the Bible. So should Baptists and all Christians. Here, for Wesley and for me, reason simply refers to logic, the basic rules of logical thought and discourse such as non-contradiction.

What about experience? For Wesley, and for me, and I hope for all Baptists, experience of Jesus Christ and guidance by the Holy Spirit, under the authority of Scripture, can focus attention on matters of Christian belief and practice too long ignored or forgotten. For example, the experiences of African American Christians in America helped bring to Christians of all races and denominations a greater understanding of the dignity of every human being.

The Quadrilateral is not an equilateral. Scripture has primacy, but tradition, reason and experience can help interpret Scripture and answer questions Scripture does not answer.

These three typically, not uniquely, Wesleyan ideas enrich my understanding of the Christian faith and I recommend them for deep consideration to all Baptists and others.

Roger E. Olson is Emeritus Professor of Christian Theology at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this article are the responsibility of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Baptist Standard.

In a seminary classroom, we were studying theological anthropology when our professor shared a familiar list: courage, maturity, bravery, wisdom—traits drawn from an article by Albert Mohler president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, to describe “biblical manhood.”

The list seemed admirable. But then the professor asked, “What’s wrong with this description?”

A female student offered a reply that opened my mind forever: “Why wouldn’t you want women to have these qualities?”

That question pierced through centuries of assumptions, not about biology, but about the social scripts we’ve confused with Scripture. Does the Bible really define “biblical manhood and womanhood” the way modern Christians do?

Clarifying the conversation

Scripture affirms that God created humankind as male and female (Genesis 1:27). However, terms like manhood and womanhood often extend beyond biology to encompass personality traits, cultural norms and vocational expectations. And that’s where things get murky.

Gender, as the way we express our biological sex within our cultural context, varies across history and geography. What’s considered masculine in one culture, like avoiding the color pink or wearing cargo shorts, might be feminine in another.

A man wearing a kilt in Scotland or growing long hair in ancient Israel wasn’t any less masculine. So, what are we really defending when we talk about “biblical” manhood or womanhood?

I grew up without a father. He struggled with addiction and violence, spending much of his life in and out of jail. His absence left a void. While other kids had someone to sit with at Dads and Donuts events in kindergarten, there I was sitting alone.

While my friends had an onsite masculine model, it was my mother who taught me how to mow the lawn and play catch. I learned to work hard by watching her.

She never taught me how to fix a car or grill the perfect steak. But she taught me something far better: that real strength is found in empathy, that courage often looks like quiet listening and that kindness, especially to those who don’t deserve it, isn’t weakness but witness. Her life, marked by grace and grit, shaped me more than any caricature of masculinity ever could.

That’s why I’ve never understood sexism. Gender roles didn’t define the strongest person I knew growing up, she simply lived faithfully.

Questionable blueprints

Maybe that’s why I still carry hesitation toward men’s ministries built around stereotypical masculinity. I recall attending a breakout session at church camp when I was 11 or 12 years old. The speaker said, “Men need to step up or women will take over the church, and it won’t survive.” That wasn’t a call to godly leadership. That was a call rooted in fear.

Then came the “Wild at Heart” camping trip, inspired by John Eldredge’s book. We were told to box each other and then watched three baby pigs get shot in the head so we could eat them because that, apparently, made us men.

Those moments didn’t awaken courage. They bred confusion.

Even now, I hesitate when I hear about men’s Bible studies that center around grilling, skeet shooting or “beast feasts.” Why do men and women need to study different topics, as if we’re reading different Bibles? Isn’t our shared goal to be formed into the image of Christ?

Jesus doesn’t match the macho, tough-guy exterior that often passes for masculinity today. He didn’t pretend to be invincible. He came to serve.

Philippians 2 tells us he didn’t exploit his equality with God, but emptied himself. He wept at funerals. He ate with outcasts. He healed those society deemed unworthy and included the marginalized.

Jesus painted a picture of a kingdom society in the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers,” he said. How did we stray so far from heavenly ideals?

When Stereotypes Harm

Church leaders often say being a man means knowing how to fix things or exude dominance. I didn’t fit that mold. The jokes about “losing my man card” weren’t funny. They reinforced the idea that I wasn’t enough. But when I examine Scripture, I see something far different.

Women like Deborah, Phoebe, Priscilla and Mary were bold, wise and generous leaders in God’s redemptive story. Luke tells us that women financially supported Jesus’ ministry from their own means (Luke 8:3), not their husbands’. That challenges the notion that provision and leadership are inherently masculine traits.

The truth is, men and women need each other. In Genesis 2, God says, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” But Adam had God. So why wasn’t that enough? Because man alone didn’t fully reflect the image of God.

God, in his wisdom, created woman, not as an assistant, but as a counterpart. The Hebrew word ezer, often translated “helper,” is frequently used to describe God himself (e.g., Psalm 121:1–2). It’s a military term implying strength, rescue and partnership. It doesn’t suggest subordination—but rather that man and woman together image God in a way neither can do alone.

Rethinking Our Go-To Passages

Passages like Proverbs 31 are often framed as the pinnacle of biblical womanhood. However, we forget that a proverbial saying is not necessarily a prescription. The biblical author describes a mother’s dream for her son’s future wife, one who leads businesses, manages a household and earns the respect of her husband and the broader community.

Instead of turning a proverb into a checklist, perhaps we men might ask, “Am I a Proverbs 31 husband?” “Do I rise to bless the women around me?” “Do I honor their strength and dignity?”

Some turn to 1 Corinthians 16:13, “act like men,” as a biblical call to masculinity. But the Greek word andrizomai simply means “be courageous.” Most modern translations, such as the NIV, CSB, and NLT, reflect this. This isn’t about gender, it’s about character.

And while men were often the dominant audience in the first century, Paul’s letters weren’t written only for them. As John Dyer’s Y’all Version helpfully notes, many of Paul’s commands are plural. They’re meant for all believers.

What God Actually Wants

If we let Jesus define true humanity, we discover something far more beautiful than Western constructs of gender. He didn’t come to reinforce cultural roles. He came to transform us into his image.

Romans 8:29 says we’re being “conformed to the image of his son.” That’s our purpose—not to be “real men” or “true women,” but to be more like Christ. And the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control—are not gendered (Galatians 5:22–23). Neither are the gifts of the Spirit.

When we force people into rigid gender scripts, we risk pushing them away from Christ rather than toward him.

A boy who loves dance more than sports may wonder if he’s truly a man. A girl who feels a desire to lead may feel out of place in the church. Scripture didn’t create these identity crises; we created them.

Rather than asking, “Am I living up to biblical manhood or womanhood?” let’s ask: “Am I faithfully following Jesus?” “Am I growing in love?” “Am I serving the church?” “Am I becoming more like Christ?”

In a world confused about gender, the church has an opportunity to return to the clarity of Christlikeness. One path leads to stereotypes and exclusion. The other leads to spiritual transformation.

The question isn’t whether we meet society’s vision of manhood or womanhood. The question is: Are we becoming more like Jesus?

Because if we are, that’s not biblical manhood or womanhood. That’s biblical discipleship.

Taylor Standridge is a Christian podcaster and producer who loves to help people understand who God is and how to live faithfully according to his goodness, grace and generosity. His writing has been featured in Peer Magazine, Christ and Pop Culture, RELEVANT Magazine and NextStep Disciple. He holds a Master of Biblical and Theological Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.