Southern Baptist Convention

A Little Bit about Being a Baptist

On June 11-12, messengers from Southern Baptist churches across our country will gather for the annual business meeting of the largest evangelical denomination in the United States. Being Southern Baptist is a part of my heritage. I grew up in the home of a Southern Baptist pastor, went to Southern Baptist schools for my education, and pastor a Southern Baptist Church.

We are far from perfect as a denomination, and I expect that the annual meeting will result in a fair amount of politics and controversies. Being millions of member strong and 50,000 churches, doctrinal and practical diversity are part of what it means to be Southern Baptist. Here are a few general observations about our denomination.

We believe in the gospel and the authority of Scripture. Decades ago grassroots Baptists anchored the denomination on the inerrancy and inspiration of Scripture. This doctrinal and political battle waged on the floors of annual meetings in the 1980s, and the result has been that Southern Baptists retain a high view of the authority of Scripture which undergirds the gospel that saves.

Missions is the reason we cooperate. The reason we give, gather, and go is for the spread of the gospel to the nations. The cooperative program has been around nearly 100 years and combines giving from churches across the US to support missions across the globe. When giving from thousands of churches is combined, missionaries can go to the nations with the gospel and not have to fundraise for their income. While we don’t always agree on everything (see below), we do agree that cooperation for the spread of the gospel is the primary reason we exist.

Church autonomy and doctrinal latitude have resulted in Southern Baptists being a big tent. At the annual meeting, messengers gather from cooperative churches for two days. The convention is only for two days with messengers making up the decision-making body of the denomination. In Southern Baptist life, there is no church hierarchy or governing body that decides for the convention messengers. If you’ve ever been to a church business meeting, the SBC annual meeting functions similarly. This means that votes will happen about business (budgets and denominational entities), leadership, and even theological issues when we gather next week. The messengers attending, the votes cast, and the decisions made will vary. Church autonomy means that each local Southern Baptist Congregation is responsible for governing itself and decides whether or not it will cooperate with the convention. The convention can separate its cooperation from churches whose practice or doctrine does not function within the parameters of the Baptist Faith and Message. Some of the decisions at this year’s annual meeting reflect these tensions. For example, the messengers will vote on an amendment to the denomination’s bylaws establishing who is eligible to pastor Southern Baptist churches and remain cooperative within the denomination. Positions on this issue vary even though the prevailing doctrinal position of Southern Baptists has a strong consensus that the role of pastor/elder is reserved for qualified males. Even so, how this doctrinal consensus will be applied at the denominational level has a variety of perspectives and will receive attention at the upcoming meeting.

If you are reading this as a member of a Southern Baptist church, like Wilkesboro Baptist, I would encourage you to pray for the upcoming annual meeting. Pray that Christ would be honored when we gather and as we interact with one another. Pray that messengers and guests would act in a Christlike manner toward each other. Pray that the decisions made, the budgets passed, and the missionaries commissioned will help to spread the gospel to our neighbors and the nations.

If you would like to learn more about Southern Baptists, here are a few links to follow.

Photo by Joshua Rodriguez on Unsplash

Word of the Week: Sufficiency

For this week’s word, sufficiency, we remain under the doctrine of Scripture. Scripture is inspired, inerrant, sufficient, and clear. As such it is authoritative for Christian life and practice. (Clarity and authority are topics in forthcoming posts).

The sufficiency of Scripture means that in whatever God intends to communicate to us regarding himself, mankind, life, faith, and salvation, it is sufficient for those things.

The Bible is complete for the purpose for which it is given.

Robert Letham, Systematic Theology, 200.

At the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, convention messengers passed resolution 2 “ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE FOR RACE AND RACIAL RECONCILIATION.” You can read more about it in the Tuesday bulletin page 7, from last week’s annual meeting. SBC Annual Meeting resolutions represent the beliefs and affirmations of a specific convention meeting. While they are not binding or necessarily actionable by the messengers of the annual meeting or the entities, they are important as theological affirmations. If you would like a little more detail on the meeting, listen to the special episode of the Thursday Show podcast that aired last week or read my reflection post.

What does it mean that the Bible is sufficient for race and racial reconciliation? In short, it means that the Bible addresses a sufficient anthropology (who we are as humans), promotes an adequate view of ethnicity (how we interact with various ethnicities inside the one human race), and applies the appropriate solution to racial tensions and the need for gospel-centered reconciliation (how the gospel answers racism). You can read one of my posts from last year on this subject. While our nation is at odds politically and in conflict racially with regard to Critical Race Theory, it is important to note that the solutions to these tensions are not in the future waiting to be found. The solutions to these tensions are not in cultural marxism, hatred, anger, politics, division, or punitive actions. The solutions to these tensions have been revealed to us in the pages of Scripture with regard to the reconciliation paid for by the blood of Christ and declared by followers of Jesus.

Below, you will find four statements regarding the sufficiency of Scripture. The first is in the positive and the next three are in the negative. They are aimed at explaining this important doctrine.

The sufficiency of Scripture means that the Bible is complete in everything that God intends to communicate to us. The Bible is enough. God’s revealed Word is sufficient to guide us into truth about God, humankind, sin, and salvation. We do not need another incarnation from Jesus, nor do we need extra revelations. Because we have the Bible, we are able to know truthfully what God intends for us to know.

The sufficiency of Scripture does not mean that the Bible contains all truth. While the Bible is truthful and inerrant in what it intends to teach, it does not provide us exhaustive information about everything. It is helpful here to remember that the biblical affirmations regarding history and science are not in actual conflict with scientific or historical truth. I will admit that the Bible is in conflict with many historical and scientific theories, but not with affirmed historical and scientific truths. It has been said that all truth is God’s truth. And while we hold to the sufficiency of Scripture, this does not mean that the Bible contains all truth about everything. The sufficiency of Scripture asserts that the truth the Bible intends to teach is sufficient for its purpose: the revelation of God, mankind, and salvation.

The sufficiency of Scripture means that we do not need more than the Bible to truly know God. Two errors have arisen in church history connected to the sufficiency of Scripture: mysticism and traditionalism. Mysticism is the idea that we need extra revelations from God in order to fully or rightly follow him. Ancient Gnosticism fell into this trap. In contemporary Christianity, some versions of the charismatic movement lean into this error with the claims of revelations added to Scripture by apostolic teachers. Traditionalism is the error of equating church authority or creeds with the authority of Scripture. Roman Catholicism is guilty of this error by equating tradition with Scripture. Practically, contemporary fundamentalism follows a similar path to the Pharisees in the New Testament. Whenever one adds to the Law (the extra laws the Pharisees added in the first century) or whenever one adds legalistic demands to Christian practice, one is in danger of falling into the error of traditionalism.

The sufficiency of Scripture does not negate the need for the the Holy Spirit in biblical interpretation. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit as our guide into truth (John 16:13). Within biblical theology and scriptural interpretation, many issues are discussed and debated. This reality does not undercut the sufficiency of Scripture. Rather, it reminds us of the need to humbly interpret Scripture and seek the help of the Holy Spirit in our interpretations.

One of the greatest benefits of the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture is that it points to the powerful nature of the Word of God.

The grass withers, the flower fades
    when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
    surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
    but the word of our God will stand forever.

Isaiah 40:7-8

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:10-11

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 

Hebrews 4:12

The Word of God stands forever, accomplishes God’s purposes and is powerful to look into our hearts and introduce us to God.

We’ll close with a quote from Princeton theologian, B. B. Warfield, of the late nineteenth century who emphasized the sufficiency and power of Scripture in our lives.

The Bible is more than a rule of faith and practice; it is more than the rule of faith and practice; it is more than a sufficient rule of faith and practice; it is the only rule of faith and practice.

B. B. Warfield, quoted by Robert Letham in Systematic Theology, 203.