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“How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity”

King David

I recently read an article by the retired director of the Columbia SC Baptist Association lamenting that Baptist Associations are receiving less support from churches. While I don’t know the state of associations in South Carolina, it made me appreciative that here in Central Texas our area Bluebonnet Baptist Association is alive and well. Our church, then called Seguin Baptist Church, is a charter member from the Association’s beginning in 1858. I was a new young pastor back in 1984 when the then forty-one churches in the Association voted to hire our first full-time Director. We are now on our third Associational Director and I have counted all as friends. Our church consistently ranks among the top three (currently second) in financial contributions to the Association, and I currently serve on the Association’s Executive Committee and have in the past served multiple times as the associational Moderator.

Over the years it is true we have lost a few churches. In 2001, Cranes Mill Baptist Church withdrew on the grounds that they didn’t agree with the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message Doctrinal Statement which the Association had adopted. The following year, Trinity Baptist Church in Seguin stopped support for the Association as their pastor began questioning the need for Jesus for salvation. And along the way Lockhart First Baptist Church moved to the Austin Baptist Association, though this year the requested to rejoin the Bluebonnet Baptist Association. But the few losses have been more than made up for by new churches joining our Association, all of which affirm Biblical doctrines as outlined in the Baptist Faith and Message. Today, a third of the churches in our Association are church plants which have now matured into churches, bringing our total to 62 churches.

One major change over the past forty years of our Association is the use of the word “Baptist,” or lack of it, in the names of the member churches. Back in 1984, there was not a single church in the Association which did not have the word “Baptist” in its name. Today our Associational Director attends a church which does not have the word “Baptist” in its name. Our previous Associational Director attends a church which does not have the word “Baptist” in its name. And this extends to our state and national conventions. The Executive Director of the Southern Baptists of Texas State Convention attends a church which does not have the word “Baptist” in its name. The state convention’s recent annual training conference was well attended with around 2,000 people; they met at Sagemont (formerly Baptist) Church in Houston. This year’s annual meeting of the state convention will be held in November at Cross City Church (formerly First Baptist Church) in Euless. Two of the past three presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention pastor churches which lack the word “Baptist” in their names.

But the most noteworthy statistic is the percentage of people in our Bluebonnet Baptist Association who attend a worship service on an average Sunday in a church which lacks the word “Baptist” in its name. Sixty percent. Let that sink in for a minute. The average combined worship attendance throughout our Baptist Association is 12,574 people, and of that total, 7,544 people are attending churches which lack the word “Baptist” in their names. These churches are active contributing members of our Baptist Association and of the Southern Baptist Convention. (Note: I omitted Oakwood Church in New Braunfels from the count as they are members of both the Bluebonnet and San Antonio Associations; if Oakwood’s attendance is included the percentage goes up to 69% who attend churches without “Baptist” in their names.)

So to answer the question, yes, a church can be Baptist without the word Baptist in its name. If that were not the case, our local Bluebonnet Baptist Association would lose most of its attendance.

The old wisdom born out of the west was forsaken. Kings made tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons.

Gandolf the Grey

Minas Tirith

As they approach the city of Minas Tirith in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the wizard Gandolf explains to the hobbit Pippin how the once great kingdom of Gondor grew weak and came to be under the care of a steward.  The decline occurred when the latter kings were more concerned with preserving past glory than with preparing for future battles; they “counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons.”   I’ve often thought of that line from (the extended version of) the movie when examining my own ministry.  And it has always made me think of the final years of two contrasting leaders in the Old Testament.

Hezekiah

Hezekiah was coronated at the age of twenty-five, the same age as when I began my first pastorate.  During his early years, Hezekiah turned the nation back to God.  The Bible tells us that “He did right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done” and that “He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him” (II Kings 18:3,5-6).  In the year 701 BC, Assyria (now northern Iraq) destroyed all the towns of Judah except Jerusalem.  Hezekiah prayed with the prophet Isaiah and God brought death to thousands of Assyrian troops, causing their withdrawal in a miraculous defeat.  But in his latter years, Hezekiah became proud of this victory and content to ride out his final years on the riches the Assyrians left behind.  The prophet Isaiah warned that his pride in past accomplishments, rather than pressing on in obedience to God, would lead to the eventual destruction of the kingdom and the captivity of his descendants.  Hezekiah’s response is telling.  “‘The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.’ For he thought, ‘Is it not so, if there will be peace and truth in my days?’” (II Kings 20:19, NASB). How King David must have wept knowing that the kingdom he fought to secure was lost due to Hezekiah being more concerned with living out his final years in comfort than strengthening the city for future generations.

Daniel

As a result of Hezekiah’s attitude, the kingdom grew weak.  In 612 BC, Babylon (southern Iraq) invaded and took some teenage boys, including Daniel, back to Iraq as captives, and in 587 BC Iraq returned and destroyed Jerusalem.  Daniel, as Hezekiah before him, served God faithfully as a young man, rising to a position of prominence in the Iraqi government.  But contrary to Hezekiah, he remained faithful until the end.  In the year 539 BC, Daniel was nearing ninety when the king issued a decree declaring no one could pray to anyone except the king for thirty days or they would be thrown into a pit of lions.  The easy course would have been for Daniel to go home, close his shutters, pray in private, and live out his final years in peace.  But instead “When Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem); and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously” (Daniel 6:9, NASB).  Daniel had determined to follow God regardless of the consequences.  His greatest vision of the future came after the lion’s pit.

My Life Verses

My first week as a believer, at the age of fifteen, I read through the New Testament and latched onto one passage which has guided my life since.  In the third chapter of Philippians, Paul says “one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  Now that I am in the latter half of my ministry, I want to one day say with Paul “I have run the good race, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course.”  I want to model my later years after Daniel and be faithful to the end.

Is there something in your family which you feel is a “curse,” something you wish had never happened?  God can change curses into blessings.  We find a reference to this in the last chapter of Nehemiah.  Born and raised a Jew in Iran, Nehemiah traveled to Jerusalem 420 years before Jesus was born.  Israel was a province of Iran and was ruled by Jordanians (Amonites and Moabites as they were known then – the capital of Jordan is still “Amman”).  The Hebrew men were not raising godly children; Nehemiah took three steps to rectify the situation.

First, he threw out Tobiah’s belongings.  Tobiah was a Moabite, not a follower of God, yet the high priest had prepared him a room in the temple for when he visited Jerusalem.  Nehemiah threw Tobiah’s bed, clothes, and other belongings out on the street, cleaned the room, and furnished it with items used for worship.  Tobiah still stores his goods in other people’s homes; does he have items in yours?  Do they hinder you from following God?  Follow Nehemiah’s example and throw them out.

Second, Nehemiah demanded a day be set aside for God.  In Jerusalem, merchants were selling goods on the Sabbath, first fruits and grains, then fish, then all sorts of paraphernalia.  People became too busy with their own family activities to take time for God; in essence they were teaching their children that they were more important than God.  So Nehemiah ordered the gates of the city to be closed and barred prior to the Sabbath and not opened until it passed; merchants were refused entrance.  We live in a day when there are multitudes of activities seeking to push you away from God.  Do you need to, one day a week, shut and bar the gate to keep others from taking the place of worship?

Finally, Nehemiah found some of the Hebrew men married foreign wives or vice-versa, and consequently half of the children couldn’t speak Hebrew, the language of the scriptures.  Distressed and upset, Nehemiah yanked out the beards of some of the guilty men.  He demanded that they teach their children the word of God.  Would your beard be in danger if Nehemiah arrived at your door?  Are you teaching your children the word of God?

Back to the curse and blessing. Nehemiah insisted the Hebrew people (called “Jews” today after the tribe of Judah) separate from the Amonites and Moabites because when the Hebrews had traveled from Egypt to Canaan to begin their country, these others hired a local prophet to curse the Hebrews.  When he began to do so, however, God spoke to him (through a donkey of all things) warning him not to curse the Hebrews, but to bless them, which he did.  God delights in turning curses into blessings.  When Joseph’s brother’s sold him as a slave to travelling merchants (Genesis 37), through God’s blessing Joseph was later able to tell them “you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20).

The greatest “curse” of all time was when Jesus was nailed to a cross.  As the Bible says, “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Galatians 3:10).  Yet God turned the curse into a blessing as it was through the cross that Jesus “became a curse for us” that all who personally ask forgiveness and become followers of Jesus might find life.

Whatever the curse in your life or your family, ask God to turn it into a blessing.  He specializes in turning curses into blessings.

 

 

 

At twelve years old, I was baptized into membership of a church.  I didn’t believe that Jesus was God, that he rose from the dead, or that he was coming again.  For me at the time is was a ritual which I went through in order to join my family’s church.  Three years later, I came to the realization that Jesus was God, that I was sinful in his eyes and deserving of death, and that he died in my place and rose from the dead.  I committed my life to be His follower.  Following that experience, I was again baptized, but this time it was no longer a ritual, but rather it was my acting out his death and resurrection for me in a meaningful manner.

Baptism originates from the Jewish rite of purification as given to Moses in the law.  Hebrews were to purify themselves after certain events and priests were to dip their hands in a bronze laver in the tabernacle to be ceremonially clean. By the time of Jesus, it had largely become no more than a ritual which had lost its meaning.  The religious leaders had added myriads of rules regarding baptism.  Jews baptized their hands prior to eating (Mark 7:4) as well as baptize the dishes.  Men were to immerse themselves in a mikveh (baptismal) every time they entered the temple.  Mikvehs were common throughout Israel in those days; one dating to Jesus’ time was unearthed last year in Jerusalem underneath the floor of a home undergoing renovation. [Note that “baptism” is a Greek word meaning “to immerse” and not the term which is used in Judaism.]

There are numerous Jewish rules for a mikveh today, including the amount of water it is to hold, its depth, drainage, type of water, etc. as well as extensive rules for when a person is to use a mikveh.  Among some ultra-orthodox communities, men immerse in the mikveh on a weekly, if not a daily, basis.  Baptism, or washing in a mikveh, is a heated subject in Israel today.  The government recently passed a controversial “mikveh bill” which effectively prohibits people from converting to any branch of Judaism except Orthodox, who compose only 15% of the population.

When John “the Baptist” came on the scene just prior to Jesus, he began baptizing in the Jordan River with a “baptism of repentance” as opposed to one of ritual.  He brought back the original meaning of baptism, that it should entail a change of heart and life in the one being baptized.  But Jesus needed no such change in his life and was still baptized.  Jesus redefined baptism to symbolize his death, burial and resurrection.  At that point, baptism became a “baptism of resurrection” in which the one being baptized acknowledges that it is only through this action of Jesus that they have forgiveness of sins.  Thus is was that when Paul met twelve disciples of John the Baptist who had fled to Ephesus (in modern Turkey) to escape persecution, and they stated that they had been baptized by John, that Paul baptized them again in the name of Jesus (Acts 19:1-7).  Baptist churches retain this “resurrection” baptism, which is why they don’t baptize individuals who are either too young to understand the meaning or who have not chosen to acknowledge Jesus death for their sins and resurrection (thus they don’t baptize infants).

Baptists also retain the original mode of baptism: immersion under water.  Most every Christian denomination began by baptizing in this manner (for instance, note that the Catholic Catechism, article 1239, states that baptism is “performed in the most expressive way by triple immersion in the baptismal water” but that the church has for a long time instead poured water three times over a person’s head).  Baptist churches have retained this biblical mode as practiced in mikvehs since Jesus day.  As Jewish writer Maurice Lamb writes in Becoming a Jew, “In a sense, it is nothing short of the spiritual drama of death and rebirth cast onto the canvas of the convert’s soul. Submerging into waters over her head, she enters into an environment in which she cannot breathe and cannot live for more than moments. It is the death of all that has gone before. As she emerges from the gagging waters into the clear air, she begins to breathe anew and live anew.”  In a Christian immersion, it pictures not simply the rebirth of the convert (as Jesus said you shall be born again), but the death and resurrection of Jesus Himself, as we are “buried with Christ by baptism unto death” that “we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

When we baptize, we seek to move beyond ritual and repentance and baptize with a “resurrection” baptism.  We use a type of “mikveh” (though not adhering to the many regulations added by Judaism) and immerse an individual into the waters and out again to picture the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus as a witness to others of the source of salvation.

 

They sat in my office for counseling, the wife beginning: “Last night he came home drunk, pulled out a butcher knife, and threatened to stab me.”  Asked her response, she replied, “I pulled out my nine-millimeter and said ‘one more step and I’ll blow a hole in you.’”  Exclaiming I understood why they came for counseling, she replied, “Oh no, pastor, that’s not why we came.  The problem is our six-year-old who insists on staying up until two each morning watching TV.”  Blaming the child is typical of a dysfunctional family, defined as “a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often child neglect or abuse on the part of individual parents occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions.” (David Stoop, Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves).  A child who grows up in such a family carries anxiety into adulthood, never feeling secure and repressing emotions.  They have trouble forming adult relationships later in life.

This is clearly seen in the Herods, the most dysfunctional family in the New Testament.  Herod the Great ruled when Jesus was born and had the boys of Bethlehem put to death for fear one of them would eventually replace him as king.  Around that time, Herod’s second son falsely accused the first son of attempting to murder their father, so Herod had his first son put to death.  The first son left a daughter, Herodias, who married the fourth son and had her own daughter, but then Herodias had an affair with the third son.  The second son, meanwhile, was so evil the Roman emperor banished him from the kingdom.  The first son’s granddaughter, who was the fourth son’s daughter, did a provocative dance for the third son, who was now her stepfather.  When he offered her whatever she asked in return, she requested the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

John had spoken God’s word to the Herod family and in the process was imprisoned at the insistence of Herodias.  We find the story in the sixth chapter of Mark’s gospel.  The third son “himself had sent and laid hold of John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife; for he had married her” (vs 17).  While in prison, the third son often went to speak with John and heard the word of God gladly.  Certainly John shared with him about Jesus, the “lamb of God” who would take away the sins of the world, and encouraged him to turn from his sins and commit his life to follow God.  There is hope for every dysfunctional family, even the Herod family. On the night of the dance, however, son number three made the decision to seek his own way rather than the way of God and beheaded John.  Three years later, the third son came face-to-face with Jesus, but Jesus remained silent in his presence.  The third son’s rejection of God had occurred three years earlier, his fate was already sealed.

How do you minister to a dysfunctional family?  Like John, don’t ignore the symptoms and remain silent.  Speak the truth of God, but do so out of compassion and concern.  Realize that ultimately, every person has to make their own decision in life.  If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, find a good role model of a healthy family, perhaps in your church, and emulate it.  I come from a long line of alcoholics and broken homes, but through Jesus Christ I broke the cycle.  In Christ, there is hope for every home.

View the Three Circles Video

Jimmy Scoggins serves as the lead pastor of  First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, Florida.  I serve with him as a trustee for Lifeway Christian Resources, our Baptist publishing house.  A  couple of years ago, he filmed the method he uses to teach his church members how to share their faith with others.  It is simple and direct and can be used in a great variety of situations.  It is a method I would encourage others to learn as a tool for sharing the good news of Jesus.

Back in 1984, my first year serving as a pastor, a member approached me following the fourth of July weekend and shared her feelings that it was not appropriate for a church to display the American flag in its sanctuary.  That week I reflected long on the matter, and with a daughter aboard a U.S. Aircraft Carrier this July, the relationship between church and state is something I continue to ponder. During the American Revolution, Ambrose Serle reported to the British Secretary of State that the rebellion in the colonies was ultimately a religious war and that almost every minister doubled as a politician (Ambrose Serle to Lord Dartmouth, November 8, 1776); yet today, some pastors such as Doug Wilson, writing in Christianity Today (July 5, 2012), distance themselves completely from country, stating that “a Christian church has absolutely no business displaying a national flag in a sanctuary.”  So what does the Bible have to say regarding the matter?

Scriptures are clear that God created institutions such as marriage (Genesis 2) and governing authorities (Romans 13), and that while in heaven “there is no marriage nor giving in marriage” and “our citizenship is in heaven,” nonetheless while living this life we owe a special loyalty to our family and our nation.  Husbands and wives are instructed to love and respect one another regardless of whether the spouse is a believer or not, and in like manner Paul instructed believers in Rome to honor the king (Nero Caesar) even though he persecuted believers, later executing both Peter and Paul.  The authors of the New Testament letters, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, never hesitated to speak of marriage, the state, job situations or a host of other practical matters of life.  They never relegated faith to Sundays, and never relegated earthly associations to non-Sundays, but believed that faith should speak to all areas of life, including our relationship to government.  And while Jesus said that any man who loves his wife more than God was not worthy to be His disciple, and Peter later responded to the Jewish ruling council that he had to obey God rather than governing authorities when the two were in direct conflict, the apostles nevertheless exhorted believers to love their wives and honor those in authority. Thus I have chosen to continue telling those in church that I love my wife, trusting they will understand they are to love their own wives, and that I love my country, trusting if they are of another nationality that they will understand they are to love their own countries.  I will continue to display a flag while declaring God first in all matters of direct conflict, and to seek His blessing on both my family and my country.

Gersh Kuntzman recently wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Daily News (June 30, 2016) opining that “God Bless America” should no longer be sung at Major League Baseball games: “join me at the church of Baseball by not rising and not doffing your cap for a song that is not the national anthem of a nation that is not uniquely blessed by some deity that doesn’t exist anyway. If you want to thank God for blessing America, you can do it on Sunday in the other church.”  I would agree with Mr. Kuntzman on one count – church is the place to ask God to bless America.