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Resurrection and the Cure for Mental Health

These appear to be the darkest of times. It is no secret that we have a mental health crisis. Week after week, we are confronted with the stories of devastation. The headlines sometimes don’t hit home, but they don’t have to. We know personal stories. We know our friends who are despairing of life itself. We see families pierced with the pains of anxiety, eating disorders, attempted suicides, and unstable emotions. Real people made in God’s image who are harming themselves and harming others. This is a darkness that can be felt across our country. In her book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids aren’t Growing Up, Abigail Shrier acknowledges the widespread problem. She notes that “forty-two percent of the rising generation currently has a mental health diagnosis” (17). That is astonishing. The number...

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A Royal Lesson on the Rumor Mill from The Princess of Wales

“Prince William is having an affair!” “Another woman is pregnant with his baby!” “Princess Kate can’t be seen in public because William hit her!” “She is filing for divorce, and another royal marriage is ending!” Those were a few of the reports making the rounds in the last few weeks as the world was ripe with speculation about the reason why the Princess of Wales had not been seen in public for months. Those reports were widespread and viewed by millions of people all over the globe. Of course, we now know those reports are complete fabrications. The princess has announced that the reason for her retreat from public view is the discovery of cancer during her planned abdominal surgery in January. It has taken months to heal from surgery, begin cancer treatment, and explain her condition...

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Four Facts about Sexual Abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention

Part 4: We Must Have Solutions That Understand the Way Our Convention Works No Right to Fatigue During the release of the most recent update from the Abuse Reform and Implementation Task Force (ARITF), the chairman, Josh Wester, observed a sense of fatigue setting into the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in our response to sexual abuse. He warned against an attitude that desires to move along too quickly. I appreciate Pastor Wester’s service, the hard work of his committee, and his words of warning. Every pastor I talk to in the SBC agrees with them. We know we have an obligation to keep our people safe, and we are not exhausted by that obligation but invigorated by it. A Sacred Obligation Every pastor has a sacred obligation to protect the people in our churches from abuse. Our principal...

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Four Facts about Sexual Abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention

Part 3: The Southern Baptist Convention Is a Powerful Force for Good Popular to Condemn The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is going through a difficult time. Scandals, numeric decline, disgraced leaders, and bumbling responses to all the above make it unpopular to praise our convention. In times of difficulty, enemies make their voices heard. It is popular to condemn the SBC as everything from a once-great organization whose time has passed to the embodiment of evil in the contemporary religious scene. In this climate, critics score points when they paint with a broad brush of corruption and predict the end of the SBC. But this currently fashionable trend of convention condemnation is not going to end well because our convention is not condemnable. There’s a time to candidly admit our...

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Four Facts about Sexual Abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention

Part 2: Not Everyone Offering Help Is Our Friend When I was in the fourth grade, my mom celebrated Christmas by getting drunk, grabbing a gun, and chasing me and my twin brother out into the snow. The next day, we were being interviewed by social workers, and not long after that, we were moved to a different town and placed in foster care. That probably sounds reasonable. My mom’s behavior was clearly wrong and had to be addressed. It was unthinkable to leave two young boys in such an environment. What was unreasonable about the foster solution was that we had numerous family members—a dad and several grandparents—who wanted to take us. Instead, we were relocated away from the people who loved us. The foster solution was offered by people who wanted to stop our abuse but whose lack of wisdom...

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Four Facts about Sexual Abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention

Part 1: Abuse Is a Real Problem, but Is Not What We Were Told From Confusion to Clarity Any encounter with sexual abuse leads to an explosion of pain, shock, and confusion. That was true for me in the fifth grade when my 300-pound older stepbrother dragged me out of bed and sexually assaulted me. Pain, shock, and confusion also struck our convention when we first encountered the abuse that had taken place in some of our churches. But over time and by God’s grace, clarity grows out of confusion. One slow step at a time, you come to understand what is really going on and begin to have a sense of how to move forward. Many developments since 2019 are helping Southern Baptists grow in clarity, but the most recent ones have been an update from the Abuse Reform and Implementation Task Force (ARITF)...

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Five Resolutions for Family and Technology

Introduction: Are My Kids Addicted to Screens? Technology and kids is a scary topic. I don’t need to overview the stats. You already know that this generation of kids are on screens more than any other generation, that the impacts of this development are negative, and everyone is trying to figure out what to do. My wife and I struggle with the same thing. If our kids ask us to watch TV too much in a given week we think: have we failed? But we feel tension because we live in a technological age. Everyone has a computer in their pocket (including me!). Everyone has big TVs in their houses. How do we handle this? What does the Bible teach us? How can we navigate technology as families in a way that honors Jesus Christ? Let me suggest five resolutions to help you navigate the countless questions...

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Why Are We Baptists?

Names mean something. They help you identify what you are looking for. I don’t go into Chick-Fil-A looking to eat a hamburger, because they clearly communicate in their name that they serve chicken. Churches also identify what kind of church they are by their names. Some churches don’t use the word “church” in their name, but identify as a “chapel” or a “fellowship” or simply “ministries.” Other church names have become so creative at times, that it’s hard to even tell they are a church. Some church plants or rebranding efforts have resulted in church names like “Reality”, “Refuge”, “Catalyst”, or “Oasis”. Our church, on the other hand, is unmistakable in identifying who we are with our name. We are the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida. However, there are lots of other churches...

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Acceptable Sins?

Have you ever considered how much our God cares about details? His creation is a marvelous compilation of little details, from the intricacies of the eye to your individual fingerprints. In the Old Testament, He gave intricate descriptions of the construction of the tabernacle, and the Mosaic Law is equally detailed. The New Testament starts with a detailed genealogy of our Lord to demonstrate that He was the promised Messiah, Savior, and Davidic King. Later in the New Testament, there are details about the qualifications of a pastor and even more details about what relationships in the Church are to be like and how to live the Christian life. God is particularly detailed about His holiness. He is 100% pure (I John 1: 5). It is obvious that God cares about details, but it’s easy for us to...

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A Concern about the Law Amendment

The Law Amendment is the current effort to add the biblical requirement for male pastors into the constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). I have been a strong supporter of this effort, but that support does not mean I’ve had no concerns. My support for this amendment has not come cheap. Initially, I Had Doubts I had three initial doubts about the amendment. First, I believed the amendment was unnecessary because our statement of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message (BFM), already states that the office of pastor is limited to qualified men. Why would we repeat what is already clear? Second, I believed the amendment was unnecessary because our convention was already working to remove churches that were in error on this issue. Why go to the work of adding a constitutional provision...

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