The Bible

Novelist, William Faulkner, once famously told students during an address at the University of Virginia that the southern evangelicals so prevalent in his Bible-Belt eco-system were not religious.

The students were obviously confused by that statement…most people, especially back during that time period would have automatically assumed that the Bible-Belt was one of the most religiously oriented places on the planet....

So one of the students curiously asked him saying, “Mr. Faulkner, if they are religious then what in the world are they?”

Faulkner famously replied, “They’re Southern Baptist”

What Faulkner meant by that was very simple: to be Southern Baptist is to just be culturally orientation…not of any type of religious or doctrinal conviction.

For Faulkner, to be Southern Baptist wasnt about commitment to God, following the way of Jesus. It wasnt about believers baptism, regenerate church membership, commitment to scripture, congregationalism, or the priesthood of the believer…to be a Southern Baptist for Faulkner just meant that you needed to be born at a certain place during a certain time...

Faulker though is wrong…

To be a Southern Baptist isnt just to be southern…no matter how captive southern baptists have been at times to the spirit of the age…the gospel has always been there.

Through the slave-supporting sin ridden wayward years…the gospel was there.

Through the Jim Crow era…the gospel was there...

Through the Sexual Revolution…the gospel was there...

However…Faulkner was also right wasnt he...

Too often we Southern Baptists, where we have been the dominant religion of choice, have traded away our inheritance gospel distinctiveness for the jars of clay that is cultural christianity...

In those times:

We have support white supremacy…those are our roots after all...

We did prop up Jim Crow in the South

Heck, we even supported abortion until 1973!!!!!

And throughout the past and stemming into the present, we have proclaimed a gospel at times, that seemed like nothing more than a promise of the 1950’s American Dream. (You want your family to be healthy? You need to come to church...)

So what does it mean to be Southern Baptist?

Why the Baptist Faith and Message?

The answer to this question was answered well by the committee who drafted the BFM2000...

Your committee thus constituted begs leave to present its report as follows:

Baptists are a people of deep beliefs and cherished doctrines. Throughout our history we have been a confessional people, adopting statements of faith as a witness to our beliefs and a pledge of our faithfulness to the doctrines revealed in Holy Scripture.

Our confessions of faith are rooted in historical precedent, as the church in every age has been called upon to define and defend its beliefs. Each generation of Christians bears the responsibility of guarding the treasury of truth that has been entrusted to us [2 Timothy 1:14]. Facing a new century, Southern Baptists must meet the demands and duties of the present hour.

So, here we are in the midst of that new century and the truth remains that we must be able to meet the demands of the time in which we live. And so in the midst of people deconstructing their faith, in the midst of one of the greatest flights away from evangelicalism in American history, we must be able to communicate what we believe with clarity, grace, and truth.

Christians have always done this, even since before the Biblical Canon was totally finalized, people had agreed upon Creeds and Confessions.

The first was what is referred to as “The Old Roman Creed” which read,

The Old Roman Creed:

I believe in God the Father almighty; and in Christ Jesus His only Son, our Lord, Who was born from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried, on the third day rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, whence he will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, [life everlasting].

Then as needs arose, more confessions and creeds were written to meet the needs of those moments:

Early Church Creeds:

The Apostles Creed (Super Early) we dont know when it was originally written…we just know that it is quoted word for word in the earliest of christian writings since the generation after the Apostles…hence the name “Apostle’s Creed”—we know for sure that it was written and widely accepted by the Nicene Creed.

Nicene Creed (325)

Athanaisan Creed (400-450ish)—response to the Arian controversy…people questioning the divinity of Jesus and the nature of Trinitarianism in general.

Caledonian Creed (451) —Esentially just reaffirmed the Apostle’s and Nicene Creed...

Ausburg Confession (1530)—Lutheran Confessions

Belgic Confession (1561)—Dutch Reformed Churches

Articles of Religion (1571)—Church of England (1600’s to clarify the differences between Catholicism and Anglicanism)

Canons of Dort (1619)

Westminster Confession (1646)—All the good stuff was written by the Baptists appointed to write…all the bad stuff was written by the Presbyterians (smile)....

Second London Baptist Confession (1689)—the best one

Heidelberg Catechism (1619)—same as Canons of Dort…but a teaching tool

Westminster Larger and Shorter (1647)

New Hampshire Confession (1833)—first American Baptist Confession

Baptist Faith & Message (1923, 1965, 2000)

Here are a few rules to keep in mind when studying our confession of faith:

Confessions exist for general instruction and guidance.

They are incomplete statements of faith

(we should feel the freedom to take exception to them and revise the parts of them that we dont feel like line up with the scripture)

We are not bound by a confession.

The sole authority of faith is the scripture, not the confession.

The BFM is a tool that helps to summarize the teachings that we find in scripture.

So in as much as the BFM is accurate to the scripture, we can agree with it. Where we feel like the BFM departs from scriptures teaching, we reject it. (In short, eat the meat and spit out the bones…)

What do you think are some of the benefits of knowing what we as Baptists actually believe?

The question to illustrate the importance of knowing what we believe as Baptists…and really as Christians.

What is a healthy church?

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.

The Bible is Divine Revelation

There are two forms of Revelation:

Natural Revelation:

Psalm 19—the heavens declare the glory of God…the skies proclaim his handiwork.

Therefore, everyone can have a basic understanding of God…no matter who they are or where they are from.

This is why Paul concludes that noone can claim ignorance when they stand before God in judgement…because God has made himself obvious through what he has created and through His invisible attributes.

Natural Revelation puts the divine hole in the heart of every man…and it is why men and women search for meaning and significance in all sorts of things (from money, to sex, to religion).

But noone can be saved by natural revelation…no one can know any details about what the will of God is by looking into the clouds.

Divine Revelation:

The Bible was Written by Human Authors