Timothy's Thoughts

T he idea that our Baptist predecessors might have been wrong in prohibiting dancing doesn’t bother me as much as how much it seems like people have such a disdain for tradition these days. I’ve heard of music directors who refuse to use any song in the church worship service that is older than ten years old. There are preachers who refuse to wear a suit and tie because they see it as steeped in tradition or they’re trying to impress “the young people” and yet, if you turn on the television, many of the actors on shows and the show hosts are wearing suits and ties. Some are even wearing vests with their suits. But I’m not trying to argue that every pastor should wear a suit and tie, just that not wearing one to break with tradition isn’t a great reason. What is tradition? The word itself might bring to mind the Thanksgiving turkey or opening gifts on Christmas morning or a bride wearing a white dress. But if we really think about it, tradition is society’s way of passing down a way o...

A few days ago, someone posted a video on Facebook of 2,000 people from Second Baptist Church in Houston, Texas dancing. In the comments, Roger Bennett (I don’t know him either.) said, “I remember when Baptists didn't dance in front of other Baptists.” His comment made me think about just how much has changed in just the past few years. He has a point. It wasn’t that long ago that Baptist frowned at dancing and now many of them use it as part of their worship services. It wasn’t that long ago that every preacher had a copy of John R. Rice’s “What’s Wrong With the Dance?” on his bookshelf and would preach against dancing from the pulpit with fire in his eyes. These days, many pulpits have been replaced with barstools and the sermons hardly call anything wrong. But what I’m seeing is confusion among the church members. One church includes dancing in their worship and yet I heard someone say just the other day that dancing is okay as long as it isn’t in the church building. But if da...

S omeone made the observation that if you want people to discuss something in a classroom setting you have to assume that they will answer your questions. I wish I could remember who said it, so I could give them credit, but what this person was saying is that when you ask a question and follow it with silence, the people in the class are beginning to feel guilty because they know that someone in the class is supposed to fill that silence. The longer you wait, the more they try to come up with an answer and eventually one or more of them will give you an answer to the question. I’ve been in Sunday school classes where the teacher didn’t follow this advice. You’re sitting there listening to the lesson and the teacher asks a question. It takes you a little time to process the question. Then it takes you more time to consider the answer. Finally, you have an answer to the question, but by this time, the teacher has already moved on. With hardly enough time for you to open your mouth, he...

O ne of my cousins sent me a link to a video as an example of how grace isn’t fair. The video is of a woman who had been out of church for many years talking about going to church and hearing the parable of the vineyard workers. She also tells how she taught this parable to VBS kids that you might find useful if you ever have the opportunity to teach this parable. For some reason, I watched this video several times. I’m not sure why. I think it might be because some of what the woman says doesn’t seem to sit right with me. I’m not sure that I agree with her take on the parable. Before I go into that, I’ll let you watch the video: Grace Is Not Attractive from The Work Of The People on Vimeo . One of the things I see here is the difference between what we often think of as fair and what true justice is. By definition, to be fair and to be just are essentially the same thing, but when we teach fairness to kids we often do so in terms of equal treatment. We might ask little Billy, “...

“…If you were the only sinner in human history, nothing about Calvary would have changed.” – Denison I saw this quote on Facebook. It looks about like what you might see on a church sign. I tend to pick church sign sayings apart. This particular saying looks good, but it is true? In a word, no. What I believe this person was trying to say is that if you were the only sinner, Christ would have died for you anyway. There’s actually strong Biblical basis for that. II Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” It’s really a hypothetical situation we’re talking about, so since it isn’t God’s will that any perish, we could say that he would have sent his Son to die for one sinner, if that’s all there was. But that’s not what the quote says. The quote says that “nothing about Calvary would have changed.” There is a great deal about ...

I watched a video interview with Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson, in which the interviewer asked him about churches that are getting away from denominational distinctions. But Mike mentioned that he had noticed that many of these churches are forming “networks or associations of churches” that replace the denomination. I find this a particularly interesting statement because many of the churches that have chosen to remove the denominational marking off their church sign are Baptist or were at one time, but Baptists have been functioning under an associational structure for centuries. The church I’m a member of is a member of three associations, the Baptist Missionary Association (BMA) of America, the BMA of Texas, and the Tarrant County BMA. The largest Baptist association is the Southern Baptist Convention. Even many of the churches that call themselves Independent Baptists are associated in some way, though my understanding is that in that case it is generally the pastor who is ...

W hen people talk about the role of women in the church—in particular in leadership positions—we frequently hear them mention Deborah. The argument is that since Deborah was a judge then women can be preachers. I don’t want to take anything away from Deborah because she is a very important figure in the history of the Jews, but I don’t believe we can extrapolate from what Deborah did that what Paul said with the inspiration of God is wrong. The Bible never says that everything Deborah did was right or was what God saw as ideal. It just says that is the way it was. Many who invoke the name of Deborah do so outside the context of her story, saying only that Deborah was a judge. In Judges 4 (That in itself should tell us to be careful. The judges all had questionable natures.) we find Deborah under a palm tree, where the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. Clearly she was a respected woman, but in the narrative we see that this wasn’t supposed to be Deborah’s story at all. S...