Timothy's Thoughts

T o catch you up, a few days ago a press release from The Civil Rights Agenda (TCRA) claimed victory over Chick-fil-A, saying that “In meetings the company executives clarified that they will no longer give to anti-gay organizations.” This left many of us scratching our heads and asking the Chick-fil-A company for an explanation. Chick-fil-A obliged us with a lengthy statement that I will summarize as saying, We’re going to continue with the same policy we’ve always had. [1] Within that document is the statement “The Chick-fil-A culture and 66-year service tradition in our locally owned and operated restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their beliefs, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender.” That statement is not new, but it is essentially the same wording that TCRA references when claiming victory. What is Really Going On? The last part of the statement just clarifies what they mean by “every person,” so it really comes down to wh...

I n recent years, there has been a push among some Baptists for elder ruled churches. Even among some BMA pastors, I’ve heard people say, “it’s the biblical way.” So, I went looking to see if I agreed with that claim. I found that there are some rather lengthy papers written about it. I intend to get to the point much more quickly. What Is An Elder? When referring to elder rule today, most people are using the term elder to indicate a church member who serves on a board that oversees the business of the church. You won’t find this definition in the Bible. The only support you will find in the Bible for anything near this definition is 1 Timothy 5:17, “Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the Word and doctrine.” The thing that makes this verse controversial is the word especially . Some people believe that it implies that there can be those who rule while they “labor in Word and doctrine” and those who rule, but don’t “lab...

This video shows the development of the human body from conception to birth. Truly, only God can do this.

W ho is your audience? Many times, we an author sits down to write, he thinks of someone to whom he is writing. As he weaves his yarn, he thinks of that person sitting across from him and he is just carrying on a one-sided (usually) conversation. But though we might write to that person, that person is not the audience who will receive the book. I began thinking about the average church size. 59% of the churches in America have fewer than 100 people who attend. There’s nothing wrong with that. I have known many small churches and have a great love for them. But think about the Christian books you’ve read that were written to help in the ministry of churches. How often do we see them reference things that we simply do not find in small churches? Occasionally, you’ll find a book written specifically for small churches, but I’ve read some of those and have often thought that the author didn’t get it. Instead, what you find are books written to churches with hundreds in attendance. Th...

— A federal judge threatened “incarceration” to a high school valedictorian in Castroville, Texas, unless she removed references to Jesus from her graduation speech. — City officials prohibited senior citizens in Balch Springs, Texas, from praying over their meals, listening to religious messages or singing gospel songs at a senior activities center. — A public school official in St. Louis physically lifted an elementary school student from his seat and reprimanded him in front of his classmates for praying over his lunch. T hese statements all just three of some 600 in a recent report on religious hostility. The report claims, “America would be unrecognizable to our Founders.” I’m not sure that true. Our founding fathers were no strangers to religious hostility. I remember reading about Patrick Henry attending a trial in colonial America. The story goes that two Baptist men had been arrested because they were preaching outside of the authority of the religion in that area. P...

I t is not the responsibility of a leader to decide where to go, but to show people how to get there. I’ve used this space to talk about leadership before. Not long ago, I wrote about the misuse of the word vision by Michael Hyatt, Jack Welch, and John Maxwell. I argued that vision in the truest sense is a vision sent from God. But let’s take a step back and look at their kind of vision. As you know, a lot of people are trying to develop a vision. We hear about things like vision statements . Once you have a vision statement you are supposed to cast a vision . Then people are supposed to follow you like cows to the feed trough. While that sounds good, people don’t always do what you tell them they ought to do. Take church, for example. For centuries, we’ve been telling people they ought to go to church. Some do. Some don’t. But I’m reminded of the wagon trains that used to head out west. Who in their right mind would leave Missouri to ride across Kansas in a wagon? And yet, ther...

O ur God isn’t big enough. When I pulled into a parking space at church, I noticed a single white flower growing next to the parking curb. The rest of the grass was trimmed to perfection, but there was that one lily that sprang up in the night and had bloomed. It was a beautiful flower, though it grew where no gardener would’ve planted it. Later, I saw about ten of these wild lilies growing in the median. They were bunched in a cluster right next to the road. They were not centered in the way a landscape designer would have placed them. They were just there. Ask a child who attends Sunday school how they got there and he’ll likely respond, “God planted them.” Now we, being older and wiser, know that a seed must have fallen on that ground. The seed grew and the flower bloomed. When the seed fell, they fell in a cluster around where the first seed had fallen, giving us those ten lilies growing in the median. But we smile and assure the child that “yes, God planted them.” In our wis...