I want to stoke the fire I’m in the middle of right now about as much as I want to amputate my toes without anesthesia. I’d much prefer to change the subject & move on & ignore the fury. I also want my family to have relief. But after intense prayer, I need to say a few things.->
The first one is that I have a very active daily practice of repentance. I never have nothing to repent of. You need not worry if I am aware of my own sins, flaws & weaknesses. I am. You can know I am hashing out things on my face on the floor before God every day. That said, ->
I am compelled to my bones by the Holy Spirit - I don’t want to be but I am -to draw attention to the sexism & misogyny that is rampant in segments of the SBC, cloaked by piety & bearing the stench of hypocrisy. There are countless godly conservative complementarians. So many. ->
There are countless conservative Complementarians I very much respect & deeply love even though I may not fully understand their interpretations of certain Scriptures as the end of the matter. I love the Scriptures. I love Jesus. I do not ignore 1 Tim or 1 Cor. What I plead for->
Is to grapple with the entire text from Mt 1 thru Rev 22 on every matter concerning women. To grapple with Paul’s words in 1 Tim/1 Cor 14 as being authoritative, God-breathed!- alongside other words Paul wrote, equally inspired & make sense of the many women he served alongside.
Above all else, we must search the attitudes & practices of Christ Jesus himself toward women. HE is our Lord. He had women followers! Evangelists! The point of all sanctification & obedience is toward being conformed to HIS image. I do not see 1 glimpse of Christ in this sexism.
I had the eye opening experience of my life in 2016. A fog cleared for me that was the most disturbing, terrifying thing I’d ever seen. All these years I’d given the benefit of the doubt that these men were the way they were because they were trying to be obedient to Scripture...
Then I realized it was not over Scripture at all. It was over sin. It was over power. It was over misogyny. Sexism. It was about arrogance. About protecting systems. It involved covering abuses & misuses of power. Shepherds guarding other shepherds instead of guarding the sheep.
Here is what you don’t understand. I have loved the SBC & served it with everything I have had since I was 12 years old helping with vacation Bible school. Alongside ANY other denomination, I will serve it to my death if it will have me. And this is how I am serving it right now.
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I can’t recommend Scripture memory enough. We’re going to meditate. Our minds naturally think habitually. We ruminate on ourselves, our offenses, fears, cravings, jealousies, resentments & how everybody’s let us down. But what if we formed a habit of thinking on the Lord’s words?
This practice was the way the Lord first began to set me free from tormenting mental strongholds. It didn’t mean that I never thought of my past again and the things I had been through and the things I had done. But it meant those were not the only things I fixated on anymore.
To me, freedom in Christ from the bondage of my past doesn’t mean those things no longer enter my mind. It means those things no longer have dominion over me. Our thoughts are fuel. Meditation drives motivation. We’re motivated by our meditations whether positively or negatively.
I am baffled how often professing believers in Christ—often leaders—feel no need whatsoever to apologize—publicly or privately—or clear up misinformation they spread. It seems, if you’re a watchdog for the church, you get to bite at will. You’re somehow above the ethics of Jesus.
I just want you to know—& I don’t say this on my own behalf today but on someone else’s—that, actually, you don’t get to do that. You will answer to the Lord for spreading misinformation. I am concerned about your spiritual condition because here is what I know: the Holy Spirit
convicts of sin. If you walk in the Spirit, have an active prayer life & spend time in the holy Scriptures, you can’t go on & on & live with not asking forgiveness. I say this as one who has sinned grievously. If you walk with God, the time between sin & repentance is miserable.
I’ve had it on my mind for several years to host an event with the singular goal of inviting God to create & permeate an atmosphere where servants of Christ are encouraged, strengthened & refreshed by him. He’s provided the date (this Apr 8-9), the place (Austin) & the team.
We will serve our hearts out. It’s Fri night til Sat 1 PM. Most of the event will be in the sanctuary but we will do 1 breakout so you can hear informally from the speaker most helpful to your field. (I’ll take writers, Derwin, pastors/ministers & spouses, Travis, musicians, etc)
To be sure, there is not one perfect one in the bunch. Not one who hasn’t had big obstacles & a great need of endurance. Not one who hasn’t learned a lot the hard way. But what you’ve got are 6 people who care how you’re doing & will give you everything we’ve got in Jesus’ name.
Some of y’all don’t understand how doctrinal control works. When you have people you know deeply love & highly esteem Scripture & want with all their hearts to live by it, you conflate your interpretation of Scripture with inerrancy of Scripture and you’ve got them in your palm.
You need to know something &, if someone says differently, they’re lying. I love Scripture with everything in me. I have not cooled off 1 degree from it. My entire ministry has existed & still exists to encourage people to come to know & love Jesus through the study of Scripture.
But what has become startlingly clear to me in recent years is that our interpretations can have a whole lot more to do with our agendas than our faithful exegesis. AND that sometimes secondary matters shift into primary matters because the gatekeepers fear a loss of control.
Y’all, LPM just received a letter with a mid-range 5 figure check—the biggest donation we’ve ever had!—from a woman we don’t know personally who’s now in the presence of the Lord. She loved Living Proof & LEFT IT IN HER WILL. Beside myself in tears. I mean, totally beside myself.
Y’all just do not know. You don’t understand that we did not know how we were going to make it after the swift backlash of my speaking out in 2016 & many churches instantly dropping the Bible studies. We’ve literally just thrown ourselves at the feet of Jesus & said, “If you want
us to exist as a ministry and serve at this time in history, you’re going to have to make it happen. Understand that, right on top of the 2016 financial crisis came 2020 with an obliterated conference schedule. And yet here we are. Making it. Trusting God 1 day, 1 week, 1 month
Was just thinking, “Man, do I ever have a lot to tell Jesus this year.” I set aside the days between Christmas & January 1st every year for giving way to very deliberate reflection on the previous 12 months of my walk with Christ. Then 1st thing every New Year’s Day I open my new
journal & write him a long letter looking back on the last year— The highlights & heartbreaks & surprises, both good & bad. Things I never could have seen coming. I write knowing he knows but I do this to keep a record of remembrance and also because the Holy Spirit never fails
to give me insight into some of those very things I record as I write them. The practice helps me sort things out. Then I turn my attention to the coming year and record my hopes and dreams and prayers and fears and make bold petitions for my people & for myself. I have years and