Good thread. Just about all of it comprises entailments of one central principle of Baptist polity:

Baptists are congregational; each congregation is autonomous.

If you can grasp this, the rest of the structure makes sense.

https://twitter.com/lukeholmes/status/1628971650728316928

I teach the doctrine and SBC portion of our new members class at our church. And one of the things I try to emphasize is that Baptist churches are autonomous. The SBC exercises zero control over our congregation. None.

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Some Thoughts on the #AsburyRevival
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My prayer: "Pass me not, O gentle Savior. Hear my humble cry. While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by. Savior, Savior, Hear my humble cry. While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by."

dennyburk.com/some-thoughts-… This is Asbury’s chapel this evening. This has been going on for over 70 hours straight.

#AsburyRevival

No. All sinners (gay, straight, or otherwise) are justified by faith alone in Christ alone. The invitation is open to all.

But if the faith that saved you didn’t change you, then it didn’t really save you.

“No one who is born of God practices sin…” -1 John 3:9 “For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”

-Ephesians 5:5

“A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.”

-Deuteronomy 22:5 “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”

Leviticus 18:22

“Let me say it loud and clear. Get back in the closet… We look at our sin through the crosshairs of an instrument of execution, not a selfie at the Revoice conference.”

-Rosaria Butterfield

To understand why Rosaria would give this exhortation, you have to come to terms with what "coming out of the closet" actually means in common parlance. Here's one example of how the term is commonly defined...

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The Bible teaches that all people are made in God's very own image and therefore have inestimable value worth.

"And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."

-Genesis 1:27

/1 The Bible also teaches that God's image bearers come in two distinct genres--male and female. Genesis 1 teaches that "male" and "female" do not refer to so-called "gender identities" but to the human body's organization for reproduction.

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Thank you for the fulsome explanation. I do think that this confirms the profound nature of our disagreements.

For its entire 2,000-year history, the church has regarded homosexuality as sinful. This is not an “agree to disagree” issue among Christians. It is a watershed.

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https://twitter.com/kkdumez/status/1464666858959912978

It is the reason why Article 10 of the Nashville Statement was necessary (see below). We knew that the path to the “affirming” position would include a stop at “faithful Christians can agree to disagree about this,” as if it were a second order issue.

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I’ve thought a lot about this article since reading it yesterday. It’s hard to formulate an apt response because the author does not define what he means by racism, systemic or otherwise.

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nytimes.com/2021/07/18/opi… If he means that Christians should fight against racial partiality or racial animus, then of course there can be no disagreement about that. It is our moral duty to love our neighbor and to treat them with equal weights and measures.

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You can follow Jesus, or you can celebrate Pride.

But you can’t do both.

Those who say you can are lying.

“The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”

-1 John 2:4 The good news of the gospel, however, is that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—including LGBTQ+ sinners! Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, and he was raised three days later to give us eternal life.

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“While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

-Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M) “An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife...” -1 Timothy 3:2

“I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” -1 Timothy 2:12

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No Christian’s ministry is so vital that they have transcended the need and the command to be vitally connected to a local church.

If you are not so connected, all is not well with you—no matter how successful you think your ministry is.

/1 “Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

-Hebrews 10:24-25

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CRT really is a universal acid, burning through and destroying so many precious things.

@NYTmag reports on the effort—already well underway—to condemn and destroy classics as a discipline.

Utter madness.

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nytimes.com/2021/02/02/mag… “To see classics the way Padilla sees it means breaking the mirror; it means condemning the classical legacy as one of the most harmful stories we’ve told ourselves.”

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Ruminating on 9-11 and differences between THEN and NOW in our national life. They are stark.

THEN: The nation was unified by national tragedy.

NOW: The nation is divided over pandemic, protests/riots, and an election.

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THEN: The nation was immeasurably grateful for and valorizing first responders, including policeman.

NOW: The nation is divided with many expressing open hostility toward policemen and wishing to disband police forces.

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Just reading a biblical scholar arguing that God's command for Israel to destroy the Canaanites cannot be excused or justified. In other words, God was WRONG in Deut. 20:16, and the Israelites were WRONG to obey Him.

/1 I'm not going to explain the ethics of the conquest of the Holy Land in a twitter thread. Rest assured, however, that Christianity does account for it. Even though our understanding is often very difficult for modern readers, it is coherent. E.g., ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/ad-fon…

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“For most of human history, after all, families across the Western world were defined in largely biblical terms: one man, one woman, with children conceived through sex and sanctified by marriage. Everyone else was just a bastard.”

/1
nytimes.com/2020/08/12/opi… “I.V.G. could allow individuals like our fictional Anna and Nicole to manufacture their own eggs and sperm... enabling more than two people to create a child together. And in the process, our basic notion of families is liable to get upended as well.”

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nytimes.com/2020/08/12/opi…

"Debates about nationalism versus assimilation figure prominently in current discourse about race. One strand of critical race theory energetically backs the nationalist view..."

/1 "Derrick Bell, for example, urged his fellow African Americans to foreswear the struggle for school integration and aim for building the best possible black schools..."

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My top 5 list of quintessential 80's songs.

#5 - "Jump" by Van Halen

This is the only "hair band" song on the list, but there is no "hair band" song more 80's than this one. Proof? Its prominence in the "Ready Player One" movie trailer.

#4 - "True" by Spandau Ballet

You get 100 points if you can tell me what classic 80's movie this track was a part of. Two-hundred points if you can name the scene. Three-Hundred if you can name the Disney movie a cover version appeared in. No Googling.

This article in the Louisville Courier-Journal is really disturbing.

Protesters are demanding that Louisville business owners submit to their demands, which include undergoing "diversity training" and admitting their complicity in gentrification.

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https://twitter.com/courierjournal/status/1288982470667501568

The protesters have created a "Social Justice Rating System" for downtown businesses. The ratings tell whether or not a business is conforming to the "NuLu Social Justice Health & Wellness Code." (I have looked online for this code, but can't find it.)

/2 bossworld.net/nulu-social-ju…

Racial hatred really exists, and it really is evil.

Marxist revolutionaries really exist too, and they really do mean to overturn the social order.

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theamericanconservative.com/dreher/woke-ka… There seem to be so few who can or will see BOTH challenges as the seeds of revolution spill out into the streets of major cities across the country.

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My wife sent me to the store to pick up a dozen Sprites, but I picked Seven Up instead.

#DadJokes

/1 What did the right eye say to the left eye?

“Between you and me, man, something smells!”

#DadJokes

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Democratic Senators are on the floor of the Senate right now trying to pass the Equality Act. That legislation would gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1996.

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c-span.org/video/?473168-… The Religious Freedom Restoration Act is the one law that Gorsuch said would protect religious freedom after 𝘉𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘬. The Democrats are trying to destroy that protection right now.

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