The recent Christianity Today article “The Case for Early Marriage” is getting a lot of buzz online. Norman Jameson has some good thoughts on this topic in a recent editorial for the Biblical Recorder. His conclusion:
Does [American culture's] stance tell our young people that we value independence and financial security more than we value the “holy union” of matrimony? One of the arguments I hear against marrying “young” is that the man or the woman … [Read More]
Norman Jameson on Marrying Young
Ed Stetzer Joins Between the Times
Ed Stetzer is a wickedly keen missiologist, uber-blogger, visiting professor at Southeastern, and President of LifeWay Research. And as of today (after exhausting rounds of negotiation and arbitration) we have convinced him to be a regular contributor at Between the Times.
Readers of BtT may know Dr. Stetzer from his LifeWay Research blog and from the books he has authored or co-authored, including Planting Missional Churches, Lost and Found, Breaking the Missional Code, Comeback Churches, Compelled by … [Read More]
Taylor, Carson, and Mahaney: The Foolishness of the Cross and Church-Planting Strategies
Justin Taylor has provided a fantastic little mini-post, “The Foolishness of the Cross and Church-Planting Strategies.” In the post, he refers to D. A. Carson’s book, The Cross and Christian Ministry, and to C. J. Mahaney’s post, “Cross-Centered Books.” The jist of Carson’s book as well as both blogposts is that success in church planting and other endeavors depends primarily upon our faithfulness to the gospel rather than upon sociological analysis or strategic planning. We at BtT recommend … [Read More]
Richard Gamble on the American Patriot’s Bible
Richard Gamble has written a blistering review of The American Patriot’s Bible. Gamble is dead-on in his thoughts about evangelicals, civil religion, and the abuse of both the Bible and American history among so many politically conservative evangelicals, including not a few Southern Baptists. Almost every semester I have a student or two in my Baptist history classes who argue that America is a Christian nation, the notion of a free church in a free state … [Read More]
God Exposed: Awkward Preaching in a Comfortable Age
At Southeastern Seminary, gospel-centered expositional preaching is at the center of the vision for pastoral ministry that we are attempting to cultivate among our students. In an age of gimmicky, atheological, man-centered, self-help drivel–and that’s just in the evangelical pulpits!–we believe that local churches will not be healthy without exegetical, theological, applicational, evangelistic pulpit ministries. To this end, SEBTS and IX Marks Ministries are partnering to co-sponsor a preaching conference at SEBTS on September 25-26 titled God Exposed: Awkward … [Read More]
The Prayer Call of 1784
We Baptists love to talk about the role that the English Particular Baptists of the 18th century, especially Andrew Fuller and William Carey, played in launching the modern missions movement in the English-speaking world. That movement is often said to begin in 1792 with the formation of the Particular Baptist Missionary Society, which sent Carey and John Thomas to India the following year. But that’s not the full story. Before there was a “Great Commission … [Read More]
Global Context (NAME): The Arabs in History
This series of posts deals with the global context in its many dimensions-historical, social, cultural, political, economic, and religious. We will provide book notices, book reviews, and brief essays on these topics. We hope that you will find this series helpful as you live and bear witness in a complex and increasingly hyper-connected world.
Bernard Lewis’ The Arabs in History is was first published in 1958, revised in 1993, and is still fruitful for the beginning … [Read More]
The Power of Prayer
In 1794 Baptists Isaac Backus and Stephen Gano, along with twenty-three other New England ministers, distributed a circular letter which called believers to pray for a general awakening:
“To the ministers and churches of every Christian denomination in the United States, to humble in their endeavors to carry into execution the humble attempt to promote explicit agreement and visible union of God’s people in extraordinary prayer for the revival of religion and the advancement of Christ’s … [Read More]
Praying for a Great Commission Resurgence
Shortly after the Louisville Convention GCR Task Force chairman Ronnie Floyd asked for at least 5000 Southern Baptists to partner with the Task Force through prayer. Today a new website has been launched to help all of us know better how to pray for the Task Force. PRAY4GCR includes a list of all the Task Force members, explanations of the history and main principles of the GCR movement, and prayer updates. It also has a section where you can sign … [Read More]
