Church

What’s to do Now that Easter is Over?

/ Scott Gourley / Leave a comment

What’s to do now that Easter’s over?

But is it truly over, Scott? 

Well, of course not. The knowledge of our Lord’s resurrection should always stay with us.

But, all the festivities of Easter are now past. The weekend itself is behind us. The big event has happened. And so, what now? What should we, as a church, be focusing our attention on next?

Well, fortunately, we don’t have to stumble into unknown territory, trying to figure this out. We can actually look to the Bible and take our cue from what the early church did next.

In Acts 1:4-5, we read:

While he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father’s promise. “Which,” he said, “you have heard me speak about; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.”

It’s interesting that Jesus’ command wasn’t to “Go!” It wasn’t, “Leave Jerusalem and get busy!”It wasn’t, “Dream something up and go do it in my name!” 

That might be our default thinking. Matthew 28:19-20! The Great Commission! Charge the hill! Let’s go!

But Jesus didn’t command His disciples to get busy. Instead, He commanded them “to wait.” 

Not, “Go,” but, “Wait.” Probably the exact opposite of what the disciples wanted to hear. Probably the exact opposite of what you and I want to hear. Because I know that I want to do something. I want to make something happen. Check some boxes. See the fruit of my labor.

But the Lord said, “Wait.”

And wait for what? 

“For the Father’s promise.” Wait for “the Holy Spirit.”  

You see, the Lord was about to leave, and He knew that it would be impossible for His disciples to do anything apart from Him (John 15:5). And so, He was about to send them the Holy Spirit, the very indwelling presence of God Himself to empower them to do the work of the ministry.

Jesus knew it would be impossible for His disciples to do anything without the Holy Spirit. And it’s the same for us, church. We can do nothing without the miraculous, empowering work of the Holy Spirit. 

After Easter, Jesus told His disciples to wait for the Spirit and His movement, and that’s what they did. 

After the ascension, Luke goes on to tell us in Acts 1:12–14:

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem—a Sabbath day’s journey away. When they arrived, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. They all were continually united in prayer, along with the women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

The disciples did exactly what Jesus had commanded. They waited for the Spirit. They waited continually. They waited united. And they waited in prayer.

Continually,

United,

In Prayer.

What are we to do now that Easter’s over? 

I believe we’re to do the same. We’re to wait on the Spirit … continually, united, and in prayer.

Our Lord is risen! He now sits at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for His church. One day, He will return. But in the meantime, He is with us through His Spirit, working within us, among us, and through us. 

Easter’s over. And what are we to do now? 

Wait. Church, let us wait diligently on the Spirit to move. Let us wait, seeking the Spirit’s movement continually united in prayer. 

Let us wait prayerfully until He decides to move mightily!

For His Glory and Our Joy, 

Scott Gourley

Baptists: “A Great Mass of Ignorant People?”

/ Luke Panter / Leave a comment

Two hundred and fifty years after the first baptistic confession was penned by the seven London Congregations, the Southern Baptist Convention hosted a visiting English committee on American soil. As Southern Baptists gathered in Memphis on May 1889, John Broadus prepared to introduce this committee of English Baptists brethren to the messengers. Broadus, the president of Southern Baptist Seminary, was humbled and excited to be able to welcome the committee from foreign shores.

Among the committee members was one Dr. Parker who described his amazement at the organization and camaraderie of the SBC. According to Broadus’s letters, “American Baptists reminded him (Parker) of a herd of wild horses with heads erect, rearing and plunging and curvetting, but somehow moving on, all in the same direction.” Parker went on to critique the response of modern Protestantism to baptistic growth in America: “It was sometimes said by other denominations that Baptists had among them a great mass of ignorant people. This was true.” But according to Broadus, Dr. Parker also said that “he felt like replying to those who made this statement, “Why haven’t you a similar mass?'”

This is a great question for a denomination to ask itself, even today. Why do certain denominations not have more people around them moving in the same direction? Why do Southen Baptists have so many churches moving in the same direction? Can we tolerate theological ignorance, and sometimes convictional parity, among our contemporaries while pursuing common goals? John Broadus certainly did. Broadus was not only a respected churchman and scholar in the Baptist world. He lectured and preached at Yale, Cornell, New York, and he turned down countless job offers to serve as president of prominent universities across the U.S. He served on numerous boards and was well-respected by intellectuals across the nation. Broadus was neither ingorant nor anti-intellectual, but he was willing to join hands with other Baptists who shared similar core convictions for the advancement of the gospel. Rather than leading attempts to section off an intellectual affinity group from the larger mass of Baptists in America, he labored tirelessly to educate the ignorant Baptist mass whom he came to love as his family.

Like Broadus, we are best when we are neither pragmatic nor partisan.

As Southern Baptists continue to grapple with the ongoing difficulties of association and cooperation, it would do us good to remember the examples of people from our past like John Broadus. Let us use whatever wisdom and knowledge we possess to educate and inform the mass to which we belong, rather than use it to reduce our forces. Maybe we could come to recognize that we are all ignorant of something. Maybe we could, like Broadus, be at peace with the fact that being part of the SBC means that we will always be among the ingorant. But may we also, like Broadus, pursue theological education and convictional cooperation with tenacity and tireless devotion. And let’s do it together.

A. T. Robertson, Life and Letters of John A. Broadus (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1901).

Elders and/or Pastors

/ Luke Panter / Leave a comment

Southern Baptists are discussing the biblical and historical understandings of the word “pastor” today in ways that have direct implications for future cooperation among their numerous churches. A motion was made in the 2020 annual meeting in Nashville for the Credentials Committee to investigate the apparent ordination of female “pastors” within a cooperating and credentialed SBC church. The committee investigated and brought forth a recommendation to the body of messengers at the 2022 meeting in Anaheim California on June 14th.

To the surprise and dismay of many messengers, the committee concluded that the church was operating according to the spirit of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 because although they had ordained women as “pastors,” the women were not functioning as “elders.” The church in question claimed that they were not disobeying Scripture nor acting in bad faith toward their fellow SBC churches because they interpreted the word “pastor” to refer to a giftedness bestowed by the Holy Spirit on both men and women in the New Testament (Ephesians 4:11), while interpreting the term “elder” to apply to an office only to be filled by men (1Timothy 3:1).

So who are our pastors/shepherds? Are they people in our church who display skills or gifts of shepherding? Is there convincing evidence from Scripture that the “gifts” mentioned in Ephesians 4:11 are Spirit-given skills for people in ministry, or does the evidence support the claim that the gifts are actual people (officers) given to churches for the purpose of ministry.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, we decided to provide a link to an article written in 2019 by Denny Burk that explains how to examine the biblical evidence in this situation. We agree with Burk’s exegetical approach to understanding this issue which also continues the biblically conservative precedent established by Baptists long ago – that elders are qualified men gifted by the Holy Spirit to the local church to shepherd the people of God, and that shepherding is the unique responsibility of elders in the context of the local church.

Can Women Be Pastors But Not Elders?