Blog Archive

I’m not a Ron Paul fanatic. I probably wouldn’t even qualify as a fan. But this quote is great (video via: Drudge). He’s talking about pilots having to go through TSA screening.

But can you think how silly the whole thing is?

The pilot has a gun in the cockpit and he’s managing this aircraft which is a missile and we make him go through this groping x-ray exercise, having people feel in their underwear.

It’s absurd!

He’s exactly right. If a pilot ever decided to commit a terrorist act, he has plenty of ways to do that other than smuggling a box-cutter through security in his underwear.

I’m very thankful that the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina voted to hear and then voted to pass the pro-Great Commission Resurgence resolution I offered from the floor of the convention. If it had not been for that vote, I’m not aware of any official action that we would have been able to point to and say that North Carolina is on board with this vision. After such a historic moment in June at the SBC, I think it was huge that we had something positive come out of our state convention.

Some ot

her states took even greater steps in aligning with the GCR vision:
Several states voted to move to a 50/50 split in Cooperative Program funding—with half staying with the state convention and half being forwarded directly to the national level Cooperative Program: Florida (within 4-7 years), Kentucky (by 2017, with bulk of change in 2011), and Tennessee (by 2012-13) That is a major step and I am actually shocked (but glad!) they took that kind of action so quickly. It should be an indication to other state conventions that it is possible if made a priority.

A huge thank you to all those in these three state that worked to see that happen.

As someone who uses the NIV translation as my main Bible for reading and teaching, I was very interested to see what would come of Zondervan’s announcement that they would be updating the NIV text. The text is now available, even though you can’t buy updated NIV Bibles until sometime around Spring 2011. To see how the NIV update translates any passage, you can look it up at the Bible Gateway.

The new NIV is said to keep about 95% of what we now know as the NIV (from 1984). So this is more than a minor revision, but not really a new translation either. A few years ago, Zondervan tried doing this same kind of thing and releasing it as a new translation, the TNIV. The TNIV was heralded by some, but also heavily criticized for going too far in some places with how it translated gender-specific original wording into gender-neutral English. (ie. man, or mankind may have been translated as people; sons may have been translated as children; etc…) The TNIV was not widely successful.

So this time there is no “new” version. After next year, Bibles printed under the NIV name will have the NIV 2011 text rather than the 1984 text. Some of the TNIV changes have been kept, some have been discarded. They have tried to stake out a middle ground on the gender-neutrality question. Here’s a brief video from highly respected New Testament scholar Doug Moo talking about the NIV update.

I’m still evaluating the NIV 2011, but there has been plenty of discussion about the update, so here is a rundown if you’d like to see how the conversation is looking at this point:

• SBC Impact blog has a post listing a few notable changes.

• Bible Gateway is also hosting a blog called Perspectives in Translation to address some of these prominent translation issues from both sides. The articles are short, but may be somewhat technical. However, don’t let that deter you from taking a look. I think most anyone interested in Bible translation could benefit from it.
• Denny Burk has a couple of posts on the release and a few different translation issues:

The Release of NIV 2011

The NIV on Romans 1:17 (links to some discussion that may be somewhat technical)

The NIV on 1 Timothy 2:12

• Robert Slowly has an extensive list of changes and differences between the NIV, TNIV, and NIV 2011.

I expect a lot more discussion to follow. I look forward to it as I consider whether to continue using the NIV as my primary translation.

UPDATE: Trevin Wax posts The NIV 2011 Forces a Choice at his excellent blog, Kingdom People.

Next week is the Annual Meeting of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. Part of that meeting each year is a time for the messengers to vote on resolutions expressing the sentiment of the convention. This year, I submitted a resolution about the GCR Task Force for consideration, but the committee declined to present it during the meeting.

I haven’t yet decided whether to try and introduce the resolution from the floor. Here’s the text of the resolution. If you have feedback, I’d be glad to hear it. That may help me make a decision about trying to introduce it during the meeting itself.

Resolution Expressing Gratitude for the Work of the Great Commission Task Force

Submitted by Brent Hobbs, pastor, Severn Baptist Church, Severn, NC

WHEREAS, The Southern Baptist Convention, on June 15th, 2010, adopted the recommendations of the Great Commission Task Force; and

WHEREAS, Three leaders from the state of North Carolina were members of that Task Force; and

WHEREAS, Those and other members of the Great Commission Task Force spent many hours thinking and working together for the benefit of our cooperative work; and

WHEREAS, The goal of the Task Force was to seek how Southern Baptists, including North Carolina Baptists, could work together more faithfully to fulfill the Great Commission; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the messengers of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, November 9-11th 8-10th, 2010, appreciate the many hours of labor by members of the Great Commission Task Force; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we are thankful for an ongoing discussion about how we can most effectively carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost in this world; and be it finally further

RESOLVED, That we affirm appreciate the work and recommendations of the Great Commission Task Force and the vision they have presented to our churches, both nationally and across North Carolina; and be it finally

RESOLVED, That we are grateful for the approval of the Task Force report in June and hope for greater Great Commission effectiveness as a result.

(EDIT: Updated resolution language with changes indicated by strikethrough and new portion by underline. See below for details.)

The committee’s reasoning for declining the resolution for consideration? It (1) “did not seem appropriate” to “single out a particular committee for affirmation” and because (2) it was “directive in nature, calling on the Convention to take action”.

At this point, I might point out one resolution that was accepted here. You might also note that it singles out a particular BSCNC employee for affirmation (paragraph 7) and calls the BCSNC to specific action, selecting leaders who have demonstrated support for the Cooperative Program (paragraph 6).

You can judge for yourself whether these are legitimate reasons for declining to consider the resolution.

EDIT (con’t): After receiving some feedback on the resolution, I’ve decided to make a few changes as noted above. The biggest change is from “affirming” to “appreciating” the work and recommendations in order to make it sound less like an official endorsement. After making that change, I added the last sentence to make the resolution a little more clear that we are also thankful for the content of the report and its adoption.

I’ve also decided to go ahead and try to present the resolution to the BSCNC annual meeting next week. I’ll do that by making a motion during the miscellaneous business session on Tuesday morning. It requires a 2/3 majority on a motion to “Suspend the Rules” so that we can consider the resolution. It’s likely a long shot to even get it heard, but I sincerely want something to come out of our state convention this year expressing support for the GCR movement and vision.

Our church will celebrate Reformation Day this coming Sunday, October 31st. I’ll be preaching on Romans 1:16-17 as a part of our new series on the book of Romans, God’s Grace to Sinners Like Us. Here’s Martin Luther’s famous quote on ‘the righteousness of God’ in 1:17 and how God gave Luther eyes to see this biblical truth.

The quote is from Luther’s work known as his Autobiographical Fragment, written in 1545. I’ve merged a couple of different translations in the interest of clarity since I plan on reading it aloud as part of my message on Sunday.

… For I hated the phrase ‘the righteousness of God’, which according to the use and custom of all the doctors, I had been taught to understand philosophically, in the sense of the formal or active righteousness by which God is just and punishes unrighteous sinners.

Although I lived an irreproachable life as a monk, I felt that I was a sinner with an uneasy conscience before God; nor could I believe that I had pleased him by the satisfaction I could offer. I did not love—nay, in fact, I hated this righteous God who punished sinners, and if not with silent blasphemy, then certainly with great murmuring. I was angry with God, saying, “As if it were not enough that miserable sinners should be eternally condemned by original sin, with all kinds of misfortunes laid upon them through the Old Testament law, and yet God adds sorrow to sorrow through the Gospel, and even brings his righteousness and wrath to bear on us through it!” Thus I drove myself mad, with a desperate and disturbed conscience; persistently pounding upon Paul in this passage, with a parched and burning desire to know what he could mean.

At last, God being merciful, as I meditated day and night on the connection of the words, namely—‘The righteousness of God is revealed in it, as it is written: the righteous shall live by faith’—and there I began to understand the ‘righteousness of God’ as that by which the righteous man lives by the gift of God, namely by faith. And this sentence, “the righteousness is revealed,” to refer to a passive righteousness, by which the merciful God justifies us through faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ At this I felt myself straightway born again and to have entered through the open gates into paradise itself. From that moment the whole face of Scripture was changed…

And now, in the same degree as I had formerly hated the word ‘righteousness of God’, even so did I begin to love and extol it as the sweetest word of all. Thus was this place in St. Paul to me the very gate of paradise…

After Sunday, you can find the audio of this message, along with many others, on the ‘Sermons’ page at our church website.

The Southern Baptist Convention just adopted, by a fairly wide margin, the recommendations of the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) task force. You can look back at my previous posts for summaries about that seven recommendations that made up much of the report. There were also some challenges to individual Christians, churches, state conventions, and others that make of the remainder of the report.

I am relieved and joyful that this report was adopted by the convention. From my perspective, this was a strong statement by the majority of Southern Baptists present that our convention is defined by more than simply a giving formula. The adoption of the report means that not only do we share the Cooperative Program (CP) as a means of funding various ministries, but we are also together because of a common mission. This week the convention clearly stated that the CP is not preeminent. The CP exists to serve our common mission. This importance of this cannot be understated. It opens up the CP to a whole new level of evaluation and scrutiny – which the GCR task force used over this past year to recommend some pretty important changes for the sake of its own effectiveness.

As David Platt said at the Nine Marks gathering Tuesday night, passing the GCR was a good step forward; not passing it would have been a very big step backwards. We leave the Orlando 2010 annual meeting of the SBC better situated for a future of missional engagement, at home and across the world.

Now it’s up to us to make sure Orlando was not the end, but only one more step along the way of a true Great Commission renewal movement in evangelical and specifically SBC life.

Components 5, 6, and 7 in the final report remain substantially the same as their corresponding recommendations from the progress report. For these three, I’ll summarize briefly and point you back to my post on each of those components from earlier.

Component 5: IMB Allowed to Operate Within North America
This component recommends removing the limitation currently placed on the IMB and its personnel. So as not to step on NAMB’s toes, they are not allowed to work in North America (U.S. and Canada). In initially it makes sense, but the problem comes when you consider the vast populations of internationals living here with cultural and language barriers that NAMB is not prepared to cross. This frees the IMB in situations where it would be beneficial, to work with groups like these. For more on this component, see my earlier post, The IMB Without Limits.

Component 6: CP Promotion and Stewardship
This recommendation places the leadership for promotion of the Cooperative Program (CP) and stewardship primarily with the state conventions and away from the SBC Executive Committee. For more in this component, see my earlier post, Stemming the Tide of Duplication.

Component 7: 51% of CP funds to the IMB
The task force wants to see us break the “50 percent barrier”. This component redirects 1% of the national CP budget away from the Executive Committee and to international missions. A one percent shift represents around 2 million dollars. For more on this component, see my earlier post, Breaking the 50% Barrier.

The fourth component of the GCR task force’s final report deals with the work of the North American Mission Board (NAMB). It calls for NAMB to be refocused and reinvented for better Great Commission effectiveness. The goal and thrust of this component is much the same as it was in the progress report, which you can read more about in my earlier post, Reinventing NAMB. In this post, I’d like to list some of the specifics of the final report.

1. Church Planting as the Priority – The task force envisions NAMB making church planting, which is the most effective means of evangelism, central to its strategy and work. The call is for at least 50% of NAMB ministry efforts to be channeled to “assist churches in planting healthy, multiplying, and faithful Baptist congregations in the United States and Canada.” (pg. 10)

2. Cities and Underserved Regions as the Target – Two thirds of our Cooperative Program dollars in North America are spent in Southern States, where Southern Baptist presence is already strong. The task force wants to see our resources going to places in the U.S. and Canada where there is a limited number of churches and little gospel witness.

3. Missional Strategy as the Means – To some, the ideal church plant would be a remake of First Baptist, Some City, Alabama, merely relocated to New York or Michigan, or Oregon. Thankfully, the task force has called us to look at all of our settings as mission fields, which means the churches we plant will be designed to effectively reach and communicate to the populations in their respective communities. This may even include (gasp!) planting churches without ‘Baptist’ in the name. The point is reaching people with the gospel, not preserving SBC culture and tradition. In fact, in many (most) contexts, Southern Baptist culture gets in the way of helping people to hear the message of salvation by grace through faith alone.

4. Phasing Out Cooperative Agreements – In place since the 1950’s, this is the method through which NAMB has partnered with state conventions. The way it currently works, too much is sent back to areas where Southern Baptist presence is already thick. Instead of phasing them out over a 4-year period, as the progress report recommended, the time period has been extended to a 7-year time frame. Also an addition since the progress report, they’ve called for a strategy to replace this method that will better reflect NAMB’s new priorities and areas of emphasis.

5. Leadership Development – The task force is calling on NAMB to take the central role in developing pastoral leadership with particular attention to contextual evangelism and church planting. This is one area of the report where I’m not personally convinced it’s the best idea. It may be appropriate for NAMB to take on this responsibility as long as it remains a small, small part of what they do. The fact that it’s geared to equip pastors in contextualization and church planting makes it better. To me, it seems to fall in the not-quite-essential category. I think there are plenty of leadership development opportunities available from various groups and ministries. I’d rather see NAMB point pastor and church leaders to those already available resources than trying to do what’s already being done.

6. Decentralization – The progress report mentioned NAMB from seven regional offices rather than one single national office. The final report does mention decentralization (11) but doesn’t include specifics of what that decentralization looks like. Of course the decision will be up to NAMB leadership and trustees, but I suppose we have to look back at the progress report for the clearest idea of what the task force has in mind.

Conclusion
Even with some slight reservations as mentioned above, I believe it is essential that the SBC messengers adopt component 4 in Orlando. We cannot continue to operate as we have in the past. NAMB has lacked effectiveness and doesn’t inspire confidence among too many Southern Baptists. This is an opportunity to mark a new chapter in the existence of the North American Mission Board.

This component of the report is mostly the same as it was back in the progress report, so I will point you back to my post at that time: The CP Loses Its Monopoly. I think the essence of the component has stayed the same and I stand by my comments there. In this post, I want to briefly state why I support this component. I’ll also cover a few tweaks in the final report that I think are worth noting.

I support the move to Great Commission Giving because churches should have the right, without others criticizing or sneering at them, to bypass the inefficient state convention system with their missions giving. I maintain that it is irresponsible for churches in states where 2/3 of missions funds are kept in-state to make the Cooperative Program their exclusive means of supporting missions. When churches decide to take ownership of their missions giving, still supporting SBC causes, they should be celebrated and not stigmatized.

I am thankful for churches who have decided to give directly to the national level Cooperative Program so that a higher percentage of funds gets to ministries that they (and I) consider priorities. Great Commission Giving affirms these churches and makes the Southern Baptist Convention a place that is welcoming. Welcoming to those of us who will not toe the line to let state convention executives divvy out funds as they see fit.

That, in short form, is why I support the Great Commission Giving Recommendation.

Other Aspects of Component 3
There is a call for Southern Baptists to give sacrificially “as never before.” This stems from research showing abysmal giving statistics for average church members. If more of our church members practiced biblical stewardship (note I didn’t say tithing), a floodgate of resources would be opened for our cooperative missions work.

One aspect about which I’ve heard very little mention is the call to include estate planning and planned gifts (9) to undergird Great Commission work after we’ve departed this life. I like this inclusion and it’s something we should think and hear more about.

The task force also calls us “to support the Cooperative Program as never before.” It may seem counterintuitive to what I’ve said above, but I believe that the attitude change signified by the adoption of Great Commission Giving will make me and others more willing to support the Cooperative Program; because we feel a resonance once again with the direction of the SBC, and because state conventions will receive the message that more needs to be forwarded to the national level.

I really believe that, over the long term, this proposal will help increase the funding going to Great Commission missions work and the Cooperative Program itself.

In component 2, the task force calls us as Southern Baptists to eight core values that should exemplify our lives as we seek to represent the character of Jesus to the world. This is basically unchanged from the progress report, except this has now become a separate component, rather than the second half of the first component as it was in the progress report. The eight core values (pgs. 8-9) follow:

• Christ-likeness (reflecting Jesus’ attitude and character)
• Truth (inerrancy)
• Unity (secondary issues will not distract us)
• Relationships (others more important than self)
• Trust (honesty, transparency with one another)
• Future (importance of coming generations)
• Local Church (central to the Great Commission)
• Kingdom (working with other groups where possible)

I think this component is even more important than I realized at first. There is an argument that appeals to logic for being a part of the SBC. It has to do with the great job our IMB does with reaching the nations; the great job our seminaries do with providing a high-level education at a relatively low cost; the ways many of our other ministries succeed in doing effective Great Commission work. This is a practical argument and I think in many ways it is effective to those who will listen.

But many (and more all the time) refuse to listen to that argument because they cannot get past SBC culture. In order for someone to partner with the SBC for ministry, they must first feel an affinity toward the SBC. They must feel drawn to this fellowship of churches. And if we’re being honest, our culture is more likely to drive away than to attract. Until we own up to this reality we can’t fix the problem. Until our culture looks more like these values, the exodus of young leaders will continue, regardless of how effective we make our giving program.

A new culture is essential to turning the tide in the SBC. The GCR task force has done us a service by placing this reminder in their report.