If You're Baptist, Why Not Say So?

You just don't know when you're talking too loud... So let um have it! :applause: :wavey:

 

I "hear" you brother. A great friend who has been deaf since birth, can not form words hardly at all. It doesn't change the fact he is a great friend and a great person. I just wish I was better at sign language. My daughter picked it up quickly.

 

I apologize that I have offended you. I don't recall saying that I had a "method".
I have prayed and do pray for my MIL, but the pride you speak of belongs to her. She is very insulting and condescending toward Baptists and raised her children (all 7 of them) to believe the same way, which includes my husband, who is now a Baptist. It has taken years for him to rid himself of the false teachings of the RC.
I do not approach my MIL with a prideful attitude. I think you have misjudged me. I am no better than anyone. I am nothing.

 

Amy.......... never........ and I say never.............. say you are nothing. You are the daughter of a King. What does that make you?

 

It makes me a princess?

And you are a very nice person.

 

Hello TCGreek. I personally am not a big fan of Rick Warren after reading "The Purpose Driven Life". Rick Warren looks to be a Pastor of a church, and an enthusiastic evangelistic soul, and we can see this, as he has reached a great multitude of people all over the world

I don't have insight into why RW's church does not have Baptist connected to his church, but it is his choice to make. He sounds like a Baptist in many ways, but so do many Grace churches, and others. Perhaps he went outside the camp, to widen his audience with the message he believes.

Does he believe if we believe on the name of Jesus Christ we will be saved? Then he believes as Baptist, and the Grace churches, and all the other churches that believe this. If we find in Rick Warren's message the message of believe on the name of Jesus Christ, and we will be saved without any works, then I am all for what he has done. If not, it has all been done for Rick Warren.

 

Really........... I'm nothing. :laugh:

 

Don't say THAT! :laugh:

 

That................. :thumbs:

 

Actually, being the daughter of the King makes me a child of God which makes me not "nothin'", but somethin'. (Is that too prideful?)

 

That is the kind of pride to have.

 

I really don't mean to be argumentative, but does this not take away from the autonomy of each Baptist church? "Baptist distinctives" is a guideline, and not a set of instructions that must be adhered too, or expulsion is mandatory. If the members (they are in the Body Church, the Body of Christ), each in different stages of understanding, and they can live somewhat peaceably with each other, form an earthly Baptist church. They may not believe exactly as the Baptist church just down the street, so doesn't someone need to determine which Baptist church is right?

This then ends up of going back to "Baptist distinctives". When we do this we then have taken away from one of the churches its autonomy.

Baptists, whatever they may believe, are Baptists for they, each church believes what it believes, and what they believe is right in their eyes. Does not every Baptist believe Acts 16:28-31, Ephesians 2:8-9, and Galatians 3:3-2, "This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
3. Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?"

I agree with you that "Baptist distinctives" is a good starting point, but man created these "distinctives", therefore we understand they are not perfect. But we also at the core we Baptist, whatever "Convention, or Association" agree with Paul…Colossians 1:12-20. If we as Baptists believe this, then are we not in that "spiritual Church, the Body of Christ"? If so, then in our Baptist church are we each existing as an independent entity (autonomous) in our church?

It is not a Baptist church that makes us "Christian", but each "Christian" in that Baptist church exists free in our Lord Jesus Christ, not being bound by "distinctives made by man"? But we do live in this world, and we need "guide lines", or "distinctives" to point us in the right direction.

 

I think your friend is right for a majority of such cases.

 

It might be misleading if we were trying to make baptists of people. It would be a bait and switch ploy.

But, for me (and remember we have Baptist in our name), making baptists of people is distinctively below reaching them for Christ and helping them become disciples. If leaving out that name in a community helps me accomplish what I believe is a Biblical priority and command, then I am going to leave it out.

Besides I don't teach certain doctrinal distinctives because they are Baptist, but becasue they are Biblical.

 

I'll give you a perfect example why it is probably a good thing to leave the name out. In Bryan Association, where I reside, the Assoc. is split. There are the Calvinist and the non-Calvinist. There is actually hate within this Assoc. You would not believe the vitriol that was spewed at the yearly meeting. People, (non-Calvinist) got up and walked out on the D.O.M.'s message. We, ( a reformed church), were not voted into the Association. (needed a 2/3 vote and had a little over half.) We are still members of the General Convention, and do not have to be members of the local assoc.
This has caused the community of believers and non believers alike to look at our Baptist Assoc. with disgust. What will happen to an organization that eats its young?
If you have Baptist in your name you are probably laughed at by many people in our county. Yeah........ "there are some of those people who claim to be Christian but hate each other".......... :laugh:
Go ahead and keep the name if you want to, but as for our church and many new church starts in Oklahoma, we choose not to.

edited to correct spelling errors........ ( I think )

 

AMEN!

My wife and I are just plain old generic christians who happen to attend a Baptist church.

 

Amen TCGreek

 

The same with my wife, but I'm afraid I'm closer to being a one of those "Geriatric Christians", myself.

More and more, I find myself concerned about the "hereafter", and like Job, in Scripture, I have three companions, whom I'll call my ABC companions (Art, Ben, and Charley), I'd just as soon not have to deal with, all the time.

These days, when I walk into a room I usually wonder what I'm here after, and if I don't put up with the unpleasant body odor of Ben Gay, then I have to deal with the always irritating Arthur Ritis, and the sneaky approach of that old American Indian, Charley Horse. :tonofbricks:

Ed