Religious Liberty and the Baptist Tradition

First Freedom: The Beginning and End of Religious Liberty was originally published in 2005 after a conference on Baptist distinctives held at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) in 2005. A new edition appeared in 2016. A Baptist distinctive worth noting, and one continually under attack, is that of religious freedom. In the book, the authors aim…

Two reasons truth is essential for hypocrisy.

It’s essential in confronting the charge of hypocrisy. It’s essential in escaping the life of hypocrisy. God is the God of truth. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. The Scriptures are the truth. The gospel is the word of truth. Conversion is a turnaround triggered by truth. Discipleship is the way of…

How does the Bible describe unbelief?

The Bible uses many strong terms to describe unbelief, including hardening, twisting, blindness, deafness, unnaturalness, lies, deception, folly, rebellion and madness, but none repays reflection more than Paul’s phrase in Romans. At the heart of sin and disobedience, Paul says, is a flagrantly deliberate and continuing act of violence to truth. Sin and disobedience lay…