Shortly after the Chicago Pope, Leo XIV, was elected, a man who has attended the church my friend pastors said, “I think I’m gonna join the Catholic church. I like this new pope. And besides, they have more sacraments than you do.” “Actually,” my friend responded, “Baptists don’t have any sacraments. We have ordinances.” He […]
BF&M 2000
BF&M Article VI: Live, local, and late-breaking
Article 6 in the Baptist Faith and Message is the only one that has been amended since the Convention adopted the full revision in 2000. The change left some wondering, “How did that happen?” and “Is that allowed?” The revision came by a motion from the floor at the 2023 SBC Annual Meeting in New […]
BF&M Articles IV and V: God’s plan from the beginning
It’s telling that the original 1925 Baptist Faith and Message addressed the important topic of salvation with not just one or two articles, but with six. These were titled: The Way of Salvation, Justification, The Freeness of Salvation, Regeneration, Repentance and Faith, and Sanctification. Two additional articles were titled God’s Purpose of Grace (or election), […]
BF&M Article III: Made in God’s own image
At the time the first Baptist Faith & Message was adopted in 1925, the big headlines included gangster-massacres, Prohibition, and the Scopes Monkey Trial. Billed as the trial of the century only two decades into the century, a schoolteacher in Dayton, Tennessee was brought to court for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. In that environment, […]
BF&M Article II: An expansive, yet precise view of God
The Baptist Faith & Message has always expressed our belief that God is three-in-one. But the brief five lines found in Article II of the 1925 BF&M gave only the most basic explanation of the Three. Attributes and activities of each were sprinkled throughout the other 24 articles (now condensed to 18). But beginning with […]