I am not endorsing everyone who says anything negative about the S.B.C. But I am saying there are some godly voices out there like Tom Ascol, Tom Buck, Jared Longshore, and Gabe Hughes (so many more names I could mention) who love the convention so much, and those within the convention so much, that they are willing to boldly point out our errors so that we might seek the Lord’s mercy instead of arrogantly presuming upon His grace. Oh that we would fear the Lord and repent rather than being upset about tone!

You’re tired of pirate analogies? Me too. But the continued drifting of the Southern Baptist Convention since Nashville has only served to, now more than ever, call faithful Christians to stand for integrity and truth.

Recently I’ve seen threads by men like Pastor Jimmy Scroggins that seem to imply that the real problem in the SBC is people bringing up the problems. James Merritt told me “Talk is cheap.” But what I’m trying to communicate in this post is that not talking is quite costly.

An Old Testament Example

The prophet Micah wore no patch on his eye, and yet he still wasn’t all that beloved by his contemporaries. In fact, you might say some would have wished he would have just shut his mouth and not have been so “mean-spirited” in his proclamations. He alludes to such in Micah 2:6 –

“Do not preach”—thus they preach—
“one should not preach of such things;
disgrace will not overtake us.”

The house of Jacob preferred not to be warned of the impending doom. They much preferred the parroting messages of “Peace” (cf. Micah 3:5) instead of facing the reality of their precarious condition and need for repentance.

Calvin notes, “The ungodly think, that if they close the mouths of the prophets, all things would be lawful to them, and that their crimes would be hid, in short, that their vices would not be called to an account; as though their wickedness was not in itself sufficiently reproachful, were God to send no prophets, and no reproof given.”

The children of Jacob thought the problem was the prophets. That if the prophets would just be nicer then unity and prosperity would ensue.

But the problem wasn’t the prophets. It was the house of Jacob’s disobedience. It was their lack of concern for the Word of God. It was their own stubbornness to go their own way instead of trusting the Lord’s way. It was their increasing comfortability with the surrounding world.

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