Our Father in heaven, we bow to you today on this momentous occasion because You alone are God. You are the Creator and Sustainer of all things visible and invisible. You are Sovereign and through your Son, Jesus Christ, You rule and overrule in all the affairs of life. 

We thank You for your great love for people whom You have made in Your own image. And we confess that we have not lived as we ought and have sinned against You. But we also confess that with You there is mercy, that you may be feared. Thank you for delivering up Your Son to be the Savior of the world. 

We also thank you for the provisions that You have made for us to pursue liberty, joy, and justice in Your world, and for instituting government and all governing authorities for our well-being. In Your wisdom, goodness, and power, you have once again established Governor DeSantis to serve the people of Florida by carrying out his responsibilities in ways that will be good for us. We thank You for all the wonderful things that have been accomplished in his first term, including his leadership and resolve to keep Florida free through the recent pandemic and societal upheaval that plagued so much of our nation; and his compassionate, energetic and effective recovery work in the wake of Hurricane Ian. 

Today, as he takes his oath of office to fulfill his duties by Your help, we know that he will need grace from You to meet the challenges that will be thrust upon him as the civil leader of Florida. Grant Governor DeSantis wisdom beyond his years, strength beyond his abilities, and courage to help him to stand firm in every righteous conviction. Enable him to serve with joy, zeal, and in the fear of God. 

Father, grant our governor good counsel and the humility to heed it when it will help him to serve the citizens of this state well. Enable him to utilize his office to lead this state in ways that will benefit all Floridians. 

Lord, we also ask You to have mercy on our governor’s precious family. We pray for his wife Casey and children Madison, Mason, and Mamie. With all the demands that go with his office grant him the strength and discipline to love and care for them. Watch over and bless this family as he gives himself to serve this state.

So, holy Father, hear our prayers for Governor DeSantis. Receive our praise and answer our requests, because we bring them to you in the Name of Your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.

The Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. Though God regenerates us individually, the path of growth and maturity He has designed requires following Christ together with other believers in a church. Christian growth and maturity happen in the context of committed relationships that arise in local congregations. That is, it takes a church to raise a Christian.
No believer, no matter how experienced or well taught, can navigate the challenges of the Christian life on his own. The road is too long, the opposition too great, and our weaknesses too pernicious for any single believer to stay on the path of faithfulness without the Spirit-empowered assistance of brothers and sisters who are traveling to the Celestial City with us.Jesus tells His followers that we are the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world” (Matt. 5:13–16). Those metaphors illustrate ways that Christians are to relate to the unbelieving world. Both salt and light make an impact on their environments, retarding putrefaction and dispelling darkness, respectively. The Apostle Paul emphasizes this aspect of Christians’ calling when he describes believers as living in a “crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).
At the heart of this responsibility is our duty to live as faithful children of God who accurately commend His saving grace in Christ and reflect His character to the world. “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’ ” (1 Peter 1:15–16). This is every individual Christian’s calling, and it is the calling of every church.
In fact, all the Scriptures cited above are in the plural. The call to holiness belongs not only to individual believers but also to local congregations. When a church fails to fulfill this calling, it undermines the very good news of salvation that it proclaims and dishonors the name of Jesus Christ.
The church in Corinth learned this the hard way when it allowed scandalous sin to go uncorrected in its membership. Its spiritual apathy about the Lord’s reputation brought an Apostolic rebuke:
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. (1 Cor. 5:1–2)
The Corinthian believers undoubtedly thought they were being loving and nonjudgmental in the presence of this scandalous sin among their members. They were proud of their tolerance when they should have been grieved over the outbreak of such sin among them. In the rest of the chapter, Paul corrects their faulty thinking about sin, tolerance, and holiness.
When a church tolerates unrepentant sin within its membership, it demonstrates a lack of love for the one who is sinning, for the unconverted, and for God.
A church is the context in which individual Christians are taught, strengthened, and encouraged to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. Brothers and sisters who know and love us help us overcome the inevitable idiosyncrasies that attend every believer, as well as resist the regular temptations that plague us all. They help us live in faith and repentance.
When a church tolerates unrepentant sin within its membership, it demonstrates a lack of love for the one who is sinning, for the unconverted, and for God.
When this kind of mutual care and encouragement is commonplace in a church, the power of the gospel is put on display to unbelievers. The truth of our message is given credibility by the character of our lives, thus providing a powerful apologetic for the gospel.
Finally, and most importantly, when church members love each other enough to hold one another accountable to live holy lives, they demonstrate that they love God and His glory more than they love their own ease, their reputations, or other people. Such supreme love to God will compel a church to obey the Apostolic command to deliver unrepentant members to Satan (1 Cor. 5:5).
By loving God supremely and loving people sincerely, a church will maintain its distinctiveness from the world. Then it will be properly positioned to carry out the mission that the Lord has given to us. As a holy people, we can humbly call sinners to join us in being reconciled to the holy God through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Only by being separate from the world can a church live effectively in the world, for the world.

This article originally appeared in the July 2022 issue of TableTalk Magazine.

Follow Tom Ascol:

The Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. Though God regenerates us individually, the path of growth and maturity He has designed requires following Christ together with other believers in a church. Christian growth and maturity happen in the context of committed relationships that arise in local congregations. That is, it takes a church to raise a Christian.
No believer, no matter how experienced or well taught, can navigate the challenges of the Christian life on his own. The road is too long, the opposition too great, and our weaknesses too pernicious for any single believer to stay on the path of faithfulness without the Spirit-empowered assistance of brothers and sisters who are traveling to the Celestial City with us.Jesus tells His followers that we are the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world” (Matt. 5:13–16). Those metaphors illustrate ways that Christians are to relate to the unbelieving world. Both salt and light make an impact on their environments, retarding putrefaction and dispelling darkness, respectively. The Apostle Paul emphasizes this aspect of Christians’ calling when he describes believers as living in a “crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).
At the heart of this responsibility is our duty to live as faithful children of God who accurately commend His saving grace in Christ and reflect His character to the world. “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’ ” (1 Peter 1:15–16). This is every individual Christian’s calling, and it is the calling of every church.
In fact, all the Scriptures cited above are in the plural. The call to holiness belongs not only to individual believers but also to local congregations. When a church fails to fulfill this calling, it undermines the very good news of salvation that it proclaims and dishonors the name of Jesus Christ.
The church in Corinth learned this the hard way when it allowed scandalous sin to go uncorrected in its membership. Its spiritual apathy about the Lord’s reputation brought an Apostolic rebuke:
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. (1 Cor. 5:1–2)
The Corinthian believers undoubtedly thought they were being loving and nonjudgmental in the presence of this scandalous sin among their members. They were proud of their tolerance when they should have been grieved over the outbreak of such sin among them. In the rest of the chapter, Paul corrects their faulty thinking about sin, tolerance, and holiness.
When a church tolerates unrepentant sin within its membership, it demonstrates a lack of love for the one who is sinning, for the unconverted, and for God.
A church is the context in which individual Christians are taught, strengthened, and encouraged to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. Brothers and sisters who know and love us help us overcome the inevitable idiosyncrasies that attend every believer, as well as resist the regular temptations that plague us all. They help us live in faith and repentance.
When a church tolerates unrepentant sin within its membership, it demonstrates a lack of love for the one who is sinning, for the unconverted, and for God.
When this kind of mutual care and encouragement is commonplace in a church, the power of the gospel is put on display to unbelievers. The truth of our message is given credibility by the character of our lives, thus providing a powerful apologetic for the gospel.
Finally, and most importantly, when church members love each other enough to hold one another accountable to live holy lives, they demonstrate that they love God and His glory more than they love their own ease, their reputations, or other people. Such supreme love to God will compel a church to obey the Apostolic command to deliver unrepentant members to Satan (1 Cor. 5:5).
By loving God supremely and loving people sincerely, a church will maintain its distinctiveness from the world. Then it will be properly positioned to carry out the mission that the Lord has given to us. As a holy people, we can humbly call sinners to join us in being reconciled to the holy God through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Only by being separate from the world can a church live effectively in the world, for the world.

This article originally appeared in the July 2022 issue of TableTalk Magazine.

Follow Tom Ascol:

Here is a question on which I have been musing for the last 2 years:
If the present generation of Americans were given the opportunity to form a new nation, could they create one equal to or greater than the United States of America?
The answer is an undeniable “no.” The only people who would dare to argue otherwise are those who believe that the USA is a nation that should be torn down or, as President Obama put it, “fundamentally transform[ed].” The problem is that most of the key leaders in this country fit into that category. I’m talking about leaders in the political, educational, cultural, and religious realms.
Establishment politicians have demonstrated their wickedness time after time by their inaction in the face of various moral insurrections led by domestic enemies who want to pursue President Obama’s vision to its logical conclusion of destroying the very foundations on which America is built. Witness the Black Lives Matter riots, covid vaccine mandates, legalization of so-called homosexual “marriage,” and forcing girls not only to share but to celebrate sharing toilets and locker rooms with males. Beyond inaction, too often and with increasing frequency legislative bodies actively aid and abet these domestic enemies by pushing bills and legislation that promote their insurrections. Witness the most recent example of the US Senate’s vote to pass the misnamed “Respect for Marriage Act” by a 62-37 vote. This latest maneuver is especially illustrative of political wickedness because it gives “statutory authority for same-sex and interracial marriages.”
Do you see how they operate? By tying the abomination of homosexual “marriage” to the legitimacy of interracial marriage, the Senators could threaten anyone who voted against it with the career-ending stain of “racism.” By misnaming it the “Respect for Marriage Act,” they simply lied about its attack on genuine marriage so that unthinking & unsuspecting people would think favorably of it and reason that, of course, we should be for respecting marriage! It reminds me of Hitler’s euphemistic “Final Solution.” After all, who doesn’t want problems finally resolved?
Such tactics illustrate Jesus’ words in Luke 16:8, “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.” That’s true not only for our politicians but also for the creators and producers of our entertainment industries and other influential shapers of our culture. From executive producer for Disney Television Animation, Latoya Raveneau’s giddy celebration of her success in pushing Disney to promote her “not-at-all-secret gay agenda,” to Harvard graduates’ open (and, sad to say twenty-five years hence, highly successful) bold strategy to “overhaul straight America,” they have let slip their dogs of war to great effect on the Christian ramparts of this once-great nation.
The educational institutions of this nation, for the most part, serve as fifth columnists for the moral terrorists seeking to destroy the United States. By that I mean that US citizens are financing most of these institutions through forced taxation to further the agendas of those who are working to eliminate every vestige of righteousness from our borders. Parental protests of school boards across the nation over the last few years have exposed corrupt curricula and activist teachers that seek to push the racism of Critical Race Theory and the perversion of LGBTQ+ ideologies. Some even promote (serendipitously at great financial gain) child abuse through “gender-affirming” mutilation.
On April 26, 1983 the National Commission on Excellence in Education filed a report to the US Department of Education on the quality of education in America. The name of the report signals its findings, “A Nation at Risk.” While the commission focused almost exclusively on academic metrics, what they found led to this chilling assessment:

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves….We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.

One can only imagine how those 1983 sensitivities would evaluate the devolution of the American educational complex of 2022. Former failing pedagogy has been supplanted by LGBTQ+ promoting curricula. Listen to some of the teachers who teach that curricula by spending a little time on this site. And then consider that American taxpayers are required to continue financing the insurrection.
One of the greatest disappointments of the last several years has been the failure of so many Christian leaders.
And what have the “sons of light” been doing during this fundamental transformation? For the most part, they have been following feckless leaders who, if not fully complicit in the moral rot and godless degradation of this land have nevertheless facilitated it by their incompetence or cowardice (and in some cases, both). If they were not exhorting us to practice “pronoun hospitality” by participating in the self-deception of those suffering from gender dysphoria they were reassuring us that “God only whispers about sexual immorality.” As it was in the prophet Jeremiah’s day, so it is in our own:

“From prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:13b–14).

One of the greatest disappointments of the last several years has been the failure of so many Christian leaders. In too many cases they have lacked courage and conviction. Simple, God-fearing believers have been repeatedly lectured by our betters to toe the cultural, political, and educational party line during their attack on the moral order over the last few years. We saw erstwhile trusted leaders shut down their churches at the command of civil magistrates while marching in support of Black Lives Matter protests as if the virus magically withdrew from all public virtue signaling. We were told there is no Christian basis for abstaining from the covid vaccine. Indeed, we were shamed by accusations that refusal of the vaccine is a violation of the second great commandment.
As we watched businesses destroyed, livelihoods forever altered, children’s education retarded, and parents and other loved ones suffer and die alone in hospitals, sycophantic Christian leaders continued to scold us with reminders that pastors are not medical doctors and that we must always trust the science™ regardless of how often or flagrantly those championing that “science” refused to abide by it themselves. Failure to do so, we were assured by such leaders, is to buy into wild conspiracy theories. To add insult to injury, as facts have continued to come to light that expose the failures of our leaders, they continue to refuse to admit their failures. This is both strange and revealing for those exalted to lead practitioners of a religion of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. True grace sets Christians free to live in faith and repentance. As Martin Luther put it in the very first of his 95 theses,

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Matthew 4:17) he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

Is a person who refuses to acknowledge his mistakes even practicing the same religion as Luther?
My love of a nation full of neighbors will not let me feign ignorance or remain quiet in the face of such demonic assaults on them. I want them to know the true God through faith in Jesus Christ.
I write as a Christian and a pastor. But I also write as a patriot. To some, that evokes charges of Christian Nationalism. Honestly? I don’t care. The longer I have lived as a Christian, the more clearly I have come to see that the second great commandment requires at least a modicum of patriotism. How can I love my neighbor as myself if I do not want my neighbor to enjoy the blessings and freedoms that I desire? And if I see those blessings and freedoms being destroyed by frontal assaults as well as by espionage and betrayal, is it loving to do nothing and stay silent?
If I know that “righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34), then how can I be ambivalent about the legalized slaughter of unborn babies or have my convictions so disconnected from my voting that I approve of a Christian voting for a Democrat candidate (whose party platform guarantees the protection of abortion on demand)? What kind of hatred must govern my affections for the person who is himself caught up in sexual perversion as well as for the children whom he grooms to declare that Drag Queen Story Hour in public libraries is “one of the blessings of liberty?”
My love of a nation full of neighbors will not let me feign ignorance or remain quiet in the face of such demonic assaults on them. I want them to know the true God through faith in Jesus Christ. I want them—and myself—to “live a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:2b). That is why I will pray for “kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:2a) as the Apostle Paul instructs all Christians to do. And such prayer leads me to action. Because it is insincere to pray for that for which I am not willing to use God-given means to acquire, I will also vote for those civil magistrates who will stand against wickedness and serve the cause of righteousness. And I will encourage all my Christian brothers and sisters to do likewise.
If that’s Christian nationalism, so be it. As Craig Carter so astutely noted recently, “if so, then maybe we could use a little old-fashioned Christian Nationalism.” Because one thing is certain. Our forefathers who founded this nation stood on the foundation of Christian thinking and Christian living that made possible the kind of democratic republic we have enjoyed. Those foundations have been intentionally destroyed by purveyors of wickedness. And the people of God have stood idly by as it happened.
The church of Jesus Christ has been commissioned by our Head to make disciples of all nations. The way that we do that is by teaching and preaching the Word of Christ—all of it, including both law and gospel. It is time that God’s people humble ourselves in the face of the undeniable reality that we have not fulfilled this commission very well in the last few generations of these United States.
May God grant us the grace to repent, to seek His favor and the power of His Spirit, and to give ourselves wholeheartedly to proclaim the lordship of our Christ throughout this nation once again.

Follow Tom Ascol:

Here is a question on which I have been musing for the last 2 years:
If the present generation of Americans were given the opportunity to form a new nation, could they create one equal to or greater than the United States of America?
The answer is an undeniable “no.” The only people who would dare to argue otherwise are those who believe that the USA is a nation that should be torn down or, as President Obama put it, “fundamentally transform[ed].” The problem is that most of the key leaders in this country fit into that category. I’m talking about leaders in the political, educational, cultural, and religious realms.
Establishment politicians have demonstrated their wickedness time after time by their inaction in the face of various moral insurrections led by domestic enemies who want to pursue President Obama’s vision to its logical conclusion of destroying the very foundations on which America is built. Witness the Black Lives Matter riots, covid vaccine mandates, legalization of so-called homosexual “marriage,” and forcing girls not only to share but to celebrate sharing toilets and locker rooms with males. Beyond inaction, too often and with increasing frequency legislative bodies actively aid and abet these domestic enemies by pushing bills and legislation that promote their insurrections. Witness the most recent example of the US Senate’s vote to pass the misnamed “Respect for Marriage Act” by a 62-37 vote. This latest maneuver is especially illustrative of political wickedness because it gives “statutory authority for same-sex and interracial marriages.”
Do you see how they operate? By tying the abomination of homosexual “marriage” to the legitimacy of interracial marriage, the Senators could threaten anyone who voted against it with the career-ending stain of “racism.” By misnaming it the “Respect for Marriage Act,” they simply lied about its attack on genuine marriage so that unthinking & unsuspecting people would think favorably of it and reason that, of course, we should be for respecting marriage! It reminds me of Hitler’s euphemistic “Final Solution.” After all, who doesn’t want problems finally resolved?
Such tactics illustrate Jesus’ words in Luke 16:8, “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.” That’s true not only for our politicians but also for the creators and producers of our entertainment industries and other influential shapers of our culture. From executive producer for Disney Television Animation, Latoya Raveneau’s giddy celebration of her success in pushing Disney to promote her “not-at-all-secret gay agenda,” to Harvard graduates’ open (and, sad to say twenty-five years hence, highly successful) bold strategy to “overhaul straight America,” they have let slip their dogs of war to great effect on the Christian ramparts of this once-great nation.
The educational institutions of this nation, for the most part, serve as fifth columnists for the moral terrorists seeking to destroy the United States. By that I mean that US citizens are financing most of these institutions through forced taxation to further the agendas of those who are working to eliminate every vestige of righteousness from our borders. Parental protests of school boards across the nation over the last few years have exposed corrupt curricula and activist teachers that seek to push the racism of Critical Race Theory and the perversion of LGBTQ+ ideologies. Some even promote (serendipitously at great financial gain) child abuse through “gender-affirming” mutilation.
On April 26, 1983 the National Commission on Excellence in Education filed a report to the US Department of Education on the quality of education in America. The name of the report signals its findings, “A Nation at Risk.” While the commission focused almost exclusively on academic metrics, what they found led to this chilling assessment:

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves….We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.

One can only imagine how those 1983 sensitivities would evaluate the devolution of the American educational complex of 2022. Former failing pedagogy has been supplanted by LGBTQ+ promoting curricula. Listen to some of the teachers who teach that curricula by spending a little time on this site. And then consider that American taxpayers are required to continue financing the insurrection.
One of the greatest disappointments of the last several years has been the failure of so many Christian leaders.
And what have the “sons of light” been doing during this fundamental transformation? For the most part, they have been following feckless leaders who, if not fully complicit in the moral rot and godless degradation of this land have nevertheless facilitated it by their incompetence or cowardice (and in some cases, both). If they were not exhorting us to practice “pronoun hospitality” by participating in the self-deception of those suffering from gender dysphoria they were reassuring us that “God only whispers about sexual immorality.” As it was in the prophet Jeremiah’s day, so it is in our own:

“From prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:13b–14).

One of the greatest disappointments of the last several years has been the failure of so many Christian leaders. In too many cases they have lacked courage and conviction. Simple, God-fearing believers have been repeatedly lectured by our betters to toe the cultural, political, and educational party line during their attack on the moral order over the last few years. We saw erstwhile trusted leaders shut down their churches at the command of civil magistrates while marching in support of Black Lives Matter protests as if the virus magically withdrew from all public virtue signaling. We were told there is no Christian basis for abstaining from the covid vaccine. Indeed, we were shamed by accusations that refusal of the vaccine is a violation of the second great commandment.
As we watched businesses destroyed, livelihoods forever altered, children’s education retarded, and parents and other loved ones suffer and die alone in hospitals, sycophantic Christian leaders continued to scold us with reminders that pastors are not medical doctors and that we must always trust the science™ regardless of how often or flagrantly those championing that “science” refused to abide by it themselves. Failure to do so, we were assured by such leaders, is to buy into wild conspiracy theories. To add insult to injury, as facts have continued to come to light that expose the failures of our leaders, they continue to refuse to admit their failures. This is both strange and revealing for those exalted to lead practitioners of a religion of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. True grace sets Christians free to live in faith and repentance. As Martin Luther put it in the very first of his 95 theses,

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Matthew 4:17) he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

Is a person who refuses to acknowledge his mistakes even practicing the same religion as Luther?
My love of a nation full of neighbors will not let me feign ignorance or remain quiet in the face of such demonic assaults on them. I want them to know the true God through faith in Jesus Christ.
I write as a Christian and a pastor. But I also write as a patriot. To some, that evokes charges of Christian Nationalism. Honestly? I don’t care. The longer I have lived as a Christian, the more clearly I have come to see that the second great commandment requires at least a modicum of patriotism. How can I love my neighbor as myself if I do not want my neighbor to enjoy the blessings and freedoms that I desire? And if I see those blessings and freedoms being destroyed by frontal assaults as well as by espionage and betrayal, is it loving to do nothing and stay silent?
If I know that “righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34), then how can I be ambivalent about the legalized slaughter of unborn babies or have my convictions so disconnected from my voting that I approve of a Christian voting for a Democrat candidate (whose party platform guarantees the protection of abortion on demand)? What kind of hatred must govern my affections for the person who is himself caught up in sexual perversion as well as for the children whom he grooms to declare that Drag Queen Story Hour in public libraries is “one of the blessings of liberty?”
My love of a nation full of neighbors will not let me feign ignorance or remain quiet in the face of such demonic assaults on them. I want them to know the true God through faith in Jesus Christ. I want them—and myself—to “live a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:2b). That is why I will pray for “kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:2a) as the Apostle Paul instructs all Christians to do. And such prayer leads me to action. Because it is insincere to pray for that for which I am not willing to use God-given means to acquire, I will also vote for those civil magistrates who will stand against wickedness and serve the cause of righteousness. And I will encourage all my Christian brothers and sisters to do likewise.
If that’s Christian nationalism, so be it. As Craig Carter so astutely noted recently, “if so, then maybe we could use a little old-fashioned Christian Nationalism.” Because one thing is certain. Our forefathers who founded this nation stood on the foundation of Christian thinking and Christian living that made possible the kind of democratic republic we have enjoyed. Those foundations have been intentionally destroyed by purveyors of wickedness. And the people of God have stood idly by as it happened.
The church of Jesus Christ has been commissioned by our Head to make disciples of all nations. The way that we do that is by teaching and preaching the Word of Christ—all of it, including both law and gospel. It is time that God’s people humble ourselves in the face of the undeniable reality that we have not fulfilled this commission very well in the last few generations of these United States.
May God grant us the grace to repent, to seek His favor and the power of His Spirit, and to give ourselves wholeheartedly to proclaim the lordship of our Christ throughout this nation once again.

Follow Tom Ascol:

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I once heard the late James Boice say, “We tend to overestimate what God will do in one year and greatly underestimate what he will do in twenty.” The truth of this statement was immediately apparent to me as I pondered some of the great works of God in history, like the Protestant Reformation and the modern Baptist missionary movement. But I have continued to grow in my appreciation of its profundity over the last few decades.
Today, November 13, 2022, marks the fortieth anniversary of the day that was the catalyst for the origin of what later became Founders Ministries. I remember that day well. A few weeks before, I received a letter from Ernie Reisinger, who was then serving as pastor of a church on the Southeast coast of Florida. Over the previous four years Ernie had been traveling to the six Southern Baptist seminaries to give away copies of James Pettigru Boyce’s Abstract of Systematic Theology to graduating students.
I enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1979. That next Spring, Ernie was on campus giving away Boyce’s book and I talked him into giving me one despite my first-year status. It was not difficult. Ernie loved to give away good books, especially whenever he sensed an eagerness to read them. Shortly after that, the seminary presidents disinvited him from coming back on their campuses to give away the Boyce book. The stated excuses were lame (“our students are busy preparing for final exams and do not have time to read your book”). A more plausible reason is that more and more students and graduates were actually reading Boyce’s Abstract and were being persuaded that the Bible does in fact teach that God is sovereign in salvation.
The rediscovery of the so-called “Doctrines of Grace” continued to spread and pastors were increasingly contacting Ernie asking for guidance and other resources. In response to this growing interest, he sent invitations to a few men asking us if we could meet with him in the Holiday Inn in Euless, Texas on Saturday, November 13, 1982. By that time I was in my third year as Assistant Pastor at Spring Valley Baptist Church in Dallas. Tom Nettles flew in from Memphis, where he had recently moved to teach at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. Fred Malone and Ben Mitchell, who planted Heritage Baptist Church outside of Ft. Worth, Texas were there. Bill Ascol, Assistant Pastor at Broadmoor Baptist in Shreveport and R.F. Gates, a vocational evangelist in that church joined us after lunch.
The morning was spent in prayer, reading Scripture, and singing. The burden of those prayers was for heavenly wisdom as we considered how best to steward the growing interest in God-centered theology among Baptists. After lunch, the idea of a conference was suggested and we began to work out principles that would govern such a conference. I recently reread minutes of those deliberations and was struck again at the Lord’s kindness in directing our plans.
We agreed that the motive for such a conference was “to glorify God, honor His gospel, and strengthen His churches.” This was to be done by providing encouragement “in historical, biblical, theological, practical and ecumenical studies.” We also adopted statements on the purpose and theological foundation of the conference.
The purpose is to be a balanced conference in respect to doctrine and devotion expressed in the doctrines of grace and their experimental application to the local church, particularly in the areas of worship and witness. This is to be accomplished through engaging a variety of speakers to present formal papers, sermons, expositions, and devotions, and through the recommendation and distribution of literature consistent with the nature of the conference.
The theological foundation of the conference will be the doctrines of grace: election, depravity, atonement, effectual calling and perseverance and specifically related truths. These subjects will be presented doctrinally, expositionally, homiletically and historically. Each conference will concentrate on the experimental and pastoral application of the respective doctrines.
The name we adopted was “The Southern Baptist Conference on the Faith of Our Founders.” Within a few years it was mercifully shortened to the “Founders Conference.” Though our context was Southern Baptist and all of the original board members were in SBC churches, our concerns, vision, and fellowship have from the outset been much broader than the SBC. This became more evident as other ministries began to arise from the annual conference (such as a quarterly theological journal, website, publication of books, and an online Study Center) and our name officially changed to “Founders Ministries.”
The first twenty years witnessed the initiation of all those additional ministries and they were born in the face of what was sometimes steep opposition—not only from the liberals and progressives within the Baptist and evangelical world but also from fellow conservatives, including at times even those who claim to share our confessional theology. In and through it all the Lord has faithfully guided our steps and helped us to stay true to our convictions. That is not to say that there have been no missteps but, by His grace, I can say that He has kept us on the path that we charted from the beginning to work for the recovery of the gospel and the reformation of local churches.
Much has been accomplished over the last forty years—far more than we could have anticipated that Saturday in Euless. But there is yet much, much more to do. I am convinced that the brightest and most useful days of Founders Ministries lay before us. No small part of that is due to the recent establishment of the Institute of Public Theology (IOPT). With a faculty that is second to none, a vision that timely and aggressive, and a need that is becoming more evident by the semester, IOPT is poised to serve future generations of churches by training men to be church leaders who not only understand the gospel fluently but also are unashamed of it and unafraid to proclaim and defend it in the public square.
Zecharaiah 4:10 warns against despising the day of small things. Seven largely obscure men meeting in a nondescript hotel room forty years ago fits that category. Yet, He has done more than any of us could have ever imagined.
Thank you for all who have partnered with us in this ministry over those years. Please continue to pray for the Lord’s blessings as we continue to work for the recovery of the gospel and the reformation of local churches. If you would like to be a part of what Founders Ministries and the Institute of Public Theology are doing, click this link for more information on a special opportunity for the month of November.

The 2023 Founders Conference will feature a special panel of Bill Ascol, Fred Malone, Tom Nettles, and Tom Ascol in recognition of God’s forty years of faithfulness to Founders.

I once heard the late James Boice say, “We tend to overestimate what God will do in one year and greatly underestimate what he will do in twenty.” The truth of this statement was immediately apparent to me as I pondered some of the great works of God in history, like the Protestant Reformation and the modern Baptist missionary movement. But I have continued to grow in my appreciation of its profundity over the last few decades.
Today, November 13, 2022, marks the fortieth anniversary of the day that was the catalyst for the origin of what later became Founders Ministries. I remember that day well. A few weeks before, I received a letter from Ernie Reisinger, who was then serving as pastor of a church on the Southeast coast of Florida. Over the previous four years Ernie had been traveling to the six Southern Baptist seminaries to give away copies of James Pettigru Boyce’s Abstract of Systematic Theology to graduating students.
I enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1979. That next Spring, Ernie was on campus giving away Boyce’s book and I talked him into giving me one despite my first-year status. It was not difficult. Ernie loved to give away good books, especially whenever he sensed an eagerness to read them. Shortly after that, the seminary presidents disinvited him from coming back on their campuses to give away the Boyce book. The stated excuses were lame (“our students are busy preparing for final exams and do not have time to read your book”). A more plausible reason is that more and more students and graduates were actually reading Boyce’s Abstract and were being persuaded that the Bible does in fact teach that God is sovereign in salvation.
The rediscovery of the so-called “Doctrines of Grace” continued to spread and pastors were increasingly contacting Ernie asking for guidance and other resources. In response to this growing interest, he sent invitations to a few men asking us if we could meet with him in the Holiday Inn in Euless, Texas on Saturday, November 13, 1982. By that time I was in my third year as Assistant Pastor at Spring Valley Baptist Church in Dallas. Tom Nettles flew in from Memphis, where he had recently moved to teach at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. Fred Malone and Ben Mitchell, who planted Heritage Baptist Church outside of Ft. Worth, Texas were there. Bill Ascol, Assistant Pastor at Broadmoor Baptist in Shreveport and R.F. Gates, a vocational evangelist in that church joined us after lunch.
The morning was spent in prayer, reading Scripture, and singing. The burden of those prayers was for heavenly wisdom as we considered how best to steward the growing interest in God-centered theology among Baptists. After lunch, the idea of a conference was suggested and we began to work out principles that would govern such a conference. I recently reread minutes of those deliberations and was struck again at the Lord’s kindness in directing our plans.
We agreed that the motive for such a conference was “to glorify God, honor His gospel, and strengthen His churches.” This was to be done by providing encouragement “in historical, biblical, theological, practical and ecumenical studies.” We also adopted statements on the purpose and theological foundation of the conference.
The purpose is to be a balanced conference in respect to doctrine and devotion expressed in the doctrines of grace and their experimental application to the local church, particularly in the areas of worship and witness. This is to be accomplished through engaging a variety of speakers to present formal papers, sermons, expositions, and devotions, and through the recommendation and distribution of literature consistent with the nature of the conference.
The theological foundation of the conference will be the doctrines of grace: election, depravity, atonement, effectual calling and perseverance and specifically related truths. These subjects will be presented doctrinally, expositionally, homiletically and historically. Each conference will concentrate on the experimental and pastoral application of the respective doctrines.
The name we adopted was “The Southern Baptist Conference on the Faith of Our Founders.” Within a few years it was mercifully shortened to the “Founders Conference.” Though our context was Southern Baptist and all of the original board members were in SBC churches, our concerns, vision, and fellowship have from the outset been much broader than the SBC. This became more evident as other ministries began to arise from the annual conference (such as a quarterly theological journal, website, publication of books, and an online Study Center) and our name officially changed to “Founders Ministries.”
The first twenty years witnessed the initiation of all those additional ministries and they were born in the face of what was sometimes steep opposition—not only from the liberals and progressives within the Baptist and evangelical world but also from fellow conservatives, including at times even those who claim to share our confessional theology. In and through it all the Lord has faithfully guided our steps and helped us to stay true to our convictions. That is not to say that there have been no missteps but, by His grace, I can say that He has kept us on the path that we charted from the beginning to work for the recovery of the gospel and the reformation of local churches.
Much has been accomplished over the last forty years—far more than we could have anticipated that Saturday in Euless. But there is yet much, much more to do. I am convinced that the brightest and most useful days of Founders Ministries lay before us. No small part of that is due to the recent establishment of the Institute of Public Theology (IOPT). With a faculty that is second to none, a vision that timely and aggressive, and a need that is becoming more evident by the semester, IOPT is poised to serve future generations of churches by training men to be church leaders who not only understand the gospel fluently but also are unashamed of it and unafraid to proclaim and defend it in the public square.
Zecharaiah 4:10 warns against despising the day of small things. Seven largely obscure men meeting in a nondescript hotel room forty years ago fits that category. Yet, He has done more than any of us could have ever imagined.
Thank you for all who have partnered with us in this ministry over those years. Please continue to pray for the Lord’s blessings as we continue to work for the recovery of the gospel and the reformation of local churches. If you would like to be a part of what Founders Ministries and the Institute of Public Theology are doing, click this link for more information on a special opportunity for the month of November.

The 2023 Founders Conference will feature a special panel of Bill Ascol, Fred Malone, Tom Nettles, and Tom Ascol in recognition of God’s forty years of faithfulness to Founders.

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Tom Ascol has served as a Pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, FL since 1986. Prior to moving to Florida he served as pastor and associate pastor of churches in Texas. He has a BS degree in sociology from Texas A&M University (1979) and has also earned the MDiv and PhD degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas. He has served as an adjunct professor of theology for various colleges and seminaries, including Reformed Theological Seminary, the Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, African Christian University, Copperbelt Ministerial College, and Reformed Baptist Seminary. He has also served as Visiting Professor at the Nicole Institute for Baptist Studies at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.
Tom serves as the President of Founders Ministries and The Institute of Public Theology. He has edited the Founders Journal, a quarterly theological publication of Founders Ministries, and has written hundreds of articles for various journals and magazines. He has been a regular contributor to TableTalk, the monthly magazine of Ligonier Ministries. He has also edited and contributed to several books, including Dear Timothy: Letters on Pastoral Ministry, The Truth and Grace Memory Books for children and  Recovering the Gospel and Reformation of Churches. He is also the author of From the Protestant Reformation to the Southern Baptist Convention, Traditional Theology and the SBC and Strong and Courageous.
Tom regularly preaches and lectures at various conferences throughout the United States and other countries. In addition he regularly contributes articles to the Founders website and hosts a weekly podcast called The Sword & The Trowel. He and his wife Donna have six children along with four sons-in-law and a daughter-in-law. They have sixteen grandchildren.

A couple of months ago I preached through chapter 13 in my regular exposition of Romans at Grace Baptist Church where I serve as pastor. I had worked through verses 1-7 before but this time there was a great urgency in my study. In the wake of so many governmental missteps during the Covid pandemic and the Black Lives Matter riots I wanted to make sure I understood as clearly as I could how Christians, especially Christian pastors, should think about civil magistrates.
The more I have considered this and related passages the more I have become deeply appreciative of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He has stood against the woke crowd and the intimidation and overreach of various federal officials over the last 4 years. He has, in the language of Romans 13:4, fulfilled his God-given role to be “God’s servant” for the “good” of Floridians.
In keeping with 1 Timothy 1:2-3 (which says, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”), I lead our church to pray for Governor DeSantis every Sunday morning. We also pray for President Biden, as we have for previous presidents and governors over the last 35 years.
So it was not a hard decision for me to accept an invitation to pray for the governor publicly when he was recently in Southwest Florida. In fact, I consider such an invitation an honor and privilege. Below is a recording of that public prayer, followed by the actual text. May the Lord grant the requests that I—and others—have made in this prayer. And may He do so in ways that reveal His great glory and grace in the Lord Jesus.

I’m grateful for the privilege to pray for my governor ⁦@GovRonDeSantis⁩ & his family. God has blessed the state of Florida by placing him in this office as His servant for our good. pic.twitter.com/RNeFThFqUq
— Tom Ascol @tomascol (@tomascol) November 7, 2022

Our Father, we bow to you tonight because You and You alone are the true and living God. You are the One who has created all things and even now, through Your Son, You uphold the whole universe by the word of His power. Everything and everyone belong to You. All that we have and all that we are is because of You.
You are sovereign. You rule and overrule in all the affairs of this world. You are wise. You see the end from the beginning, and You never make a mistake. You are good, and You always do what is right and good.
We thank You for your great love for people whom You have made in Your own image. And we confess that we have not lived as we ought and have sinned against You. But we also confess that with You there is mercy, that you may be feared. Thank you for not treating us the way that our sins deserve but delivering up Your Son as the Savior of the world.
Your Word instructs us to pray for all people and especially for civil authorities in high positions. So, tonight we pray for Governor DeSantis and we thank You for him and the wisdom and courage You have given him. Please watch over him and his family and protect them from evil. Encourage him with reminders that You are the One who has instituted civil government and You have called him to serve and placed him in his role as governor to do good to the people of Florida. Help him always to remember that He is first and foremost, Your servant. Empower him with good counsel and strength to fulfill all his responsibilities that go with his office. Help him to carry out his duties with joy and in the fear of the Lord. And deliver him from the fear of any man.
Receive our praise and answer our requests because we bring them to you in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

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On September 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian slammed the coast of Southwest Florida with a fury not seen in nearly a century. In the immediate aftermath, our county sheriff’s office reported hundreds of fatalities from the storm. Fortunately, those numbers were not confirmed, although currently, the death toll has risen to 60 in my county and 100 in other areas. Property damage has been conservatively estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars.
Due to a late jag to the southeast, the storm came right over my city of Cape Coral and the barrier islands to the west of us, Pine Island and Sanibel. Both the church I serve (Grace Baptist), and Founders Ministries were significantly affected. Some Grace members suffered significant loss. Nearly all suffered some loss. Businesses have been destroyed, homes devastated, families displaced, schools closed, and hospitals rendered inoperable.
I have lived through several serious storms during my 36 years in Cape Coral, including the last direct hit, Hurricane Charley, in 2004. Ian’s impact exceeds them all by far. In God’s providence, Donna and I were out of town when the hurricane landed. By his providence, the kindness of Delta Airlines, and the help of a good friend, we were able to get back to Cape Coral September 30. What I experienced in watching the storm from afar and seeing the aftermath up close has taught me several lessons.
Lessons About Grace
It is impossible not to see God’s grace in the storm. I write that fully aware of the deep grief that many are experiencing because of what they have suffered. Yet, grace is on display everywhere. From tens of thousands of linemen from across the country who staged just outside the storm’s path and deployed as soon as possible to get electrical services back online to trauma surgeons on standby to assist in medical emergencies, help has been extended to the people of SW Florida from all over.
There are dozens of examples of specific ways that I have seen God’s grace displayed in and after the storm. A few of them will suffice to make the point.
Within hours of the storm’s impact, I started receiving texts, phone calls, and emails from family, friends, and strangers with offers to help with relief and recovery work. Churches and individuals gathered food, water, and other supplies and sent them to us. Financial gifts were sent not only from people we know but from those we have never met. This outpouring of generosity enabled our church to distribute supplies to people in our community who were devastated by Ian. In addition to this, through the tireless work of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief and the Red Cross, we were able to provide hot meals to people for several days. Some of the recipients wept with gratitude.
Under the leadership of the deacons and elders, the members of Grace have poured themselves out in serving one another and our larger community. I long ago lost count of the number of houses that have had roofs tarped, drywall cut, mud raked out, and other repairs done by willing volunteers.
Speaking of volunteers, I must mention the teams of workers that have come to help us with such work. Men and women, including young people, have traveled hundreds of miles with a willingness to do whatever they can to help. Through a previous connection with our church, Sheepdog Impact Assistance staged in our facilities and was still at work serving our community nearly a month after the storm.
In addition to these more visible and obvious displays, God’s grace has been steadily at work in more covert, “behind-the-scenes” ways. Homes have been opened to those who have been displaced from their own homes. Meals have been shared and practical hospitality has been multiplied. Counsel, personal encouragement, and prayer have been readily and effectively offered by those who themselves are dealing with difficult challenges left in Ian’s wake.
Lessons About Sin
While the displays of God’s grace in acts of kindness and generosity can be traced to His saving work in Jesus Christ as well as to the fact that even unbelievers bear the image of God, Hurricane Ian has also provided opportunities to learn more personally the truth of the Bible’s teaching about sin. The world, obviously, is not the way that it is supposed to be—not the way it was originally designed to be and one day will be. Hurricanes, tornados, and floods are all part of what the Apostle Paul calls the “groaning” of creation as it awaits release from being made “subject to futility” (Romans 8:18-23). There will be no hurricanes in the new heavens and new earth.
Nor will there be looters or liars. Immediately after Ian’s winds subsided, some people began to ransack what was left of local businesses. Fortunately, both Governor DeSantis and our local sheriff publicly declared such wickedness unacceptable and warned looters that engaging in such activity could, and in some cases, likely would—result in death. From indications that I received, that message spread quickly among opportunistic thieves and most businesses did not suffer much loss from looting.
People who lost their homes on the barrier islands (which were hit the hardest) did not fare so well. Due to bridges being washed out to Pine Island (near our church) and Sanibel, the only access in the immediate aftermath was by boat or helicopter. The latter almost exclusively was limited to government officials or local news crews. Stories abounded of thieves in boats surreptitiously invading the islands, rifling through the remains of families’ possessions, and spiriting off with their stolen booty. It is a tragic display of Romans 3:10-18.
We saw similar, albeit less flagrant, expressions of human depravity in the conduct of some who received direct help from our church. Because of the generosity of so many from around the nation, our church quickly became a distribution point for much-needed basic supplies in our community. Most of those who came for help were deeply appreciative. Some had to be persuaded to take more than they originally planned to take (fresh water doesn’t last as long as you might think in Southwest Florida heat).
But others expressed frustration as if they had been mistreated when they weren’t given more or when supplies ran out. The creativity of depravity was also on display as various schemes were employed to get double, triple, and quadruple supplies. This occasionally resulted in tensions (“The greedy stir up conflict,” Proverbs 28:25) that had to be resolved by the wisdom that comes from above.
Lessons About Government
The last few years I have given more attention to the role of government in God’s world. There are a few reasons for this, not the least of which include the response to the Covid pandemic, the Black Lives Matter riots, and my study of Romans 13:1-7 as part of my regular exposition of that letter in our Sunday morning worship times at Grace.
Every thinking American Christian recognizes displays of failed government leaders and policies that are currently all around us in this nation. From President Biden’s promise to make abortion-on-demand the law of the land if Democrats control the legislature to the Supreme Court decision that undermines the institution of marriage and defies that God who instituted it, wickedness and corruption are evident in the halls of government. Examples could be easily multiplied.
So it has been refreshing to see government work in positive ways—ways that God intends and the Bible prescribes. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has done an exemplary job in marshaling resources for and giving help and encouragement to the parts of the state that were ravaged by the hurricane. Under his leadership, over 40,000 electrical linemen were staged just outside of the storm’s path and deployed as soon as possible to begin rebuilding electrical infrastructures and restoring power for over 2.5 million people. He also cut through governmental red tape when federal officials said that it would be “months” before bridges to the barrier islands could be rebuilt. He helped unite efforts to get two bridges built in 14 days. I told one of his staff that the governor is a poster-boy for what the Bible means in Romans 13:4 when it says that the civil magistrate “is God’s servant for your good.”
I attended a town hall sponsored by my congressman, Byron Donalds, and was greatly encouraged by the practical help both he and Cape Coral Mayor, John Gunter, were providing in their official capacities to serve our city. Everything from expedited trash collection to Federal Emergency Management Agency resources was quickly made available to residents of Lee County and Cape Coral.
As I have reflected on these lessons, I am reminded that a stable government, kind and generous neighbors, and churches uniting to serve devastated communities are blessings that God has showered on our nation, state, and community. I have been to other nations in the wake of natural disasters. The contrast between those places and people who have benefitted from the blessings that flow from biblical truth and those places and people where that truth has never been known or has been forgotten is stark. Today, in America, even with the manifest wickedness in many of our cultural, economic, educational, and political institutions, we still have much for which to be thankful. There are still blessings of common grace that flow through and to those who hate the very God who is their source.
Hurricane Ian did not make that so. But it has certainly made it evident.