This report contains real stories of real women who were abused or assaulted. It’s tragic. It’s painful to read. However, the real answer is found in the pages of Scripture and does not require the implementation of new methods, programs, or policies. Women and girls within local churches need to know that men, pastors, and the church as a whole is committed to obeying the Scriptures which address matters of abuse, sin, assaults, and sexual misconduct.

Over the last few years, we have witnessed a barrage of news stories emerge within the Southern Baptist Convention that point to sex scandals, misconduct, and abuse. In 2019, the Houston Chronicle report rocked the SBC world. It revealed 700 cases that spans over a 20 year period.
Although I am no longer a pastor of a church within the SBC, I speak as a pastor who spent many years in the SBC and feels the tension growing rapidly. In short, the criticism I provide in this article comes from a heart of concern.
The 2021 SBC messengers approved to allocate funds from the Cooperative Program for a large scale investigation into the allegations and claims of sex abuse cases. Guideposts was hired as an independent investigative firm, and the SBC is prepared to use up to $4 million dollars on this entire investigation. This is the largest of such investigations in the history of the SBC.
On Sunday, May 22, 2022, the report from Guideposts was published and made available to the world. Needless to say, it was a lengthy detailed bombshell report containing harmful stories of abuse victims and accusations against public figures and well known pastors within the SBC. Since the report was published, there have been many different responses. Obviously, pastors and leaders within the SBC are trying to process this news just a few weeks prior to a decisive presidential election in Anaheim, California.
At this crisis moment, the SBC can make the right choices to move in the direction of biblical sufficiency or the Convention can choose to walk down the pathway of pragmatism. That one decision could change the future of the SBC.
The SBC and Pragmatism
The SBC has a long historical commitment to pragmatism. Not only is the SBC the largest Protestant denomination in the United States with some 47,000 churches, it’s also the most pragmatic denomination. In 1954, the SBC adopted a growth campaign under the slogan ‘Million More in 54’ and the results were extremely harmful. The idea was to grow the SBC by one million members, but the tactics were program driven and pragmatic which led to false conversions. That’s why the SBC witnessed an overflow of unconverted church members rebaptized through the years following that explosive era of church growth models.
Pragmatism is the philosophy that encourages people to make decisions based on whatever will give them positive results. In other words, if it works—do it. Pragmatism originated in 1870s and continues to be a popular means of evaluation and assessment. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that – very broadly – understands knowing the world as inseparable from agency within it. This general idea has attracted a remarkably rich and at times contrary range of interpretations, including: that all philosophical concepts should be tested via scientific experimentation, that a claim is true if and only if it is useful.
Like anabolic steroids offer instant muscular growth to athletes, pragmatism offers church growth success at a much faster rate than a model that is centered upon the Bible alone. Once leaders taste this instant success, they become slaves to it. Rather than focusing on the Scriptures, they begin looking outside of Scripture to arrange their worship services in ways that will attract people to their local church—regardless of what the Bible says.
In 2010, Andy Stanley was invited to address the pastors during the annual Pastors’ Conference of the SBC. Andy Stanley told the story of Chick-fil-A, which originated south of Atlanta. As Stanley tells the story of Chick-fil-A leaders who were trying to figure out how Chick-fil-A could grow faster, he explains how company founder Truett Cathy pounded on the table and said, “I am sick and tired of listening to you talk about how we can get bigger. If we get better, our customers will demand we get bigger.” The entire session was devoted to how pastors could learn from corporate America in making their churches better which would result in the community responding to make their churches bigger.
I recall being there in that session and looking around at a room filled with SBC pastors. What those men needed at that hour was more Scripture and less talk of corporate America. Yet, at every turn the SBC continues to turn to feed pastors pragmatism while promising them good results. It’s put on display and platformed at the SBC Pastors’ Conference and modeled through SBC leadership, Convention programs, and resolutions.
In the wake of the Houston Chronicle report, Beth Moore entered the conversation with an argument that women needed more women in places of leadership so that they could find help in moments of crisis. Moore spoke in Dallas at the ERLC’s Caring Well conference:
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Christmas reminds us that Jesus is the true temple, true sacrifice, and true priest. Yet those who are united to him by faith are, strikingly, formed by God to be the same things: in Jesus we are a spiritual temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells (1 Corinthians 3:16), spiritual sacrifices offered in worship to the living God (Romans 12:1–2), and a spiritual priesthood consecrated to God (1 Peter 2:4–5). Thus, at Christmas we worship because by faith we are, at long last, enabled through the birth of Jesus to fulfill our creational longing: to be conformed to him as temple, sacrifice, and priests.

Ever since I was a kid, worshiping on Christmas Eve has been a given. I didn’t always want to do it, of course, because it made time slow down and, thus, delayed the long-awaited gift opening. Indeed, one year I may have opened a gift, played with it, and rewrapped it before the Christmas Eve church service without my parents’ knowledge! But the habit of worship imprinted on me immeasurably important lessons about Christmas.
We worship at Christmas because Jesus is the “reason for the season.” We worship because he is the coming Messiah. We worship because of the beauty of the story of a humble virgin Mary, a humble man Joseph, and a humble Christ-child who comes to save, yet lies in a manger. We worship because the fullness of time has arrived (Galatians 4:4).
But theoretically, you can reflect on all those wonderful aspects of Christmas at home in your pajamas. Thus, gathering for public worship is particularly fitting for one other reason. The birth of Jesus is the advent of the consummate place of worship: not a temple, but a person. The incarnation of the Son of God fulfills a human longing to enjoy the presence of and offer worship to the living God.
Universal Longing
All humans are wired to worship their Creator. Eden and its garden were symbolically configured as a sanctuary. God made his presence manifest there (Genesis 3:8). Adam was charged with working and keeping it (Genesis 2:15) and was even adorned, it seems, as a priest (Ezekiel 28:13–14). The tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life stood at the center of the garden and were, in due course, guarded by cherubim (Genesis 3:24), just as they guarded the ark at the center of the temple’s Most Holy Place. Men and women were, in other words, created to worship God in his place, and after our expulsion from Eden we have longed for a way back into the divine presence.
History, thus, is divided into two paths of worship. The false path runs through every pagan religion that strives to please its god(s) through rituals and sacred shrines. For instance, the Canaanites directed zeal toward Baal’s altars and Asherah’s groves (Judges 6:25); Philistines oriented worship around the sanctuary of Dagon (1 Samuel 5:2); Lystra hosted a temple and priesthood of Zeus (Acts 14:13); a plethora of gods, even “unknown” ones, were venerated with altars and statues in Athens (Acts 17:24); and the temple of the Ephesian Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world (Acts 19:35). Not much has changed in two millennia, as pagan shrines exist in every corner of the world, representing the universal longing for the divine.
The true path of worship winds through the people of Israel. The patriarchs worshiped Yahweh via temporary altars (Genesis 8:20; 12:7; 26:25; 28:18; 35:1). His glory appeared in terrifying fire and cloud upon Mount Sinai, where he was worshiped from afar (Exodus 19:16–25). The Israelites constructed a movable tent, the ark of the covenant, and other furnishings whereby sacrifices could be offered to their Lord, who filled it with his glorious presence (Exodus 40:16–38). Under King David, the ark of the covenant made its way to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:2). At long last King Solomon constructed a (seemingly) permanent and wondrous temple to Yahweh in Jerusalem, whose glorious presence again filled it magnificently — leading all Israelites to respond with effusive worship (2 Chronicles 7:1–4).
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Written by T.M. Suffield |
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
For the disciples, receiving the Spirit was like Jesus was with them again. Except as they travelled around and spread across the earth, as they’ve been told to, he was still with each one of them. He could now be everywhere, including inside each of their hearts and minds speaking tenderly to them and empowering them for the next test.

After his resurrection Jesus gathered his disciples to give them his parting instructions and pass on his mission. Each of the gospel writers summarise his words a little differently but they all include what Luke calls “the promise of the Father” (Luke 24).

Matthew records it as a promise that Jesus would be with them until the end of the age, Mark that their preaching would be accompanied by miracles. Luke speaks about them being “clothed with power” and John tells how Jesus acted out what would happen to them soon after by breathing on them and telling them to “receive the Spirit.” (Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20).
Jesus was reminding them of what he’d already been at great pains to teach them. In order to complete the task he had given them, making disciples of all kinds of people, they needed the Holy Spirit.
He was clear with them that even after he had gone back to be with God, they shouldn’t launch straight on with the task he gave them, but should wait for the Holy Spirit, who he’d called their “helper”.
On the face of it this seems a bit strange. If my manager at work gave me an important task to do and there was a sense of urgency about it, my natural inclination would be to get straight on with it, or at least find out which of the rest of my work I can stop doing so I have time to do what she needs. I would be confused if after giving me the task, spelling out what needs to be done, and impressing the urgency of it on me, she then made it clear that under no circumstances was I to start. I was to sit tight and wait for someone to help me. I’m sure I’d appreciate help, but I’d feel faintly patronised. Surely I can start, at least, even if I need some other resources?
The disciples have been given a really important job to do, with a sense of supreme urgency about it. They have a whole world to tell about Jesus, why wouldn’t they just get on with it?
Jesus was emphatic. “Don’t go yet, you can’t start without everything you need, so wait until you’ve got it all.” He is like a drill sergeant, surveying his fresh—and slightly deluded—new recruits who are raring to race into a mock battle. The sergeant cautions them against rushing straight in, until he’s given them each some basic training and their weapon. We can be a lot like that, eager to surge ahead without picking up the basic equipment we need to be effective.
“Receiving the Spirit” was all that they were going to need. If we want to follow Jesus and fulfil his mission, presumably we need that too.
A couple of years before, Jesus and his disciples were at the Feast of Booths. This was when the Jewish people remembered God providing water for them when there were wandering in the desert, and it was when they looked forward to the Spirit being poured out like water in the future. On the last day of this festival, Jesus stood up in the Temple courts and shouted:
If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”John 7
Everyone was dismantling the structures they had built for the festival and getting ready to return home. Jesus was saying “the water you’ve been celebrating is available all the time, and the eventual gift of the Spirit you’re expecting has arrived. You can get it through me.” It’s an enormous claim.
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