It seems that the person of God the Father has eclipsed in our thinking in the 21st century in comparison to the persons of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. But how should we think of God? Is God the Father? And how should we think of the Trinity? Recently, Pastor Ian Stuart and I discussed…
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This week I had the privilege of interviewing 6 pastors on the subjects, “When do we go back to church and how?” I asked them five questions; 1. Why go back to church? (09:51) 2. Is it loving? (22:22) 3. What do you do with singing? (27:49) 4a. Is ‘online church’ church? (35:13) 4b. Is…
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One of the big issues among South African Baptists in the recent months and indeed over many years has been our stand on Scripture. Recently, however, the inclusion of the phrase “without error” in the 2017 Statement of Belief as an attempt to clarify where we had always stood on Scripture has thrown the cat…
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Last week I had the opportunity to interview Pastor Darryl Soal who, on 24 July 2020, will become Dr. Darry Soal. Congratulations, Darryl! The reason why I was so keen to chat to him was because I’d heard what topic he’d spent the last few years researching. If you’re involved in a Baptist church, or…
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There is no doubt that life will never be the same after the lockdown of South Africans on 27 March 2020. As I write this, we are still under lockdown 114 days later. How have our pastors and churches been affected? Some members of the BNA Executive discuss how COVID-19 has impacted them personally and…
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There are three things we can do with our past: ignore it, idolize it or listen to it. As Baptists reach the anniversary of their presence in Southern Africa in May 2020, it is hoped that this brief historical narrative will be heard afresh and help us to be better Baptists in the third century…
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At the recent BU Assembly representatives from member churches voted to supress a motion put forward by the Executive to initiate a process for churches to consider voting on aproposed new 2017 Statement of Belief (2017 SB). The vote to suppress was carried by a high majority. It was clear that the proposed 2017 SB was…
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Monday night, 20 May 2019, was the BNA’s AGM and it was a BIG event because there was a particularly big item on the agenda – are we going to adopt the 2017 Statement of Belief as our own or not? This was the first time the 2017 was coming to any formal gathering of…
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I’m asked these two questions a lot. And they’re good questions especially with money being so tight at the moment. So why pay an association and why pay both the association and the union? Firstly, note the biblical example. Paul asked the churches to support the church in Jerusalem and added “But as you excel…
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February 2019 Introduction One of the key issues around the discussion of a new statement of faith for the Baptist Union of South Africa is around the issue of the inerrancy of the Bible. What is inerrancy and why is it important? Inerrancy is the view that the Bible, in its original manuscripts, is without…
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