What I Believe · A Defense of the Faith

No one reads Scripture from nowhere. A site that asks you to test every teaching owes you a clear view of the perspective its writer brings, so that you can weigh my words the same way I ask you to weigh anyone else’s. This page lays out where I stand, not so you will take my convictions on my authority, but so you can read everything here with open eyes and an open Bible.

I am one Christian, shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ and committed to the truth of God’s Word. The statements below summarize the core convictions I bring to everything I write here. They stand in agreement with The Baptist Faith and Message , the confession of faith adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention on June 14, 2000 and most recently amended in 2023.The Baptist Faith and Message descends from the New Hampshire Confession of Faith of 1833. The Convention first adopted it in 1925 and revised it in 1963 and 2000. This agreement places me within the historic, Reformed, evangelical stream of the Christian faith. Each summary below is brief on purpose. These are starting points I intend to explore more fully in future writing. The Scripture references sit in the margins; use the translation selector at the top of the page to read them in the version you prefer.

What I Believe About the Bible

I believe the Bible is the written Word of God, fully inspired by Him and entirely without error in all that it affirms. God moved through human authors to give us a record that is true and trustworthy in every part, and it remains the supreme authority for everything I believe and how I live.2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV) Scripture exists to point us to Christ, who stands at the center of God’s self-revelation, and like the Bereans I want to test every teaching against it, examining the Scriptures to see whether what I am told is so.Acts 17:11 (ESV); John 5:39 (ESV); 2 Peter 1:20-21 (ESV)

What I Believe About God

I believe in one living and true God, eternal and unchanging, perfect in holiness, power, knowledge, and love, who created and sustains all things and rules over all of history.Deuteronomy 6:4 (ESV) This one God exists eternally in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, equal in nature and glory yet distinct in Person. To Him alone we owe our worship, trust, and obedience.Matthew 28:19 (ESV); 2 Corinthians 13:14 (ESV); Isaiah 6:3 (ESV)

What I Believe About the Father

I believe God the Father reigns with wise and loving providence over His creation and over the unfolding of human history, ordering all things according to His purpose of grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, and entirely good. Through faith in Jesus Christ, He becomes our Father in the fullest sense, adopting us as His own children.John 1:12 (ESV); Romans 8:15 (ESV); Matthew 6:9 (ESV)

What I Believe About Jesus Christ

I believe Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, fully God and fully man, the Word who was with God and was God from the beginning.John 1:1 (ESV) Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, He lived a sinless life, perfectly obeyed the Father, and died on the cross as the substitute for sinners. He rose bodily from the grave, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and now serves as the one Mediator between God and man.1 Timothy 2:5 (ESV) He will return in power and glory to judge the world and complete His saving work.1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (ESV); Philippians 2:5-11 (ESV) He alone is the way to the Father, and no one comes to God except through Him.John 14:6 (ESV)

What I Believe About the Holy Spirit

I believe the Holy Spirit is fully God, the third Person of the Trinity. He inspired the Scriptures and opens our eyes to understand them. He convicts the world of sin, draws sinners to Christ, brings about the new birth, and unites every believer to the body of Christ. He indwells, seals, comforts, and empowers God’s people, producing Christlike character and equipping the church for worship, witness, and service.John 16:8-14 (ESV); Romans 8:9-11 (ESV); Ephesians 1:13-14 (ESV)

What I Believe About Spiritual Gifts

I believe God is all powerful and remains free to work miracles whenever He pleases.The Baptist Faith and Message does not address sign gifts directly; this section states my own conviction from Scripture. Scripture also shows that God has spoken to His people and revealed Himself in different ways at different times.Hebrews 1:1-2 (ESV) The miraculous signs of the New Testament era served a particular purpose: they authenticated Christ and His apostles while the faith was being once for all delivered to the saints.Hebrews 2:3-4 (ESV); 2 Corinthians 12:12 (ESV); Jude 3 (ESV) Now that we have the completed Scriptures and the finished work of Christ as our guide, I do not expect God to work through apostolic sign gifts in the same way today. That does not mean God has grown silent or still. He answers prayer, often through means we no longer think to call miracles, such as modern medicine, which heals only because He gave us minds capable of discovering what He built into His creation.James 5:16 (ESV) He comforts His people through the indwelling Holy Spirit, and He speaks to us clearly and sufficiently through His written Word.John 14:26 (ESV); Psalm 119:105 (ESV) I have known sincere believers on both sides of this. But I have also seen how the pursuit of apostolic signs can become a substitute for the sufficiency of Scripture and the person of Christ. That is not a small thing. It is a difference worth naming clearly, precisely because souls are at stake.

What I Believe About Humanity

I believe God created human beings, male and female, in His own image, as the crown of His creation.Genesis 1:27 (ESV) Because every person bears God’s image, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and love. Yet through Adam’s free choice to disobey, sin entered the human race, so that all people inherit a sinful nature and stand guilty before God, for all have sinned and fall short of His glory.Romans 3:23 (ESV) Only God’s grace can restore us to fellowship with Him.Genesis 3 (ESV); Romans 5:12 (ESV)

What I Believe About Salvation

I believe salvation is the gracious work of God that rescues the whole person, freely offered to all who turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It rests entirely on Christ, who secured eternal redemption by His own blood, and never on our works; it is the gift of God, received by grace through faith, so that no one may boast.Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV) Salvation includes regeneration (the new birth), justification (God’s full acquittal of the sinner), sanctification (growth in holiness), and glorification (the final, perfected state of the redeemed). Salvation is found in no one else, for no other name under heaven has been given by which we must be saved.Acts 4:12 (ESV); John 3:16 (ESV)

What I Believe About God’s Purpose of Grace

I believe that before the foundation of the world God graciously chose to save sinners, and that His electing purpose displays His sovereign goodness while excluding all human boasting. This grace is consistent with our genuine, responsible choices and works through the means God has appointed. All whom God truly saves, He keeps; those He predestined He also calls, justifies, and glorifies, and genuine believers are preserved by His power to persevere to the end.Romans 8:30 (ESV) Though believers may stumble, they will never finally fall away.John 10:28-29 (ESV); Ephesians 1:4-5 (ESV)

What I Believe About the Church

I believe a New Testament church is a local congregation of baptized believers, joined together by covenant under the Lordship of Christ, devoted to His Word, observing the two ordinances He gave, and committed to carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth. The church also includes all the redeemed of every age, gathered from every tribe and tongue and nation. Following the conviction expressed in The Baptist Faith and Message (Article VI, as amended in 2023), I affirm that the church’s two scriptural offices are pastor/elder/overseer and deacon, and that while both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.The phrase “pastor/elder/overseer” entered Article VI by action of the 2023 Southern Baptist Convention, clarifying that the New Testament terms pastor, elder, and overseer name a single office rather than three. Believers are not to neglect meeting together but to gather and stir one another up to love and good works.Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV) Every member belongs to a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession.1 Peter 2:9 (ESV); Ephesians 1:22-23 (ESV); 1 Timothy 3:1-13 (ESV)

What I Believe About Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

I believe Christ gave His church two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It pictures the believer’s union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection and is the believer’s public confession of faith, a sign that we have been buried with Him and raised to walk in newness of life.Romans 6:4 (ESV) The Lord’s Supper is a memorial meal in which the church partakes of bread and the fruit of the vine to remember Christ’s death and proclaim it until He comes.1 Corinthians 11:26 (ESV)

What I Believe About the Lord’s Day

I believe the first day of the week is the Lord’s Day, set apart for the regular gathering of God’s people. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ and is given to worship, both public and private, and to spiritual devotion. We honor it under the Lordship of Christ and with a clear conscience before Him.Acts 20:7 (ESV); Revelation 1:10 (ESV); Matthew 28:1 (ESV)

What I Believe About the Kingdom

I believe the Kingdom of God is both God’s sovereign rule over all things and His reign in the hearts of those who gladly receive Him as King. People enter the Kingdom by humble, childlike trust in Jesus Christ. I am called to pray and labor for the advance of His Kingdom and the doing of His will on earth, knowing that its full and final form awaits Christ’s return.Matthew 6:10 (ESV); Mark 1:15 (ESV); Colossians 1:13 (ESV)

What I Believe About Last Things

I believe that in His own time and way God will bring the world to its appointed end. Jesus Christ will return personally, visibly, and gloriously. The dead will be raised, and Christ will judge all people in righteousness, for it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.Hebrews 9:27 (ESV) The unrighteous will be sent to eternal punishment, and the righteous will dwell forever with the Lord in resurrected, glorified bodies, where He will wipe away every tear and death shall be no more.Revelation 21:4 (ESV); John 14:1-3 (ESV); 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (ESV)

What I Believe About Evangelism and Missions

I believe that every follower of Christ and every church shares the duty and joy of making disciples of all nations. The new birth produces love for others, and that love compels us to proclaim the gospel. Christ Himself commanded His people to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV) I am called to bear witness to Christ both in word and in a life that adorns the gospel, from where I live to the ends of the earth.Acts 1:8 (ESV); Romans 10:13-15 (ESV)

What I Believe About Education

I believe that all truth is God’s truth and that sound learning is part of our Christian heritage, for in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.Colossians 2:3 (ESV) The new birth awakens the mind and creates a hunger to know God and His world. Christian education stands alongside missions and benevolence and deserves the generous support of God’s people, always carried out under the authority of Scripture and the preeminence of Christ.2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV); Proverbs 1:7 (ESV)

What I Believe About Stewardship

I believe God is the source of every blessing and that all I have and am belongs to Him. As stewards we are entrusted with our time, gifts, and possessions to use for His glory and the good of others, and we are called to give cheerfully, regularly, and generously to advance Christ’s cause.Malachi 3:10 (ESV); 2 Corinthians 9:6-7 (ESV) I hold a sacred trust in the gospel and a debt of love to the whole world.1 Corinthians 4:2 (ESV)

What I Believe About Cooperation

I believe that churches should join together voluntarily in associations and conventions to advance the work of God’s Kingdom more effectively. Such bodies hold no authority over the churches or over one another; they exist to combine and direct the energies of God’s people for missions, education, and benevolence. Christian unity is spiritual harmony and willing cooperation for shared ends that honor Christ and His Word.Acts 15:1-35 (ESV); 1 Corinthians 3:5-9 (ESV); Ephesians 4:1-6 (ESV)

I believe every Christian is obligated to make the will of Christ supreme in personal life and in society. In the spirit of Christ I should oppose every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, and work toward justice, the care of the weak, and the good of all people. Jesus summarized our whole duty as loving God with all that we are and loving our neighbor as ourselves.Matthew 22:37-39 (ESV) The lasting transformation of society comes through changed hearts won by the gospel, lived out by Christians who labor for righteousness.Micah 6:8 (ESV); Matthew 5:13-16 (ESV)

What I Believe About Peace and War

I believe it is the duty of Christians to seek peace with all people on the principles of righteousness. War springs from human sin, and the true remedy for the spirit of conflict is the gospel of our Lord. I pray and labor for a world that submits to Christ and lives out His law of love.Matthew 5:9 (ESV); Romans 12:18 (ESV); Hebrews 12:14 (ESV)

What I Believe About Religious Liberty

I believe that God alone is Lord of the conscience and that He has left it free from human doctrines and commands that run contrary to His Word. Church and state are to remain separate. As The Baptist Faith and Message affirms in Article XVII, “The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. In providing for such freedom no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by the state more than others.” A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal, carrying with it the right of every person to unhindered access to God and to hold and share religious convictions without interference by the civil power. I render loyal obedience to civil government in all things that do not conflict with the revealed will of God, recognizing that the governing authorities are instituted by God.Romans 13:1 (ESV); Matthew 22:21 (ESV); Acts 5:29 (ESV)

What I Believe About the Family

I believe God established the family as the foundational institution of human society. Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime, a living picture of the union between Christ and His church. Husband and wife are of equal worth before God, both bearing His image; the husband is called to love, provide for, protect, and lead his family as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her,Ephesians 5:25 (ESV) and the wife is called to respect and support her husband as a willing helper. Children are a blessing from the Lord, to be taught the ways of God and led by loving instruction and example, and they are to honor and obey their parents.Genesis 2:24 (ESV); Ephesians 6:1-4 (ESV); Psalm 127:3 (ESV)

In Christ the dividing lines the world treasures lose their power, for in Him there is no distinction of ethnicity, status, or sex that can separate those who belong to Him.Galatians 3:28 (ESV) For a fuller statement of these convictions, I commend The Baptist Faith and Message 2000, available from the Southern Baptist Convention at bfm.sbc.net . I hold these truths because I am convinced they are taught in the Word of God, and I invite you to search the Scriptures with me.