SOUTHERN BAPTIST SAYS WE CAN’T REACH THE WORLD TODAY WITHOUT ROCK MUSIC

SOUTHERN BAPTIST SAYS WE CAN’T REACH THE WORLD TODAY WITHOUT ROCK MUSIC (Friday Church News Notes, August 27, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 866-295-4143 end_of_the_skype_highlighting) -

Speaking at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in 2007 in San Antonio, Texas, Rob Zinn said the denomination must be willing to change its methodology to reach this generation, and one of those changes includes music.

He asked grandparents in the audience, “How many of you love those grandkids enough you’d be willing to change your music for them?” He then said: “[I]f we’re going to win [young people] to Jesus in this culture, we’re going to have to be willing to change our mindsets. ...

Folks, what you did in the ’40s and what you did in the ’50s isn’t going to win this culture to Jesus” (“Wrap-up,” Baptist Press, June 15, 2007). Zinn, who is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church, Highland, California, has been brainwashed and led astray by the contemporary church growth philosophy and probably by fellow California Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren.

Zinn committed three errors in this one short statement. First, nowhere does the Bible say we are to win this culture to Jesus. Rather we are to win sinners to Jesus, and they are won today the same way they were won 2,000 years ago. They are won by the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the quickening power of the Holy Spirit. It is the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16).

Second, nowhere in the New Testament is music used in evangelism, so the subject of music is irrelevant to the subject of soul winning.

Third, the rock music that Zinn is referring to is of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and cannot be properly used in the service of a thrice-holy God.

I have grandchildren, and I love them enough to warn them not to be conformed to this world and also to warn them of confused Baptist pastors who will attempt to lead them astray from the Bible to a man-made philosophy and program.

[Parents, grandparents to conform to today's music for the love of their children?!

You have got to be kidding!!

I have always loved music that is so very different from anything that is commonly heard in this country, because of my international upbringing, in addition to arias, etc..

My son used to tease me about it!

What wasn't my surprise when on his first break home from the United States Naval Academy, HE REQUESTED I loan him some CD's in my Classical Music collection! I was stupefied!!

It did rub in, the "culture" I attempted to instill in him!!

Indeed, my friend, it is not done the other way around!!]

SOUTHERN BAPTIST PRESIDENT SAYS “TERTIARY” DOCTRINES SHOULD BE LAID ASIDE FOR EVANGELISM AND UNITY (Friday Church News Notes, August 27, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 866-295-4143 end_of_the_skype_highlighting) -

Many speakers at the 2007 Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting said the denomination needs to lay aside “tertiary” doctrines for the sake of evangelism and unity.

The theme was set by SBC president Frank Page, who was re-elected that year to his second term. He called for a passion of reaching the lost rather than infighting and finding faults with others (“Southern Baptists Hear a Call for Unity,” AP, June 12, 2007).

He said that for “Jesus’ sake, and the sake of His kingdom on earth, we must not make every doctrinal issue a crusade” and “we have no right to judge others with whom we disagree about secondary and tertiary doctrines” (“Southern Baptists Urged to Overcome Factionalism to Win the Lost,” Christian Post, June 13, 2007).

These “secondary” doctrines are things such as Calvinism and non-Calvinism, cessationism and non-cessationism of the apostolic gifts, views on Bible prophecy, and views on women in ministry.

The New Testament’s doctrine of unity is much narrower than Page’s New Evangelical approach. Timothy was exhorted to allow “no other doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3) and was instructed to “keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Timothy 6:14).

The commandment that Timothy was to keep without spot is that which Paul had delivered to him in this particular epistle, the theme of which is church truth (1 Timothy 3:15). Paul had commanded Timothy about such things as the woman’s role in ministry (1 Timothy 2), the very type of thing that is considered “tertiary” among evangelicals today.

But Timothy was instructed to keep all such things without spot, and to do so requires that we narrow our fellowship severely in these apostate, compromised times. There is no contradiction between holding to the Bible’s strict position on doctrine and having a zeal for evangelism.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s failure to win people to Christ, which has been bemoaned often, is not due to divisions caused by “secondary” doctrine. That is a smokescreen. It is due, rather, to the worldliness and spiritual lukewarmness that is rampant in SBC congregations. I grew up in Convention churches, and the situation is much worse now than when I was young, and it was very bad then.

NON-ESSENTIALS? (Friday Church News Notes, August 27, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 866-295-4143 end_of_the_skype_highlighting) -

The following is from the late H. A. Ironside’s commentary on Daniel: “I have heard Christians refer to certain precepts in the Scriptures as non-essentials.

But we may rest assured there are no non-essentials in our Bibles. ‘The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.’

When people talk of non-essentials in regard to anything concerning which God has revealed His mind, it is well to ask, ‘Essential or non-essential to what?’ If it be a question of the soul’s salvation, undoubtedly the one great essential is faith in His blessed Son, whose finished work alone avails to put away sin and procure peace with God.

But if it be a question of what is essential to the enjoyment of communion with God--essential to obtaining the Lord’s approval at the judgment-seat of Christ--then it is well to remember that in everything the believer is sanctified to the obedience of Christ.”

CONCLUSION: The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this obviously does not imply an endorsement. We trust that our readers will not be discouraged.

t is God’s will that we know the times (1 Ch. 12:32; Mat. 16:3) and that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. The News Notes remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the Lord’s coming. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ? “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:11-14).

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