Longtime pastor turned @truettseminary prof. Trying to take Jesus seriously and to learn how to love. Author YOUR JESUS IS TOO AMERICAN. Opinions mine.
Waco, Texas
Joined January 2008
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Steve Bezner retweeted
There is NOTHING conservative about a no holds barred embrace of new technologies. A conservative will always be on the lookout for what "progress" might destroy that is precious and in need of protection. This is so basic I am embarrassed to state it.
Steve Bezner retweeted
🚨RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: WHY IT MATTERS🚨
Baptists have long been advocates for religious liberty. This originated because of persecution of Anabaptist and Baptist forefathers in both Europe and America. Baptists actually gave religious liberty to the US.
Why should you care?
Steve Bezner retweeted
70.3 miles. this weekend my dad and brother finished another IRONMAN 70.3. TeamAgar is back♥️
Steve Bezner retweeted
Great to be with @Jeff_Warren Pastor of @parkcitiesbap and @Bezner Professor @TruettSeminary tonight for Dr. Bezner’s presentation on Religious Liberty. Well done!
Steve Bezner retweeted
An excellent article from @AndrewTWalker on the "largely ineffectual" nature of Christian Nationalism. No scenario exists in which their speculative ideas are formally adopted in America. My take: This is why they fight for control of certain Christian organizations rather than taking on the U.S. government. They won't ever replace the president with a Caesar, but they can do a lot of damage to seminaries and denominations. They can't win by convincing the public at large. Their ideas are too kooky (and dangerous). For this reason, they look to leech off existing groups (e.g., the SBC) with money and assets rather than starting their own institutions. wng.org/opinions/michael-sco…
Steve Bezner retweeted
Baylor football is wearing a six-year-old's artwork on their helmets today.
Her name is ILaria Ramirez. She is from Cameron, Texas.
She is a patient at Baylor Scott & White McLane Children's Medical Center.
Here is how it happened.
Baylor players went over to the children's hospital and sat down with the pediatric patients. Not a photo op, not a walk through and wave. They actually sat down at tables with the kids and drew together.
Blank Baylor Bear heads. Markers. Make it yours.
ILaria made hers pink and teal. She put a bear right in the middle of it.
And then she did two things that nobody told her to do.
She gave it a name. She called it the Helmet of Hope.
And she picked three words to go around the edge of it.
FAITH.
VICTORY.
STRENGTH.
A six-year-old chose those. Not a marketing department. Not a coach. Not her parents. Her.
Baylor took her drawing, turned it into a decal, and put it on every single helmet for today's Gold Rush game against Louisiana Tech.
Not a sticker on one guy's helmet. Not a patch on the sleeve.
Every player on the field wearing a first grader's bear on the side of their head.
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and gold is the color for it worldwide. Baylor asked the entire stadium to wear gold today.
Head coach Dave Aranda on why:
"ILaria is one of us, and so we represent her and want her and her family to know that we're fighting along with her."
And linebacker Kyler Jordan, on what today actually is:
"Way bigger than football."
Here is the number that sits underneath all of this.
Nearly 1 in 285 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer before they turn 20.
One in 285. Before 20 years old.
Which means in a stadium that holds 45,000 people, the math says a few hundred of them have already been through some version of what ILaria is going through right now.
That is why the gold matters. That is why a helmet decal matters.
Somewhere in that building today there is a kid who knows exactly what a hospital room looks like, watching a Division I football team run out of the tunnel wearing a drawing made by a girl who is six.
FAITH. VICTORY. STRENGTH.
She picked those words herself.
Steve Bezner retweeted
The Steve that this week's post mentions is @Bezner. His brief encouragement adjusted part of how I approach leading and pastoring.
hansgooger.com/p/optimism-as…
Steve Bezner retweeted
A plug for community sports leagues @FBCWaco! Basketball signups are live now!
Steve Bezner retweeted
I’m at the Baylor football game…just got through watching a video of Baylor football players being baptized while the crowd sang amazing Grace along with John Crowder there really is no place like Baylor
Steve Bezner retweeted
The early church was (1) multi-ethnic/against racism (2) committed to the poor (3) forgiving and reconciling (4) anti-abortion/pro-life (5) committed to sex only within marriage between a man and a woman. Those five combined were seen as radical and out of step with the culture.
Today, our secular culture has sought to maintain some ethical values from Christianity while rejecting its theology and worldview (see T.Holland “Dominion”), so The Five theological-ethical stances appear to be a ‘middle ground’ between ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’.
But they aren’t a middle ground or ‘third way’ at all, except via accidental appearance. Taken together (which they must be—since they are based on the same distinct Christian view of power and service) The Five are still radical and out of step with the culture.
The conservative church GENERALLY tends to reject calls for justice and reconciliation (1-3) while the progressive church and ex-Evangelicals reject 4-5. I'd argue that they hang together—not just theologically but practically (and historically).
Read more here: buff.ly/ZWaQVoO
Steve Bezner retweeted
Yes, it is very, very difficult to explain the christology presupposed and practiced by, and apparently uncontroversial to, Paul (and, by implication, his churches) and the Jerusalem apostles (and, by implication, Jewish Christians in and around Jerusalem) without the hypothesis that Jesus thought and acted as though he believed that he was more intrinsic to and expressive of the one God of Israel than anyone had ever been or would be again (and, of course, that this was also a conceivable if highly controversial position to hold within the context of first-century Jewish monotheistic, messianic, and intermediary traditions).
Steve Bezner retweeted
St. Augustine: “Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention… For it was a witty and a truthful rejoinder which was given by a captured pirate to Alexander the Great. The king asked the fellow, ‘What is your idea, in infesting the sea?’ And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, ‘The same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I'm called a pirate: because you have a mighty navy, you're called an emperor.’” (City of God, Book IV, Chapter 4)
Steve Bezner retweeted
In the early 70s, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagonner did a concert in our town. They ate post-concert the pizza place where i worked. I was their waiter. Dolly couldn’t have been more friendly and cordial. They left me a $10 tip. RIP Dolly. You made the world better, brighter.
Steve Bezner retweeted
Just to be absolutely clear: yes, monogenes and prototokos (only or first begotten) language in John, Paul, and Hebrews reflects a christological adaptation of Jewish wisdom and Middle Platonist intermediary traditions and absolutely pertains to the son’s preexistent divinity.
Steve Bezner retweeted
Joyful gathering of church leaders preparing to serve as mentors for @Baylor’s @TruettSeminary. I pray that these gospel partnerships grow and flourish. #proecclesia
