Life is like a flag at half-staff. Half-staff is a place of mourning, not a place of rest. From half-staff, the flag can go either up or down. Up is triumph. Down is a place of honor after a day well-served. Up is where we all want to be. Down at least means we’re tucked away safely out of the weather. Isn’t life like that?

If you can read this, be thankful. Someone taught you to read, which took time and patience. Now you can get ahead in life because you can read. Others are staying behind or falling behind because they can’t. But you can change that.

“There’s a lot of lessons to learn here, not just that the Left and the Right can still agree on some things, but also this: Americans can forgive one another,” Dan Crenshaw said.

My experience as a pastor and now as a budding steward of the Baptist Standard Publishing Company tells me we do not want an impartial media—or pastorate. We may like the idea of an impartial media, but our behavior says otherwise.

Of all the criteria available for choosing a political candidate, what factors determine the person for whom you will vote?

It’s a longstanding tradition among churchgoers to sit in the same place in the sanctuary Sunday after Sunday. If attending church services in an old enough building, then that place is a specific spot on a specific pew. Let’s talk about that.

I pray we will become so gripped by God’s righteous vocation that we cannot help but give up our self-interest in order to live as Christ in this life, opposing the forces of this world in the name of Christ so all may know the joy and life of eternity.

My concern is not with speaking truth to power—if that actually is what people like Jeffress and Graham are doing. My concern is with using worldly terms—the political designators “conservative” and “progressive”—to define who is and who is not a Christian.

There is a wealth of incredible stories being crafted in the lives and ministries of Texas Baptist people, churches and institutions. From those stories, I hear about the difference Jesus is making in lives around the world. More people need to know the difference Jesus is making.

In keeping with our desire to inform, inspire and challenge people to live like Jesus, Baptists Preaching is an attempt to provide a selection of important sermons preached in Texas Baptist churches and, over time, to create a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research.

Things must be going really well for a church to have time to debate what Jesus meant by the story of the sheep and the goats or the Good Samaritan.

There once was a king who had 400 prophets, and whenever the king wanted affirmation, he called the 400 prophets together. One year, the king wanted to take land he counted as his and asked a neighboring king to join the fight. They decided to ask God.