Author: Heath Lambert

Was Will Smith Wrong?

Written by Heath Lambert on April 4, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

On Sunday, March 27, the 94th annual Academy Awards were held, and everybody is talking about it. As long as I’ve been alive, everybody has been talking about the Academy Awards the week after they were held, but usually, we’re talking about the dresses the actresses were wearing, who won what awards, and all of those kinds of things. But this week, this year, we are talking about an act of violence that happened at the Academy Awards. By now, you know the story. Will Smith took to the stage and smacked Chris Rock right in the face after Chris Rock had made a joke about Will Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, for having her hair cut short to her scalp, which is apparently a decision that Mrs. Smith made after struggling with alopecia. Apparently, Chris Rock didn’t...

Should Christians Drink?

Written by Heath Lambert on March 28, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

Two Sides Alcohol is a very complicated subject for Christians. The reality is that there is a division today among really faithful Christians about what our attitude and our behavior ought to be towards alcohol. On the one side, there are people who like to drink. They want to drink alcohol, and one of the things they do is point to passages in the Bible like John 2, where Jesus Christ, the Son of God, takes 150 gallons of water and by a glorious display of his sovereign power as the Son of God, he turns the molecular structure of the water into the molecular structure of wine. The text in John 2 is clear that it is not just any kind of wine. It is really, really good wine. It is the really good wine that has been provided for the people at the party after they have already been drinking...

Should I Get a Tattoo?

Written by Heath Lambert on March 21, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

Should you get a tattoo? There are millions of people who already have tattoos. Some people are covered with tattoos. Some people have one small special tattoo in a place that commemorates a special event, or that means something important to them. The millions of people that have tattoos might only be matched by the millions of people who want them and are thinking about them. I want to talk to you today if you’re thinking about getting a tattoo and if you are concerned about what the Bible has to say about it. Of course, by the time you’re a Christian, the most important consideration for you would be what God thinks about getting a tattoo, and you only know what God thinks about getting a tattoo by what God says in his Word, the Bible. What Does the Bible Say About Tattoos? There...

SBC Survival Guide | Part 5: Hope

Written by Heath Lambert on March 14, 2022. Posted in First Thoughts.

The previous posts in this SBC Survival Series on abuse, the ERLC, the Baptist Faith and Message, and race might all seem a little discouraging. Emphasizing all we must overcome might seem overwhelming. It is true that we have much to overcome in the serious problems we are facing as a convention. The problems are not overwhelming, however. Our Hope in Times of Hardship You begin to see that the problems are not overwhelming when you notice a common thread in each of the issues I addressed. Overcoming our division on the issue of abuse requires setting aside our efforts at personal kingdom-building to focus on preaching Jesus to abused people. Division regarding politics can only be overcome as we focus on Jesus more than partisan political bickering. We must preserve our commitment to Jesus...

Should I Spank My Kids?

Written by Heath Lambert on March 14, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

Easily one of the most common questions I am asked all the time in ministry is the question that comes from parents, “Should I spank my kids?” They ask the question because they want to be faithful. They want to be good parents. They ask the question because, wanting to be good parents, they know that spanking is controversial out there in the world. And they know that spanking is hard inside the home. Any parent who loves their kids wants to be careful before they do anything that would make their kids sad or would make them cry. And so, this question, should I spank my kids, is one that just comes up again and again and again. I want to address this problem by first saying that there are 100 million things to say about this that I’m not going to be able to say. And so, we can save...

SBC Survival Guide | Part 4: Race

Written by Heath Lambert on March 10, 2022. Posted in First Thoughts.

Divisions Over Race Division over the issue of race is one of the greatest threats to unity in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). This breaks my heart. Some of that heartbreak goes back to something I learned from my mom in childhood. Before my mother became a Christian, she would never have been confused with a virtuous woman, but with all her faults she was never a racist. My mom won scorn and lost friends when she invited an African American woman to join her and several other women at a party in our home in Kentucky. Several of the women were embarrassed, some of them left, and all of them talked about it. My mom knew it would happen and did not care. She loved her friend and thought the fault was with the women who were wrongly offended. That example always meant a lot to me. It...

How Should Christians Respond to Cancel Culture?

Written by Heath Lambert on March 7, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

You know who J.K. Rowling is. J.K. Rowling is the fabulously successful, fabulously popular, fabulously wealthy author of the Harry Potter series. In 2019, she got herself in some trouble. It happened with a tweet, as so many of our problems today often began. She was tweeting in support of a woman who had lost her job because she was seen to be transphobic. Whether the woman actually was transphobic or not is another matter. What we think of being transphobic is still yet another matter. But J.K. Rowling gave a tweet that was in support of this woman, and J.K. Rowling’s world got really small, real quick. The LGBTQ+ world started circling around her and calling for all sorts of consequences for her. And it wound up in 2019 being a very great example of what has come to be called cancel...

SBC Survival Guide | Part 3: The Baptist Faith and Message

Written by Heath Lambert on March 3, 2022. Posted in First Thoughts.

Unity and Truth The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is as divided now as it has been at any point since the conservative resurgence. That resurgence began in the 1970s, long enough ago that we can no longer take for granted that it is understood by the youngest in denominational life. The conservative resurgence began in response to division in the SBC, and that division was over theology. On one side of the division were the liberals (called moderates) who proved to be the minority in Southern Baptist life but had taken over leadership of various institutions in the SBC. On the other side of the division were the conservatives, a majority of those in the convention, who were unwilling to allow the convention to slide into liberalism and death. Conservatives knew that if the SBC was going...

What is the Unforgivable Sin?

Written by Heath Lambert on February 28, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

Years ago, I was in my very first ministry assignment at a church, and a young member of the youth group asked to meet with me. He was a young man who was very, very clearly burdened and overwhelmed with something that was weighing down his soul. As we got talking, he made it clear that he believed that he had committed the unforgivable sin. He was afraid that because he had committed the sin of looking at pornography when he did that, he had committed the unforgivable sin, and he wanted to know if he was stuck with a sin that would never be forgiven and that would ultimately send him to hell. That was the first conversation that I remember having about the unforgivable sin. It has not been the last. In fact, the question “Have I committed the unforgivable sin?” is one of those questions...

A Christian Response to the Ukraine Invasion

Written by Heath Lambert on February 27, 2022. Posted in First Thoughts.

The Russian Invasion of Ukraine Since last week the world has held its breath as Vladimir Putin engaged in a reckless, corrupt, shocking, and terrifying invasion of Ukraine. Everyone is waiting with bated breath to see where this all goes. The reality is that nobody knows. Now that the invasion has begun, not even President Putin knows how this will end. As I have been watching the news and trying to think through a faithful, biblical response, I have been transfixed by the way several striking images are illustrating the headlines. I want to point to three images from three news stories that help identify three faithful Christian responses to this tragedy. Response 1: Heartbreak The first image is absolutely horrifying. It is a picture of a nameless and defenseless woman that was...