Author: Heath Lambert

Ever since I learned I was going to be one, I’ve been thinking a lot about grandparents. My excitement over my grandchild in a few months is verging on obsession. My daughter and I have always been very close, and I am looking forward to the wonderful new things that will come to our relationship with the addition of her child and my grandbaby. But over the years, I’ve been aware of many strained relationships between parents and the grandparents of their children. I have seen the birth of a new baby initiate conflict between that child’s parents and grandparents. An important blog could be written about how grandparents can be unhelpful and unwise as they relate to their children and grandchildren.  But that is not what this blog is about. This blog is about how parents can be cruel, unloving,...

On Sunday, July 21, at First Baptist, I announced that my young, unmarried daughter is pregnant. I love my precious girl more than I can communicate in words and would have preferred to keep this information private. However, the nature of my ministry means that the consequences of her private sin will be more public than it would be for most young women in her situation. I am sharing this information with the approval of her and the rest of our family. We all know that in short order, the nature of her sin will be obvious, but the nature of her repentance will not be unless you hear it from me. If you missed it, you can watch the announcement here: .embedtool {position: relative;height: 0;padding-top: 56%;overflow: hidden;max-width: 100%;} .embedtool iframe, .embedtool object, .embedtool...

Gentle parenting is a topic that inspires not much gentle debate. There’s actually a lot of disagreements out there about this. I have had, in the last week or so, an unusual number of people asking me about this. I don’t intend to do it full justice. I often remind you that we try to keep this around 10 minutes and so I can’t say everything; all I’m going to do here is have the very, very modest goal of pointing in the direction of what gentle parenting is, and given a few biblical thoughts about it, there will be more specific questions and more specific concerns. Here is what gentle parenting is, in fact, if I just ask you to consider whether or not you were spanked by your parents when you were growing up. It is probably the case that the number of you who would...

In 2016, I did not vote for Donald Trump. I didn’t vote for him because I knew he was lying. Listening to candidate Trump promise protections against the unborn and pledging to appoint originalist justices to the Supreme Court, I was convinced conservatives were being played. I didn’t believe for a minute that he would make good on his promises. I could not have been more wrong. In the years that followed the election, I watched Donald J. Trump be the most aggressively pro-life president in my lifetime. He stood for life and appointed the justices that overturned Roe. I was invited to the White House with other pastors to receive a briefing from senior officials about what the Trump Administration was doing to defend life. I was amazed. Over the years of Trump’s presidency, I wept tears...

The 2024 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention is in the books. Messengers approved many resolutions, elected a number of officers, listened to sermons, made countless motions, and referred the work of the Abuse Reform and Implementation Task Force (ARITF) to the executive committee. A lot happened, but I want to summarize the 2024 convention with three developments of tremendous significance. The President One of the most significant actions of the convention was to elect Clint Pressley as our new president. Pressley is a wonderfully faithful pastor and theological conservative who is committed to expository preaching and wants the SBC to refocus on our theological convictions and missional cooperation. This choice is so significant because the appointments that Pressley makes to our...

.embedtool {position: relative;height: 0;padding-top: 56%;overflow: hidden;max-width: 100%;} .embedtool iframe, .embedtool object, .embedtool embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; } .embedtool .fluid-vids {position: initial !important} I’ve never met Mike Law or even had a conversation with him, but I do support his amendment to the constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) that messengers will consider at our meeting in Indianapolis this June. There are three reasons why I hope Southern Baptists will approve this amendment. 1. There Has Been Confusion on This Issue Some very faithful pastors in our convention have wondered whether this is necessary because our convention voted in New Orleans to remove several churches with female pastors, including...

A Gracious Invitation In 1909, The First Baptist Church of Jacksonville founded Riverside Baptist Church as one of dozens of churches it was planting around the city. A lot has changed in those 115 years. For starters, the church is now called Riverside Church at Park and King. More significantly, the church now openly affirms every manifestation of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle. The gay-affirming stance of Riverside Church places it at odds with the traditional understanding of biblical sexual ethics held by churches like First Baptist. That much is obvious. Also obvious is that most of the time, when these disagreements are revealed, people get angry and hostile. It was out of concern for those issues, that the church’s current pastor, Adam Gray, graciously invited me to his church to have a conversation...

  Movements and Misunderstandings Steve sat in my office spewing accusations like sparks from a flame. He was furious as he charged that his wife, Lisa, didn’t love him, was unhappy in their marriage, and was in love with another man. As she listened to the barrage of accusations, Lisa broke down in tears. Through sobs, she was adamant that none of it was true, she loved her husband, her home, their kids, and their life together. She could not grasp why she was so misunderstood by the man she loved and to whom she was devoting her entire life. It was clear that a poisonous environment of misunderstanding existed in their marriage. There was no hope for improvement in the marriage without an appreciation of the other person’s point of view. Counselors can struggle with this problem...

What Would David Powlison Do? Since releasing my essay, Priests in the Garden, Zombies in the Wilderness, and Prophets on the Wall: The Current State of the Contemporary Biblical Counseling Movement, I’ve had some conversations about the nature of the legacy of David Powlison. It will be obvious to most that no essay I would write, no analogy I could deploy, and no story I have shared could ever represent the legacy of a man as remarkable as David. I made this clear at the beginning of my essay, “The competing claims about David’s legacy will require a comprehensive appraisal of his teaching, but I am engaging in no such undertaking here. At the beginning of this essay, I only want to share a personal story about my dear friend.” Unpacking David’s legacy is going to require careful work...

In light of the strong response to my essay, Priests in the Garden, Zombies in the Wilderness, and Prophets on the Wall: The Current State of the Contemporary Biblical Counseling Movement, I want to share a few observations about what I am thinking, what I intend, and where we go from here. Peeling Back the Metaphor My essay makes a very clear argument that I develop in four stages. I express my concern that the biblical counseling movement has been infiltrated by people who are syncretizing secular therapy with biblical wisdom. After diagnosing that problem of compromise, I provide three ways to recognize the existence of these compromised individuals. The bulk of the essay is a serious and sustained theological argument where I engage several misunderstandings and misapplications of the...