First Thoughts

Pastor Heath recently answered controversial questions related to homosexuality, race, marriage, voting, women in the church, and the Catholic church. You can watch the full talk or see the specific question and time stamp below. It is our prayer that these questions and answers help you think more deeply about how the Bible relates to all of life and increases your faith. Why do we have no people of color on staff at our church (except the ministries for foreign groups)? How can we expect to have a diverse congregation when we don’t have a diverse staff? – 10:35 What implications does Deuteronomy 24:3-4 have currently on Christian marriages? – 15:50 Would you say that the Bible, as we have it, is inerrant, or that the “inerrancy of scripture” applies only to the original scripts and mistakes...

Satan is a liar. He is a liar by nature (John 8:44) and became the father of lies when he told the very first lie, “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4-5). All he does is distort, twist, and pervert the truth, which brings nothing but heartache and destruction. But one of his greatest and most devastating lies is when he tells someone, “It would be better if you were dead.” Sadly, the troubling reality is that tens of thousands of people every year believe that lie. In the United States, during 2020, almost 46,000 people committed suicide. That’s about 125 people a day, making it the 12th leading cause of death in the U.S., the second among ages 20-34. The Bible tells us that every life is precious to God from the moment of conception to the day of one’s final breath. Therefore, every...

Looking Through the Right Lens There’s nothing quite like getting a new pair of glasses. When you put them on for the first time, you suddenly realize how sharp and bursting with brilliance the world is. You go outside and look at a flower in all its intricate beauty, you look up and see the bright blue sky sharply contrasted with the fluffy white clouds, and you realize that it has been quite some time since you’ve seen clearly. To see clearly, all you need is the right lens. This is certainly true when it comes to eyeglasses. But it is also true when you are trying to see Jesus in the Old Testament. When it comes to seeing Jesus in the Old Testament, the lens you need is the New Testament because the New Testament teaches us how to see Jesus in the Old Testament. And it does so in at least...

For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” Isaiah 41:13 Hard Nights in the Hospital When it comes to hospital stays, I’m now something of an expert. Since the fall of 2020, I’ve spent roughly 15 nights in the hospital. That is not as much time as some have spent in the hospital, but it is more than most. For me, 15 nights means I’ve spent more time in the hospital than I have in hotels, visiting relatives, or having sleepovers with my kids. Those 15 nights were the hardest and most uncomfortable ones I’ve ever spent on planet earth. Most of them were in the Neuro-ICU. You don’t get in there unless you need a lot of help. Your brain is fragile, you need constant monitoring, you require powerful medication, you can’t get...

Dear First Baptist Family, You have been so faithful to pray, and I wanted to write and let you know the latest update after the appointment with my neurosurgery team this morning. First of all, I want you to know that I feel good. In fact, as I write to you now, I feel as good as I have felt since August 4. I haven’t taken any pain medication, and my constant dizziness and disorientation has become a much more tolerable light-headed, sort of swimmy feeling. That improvement allows me to walk confidently and without help, even if a bit slower than usual. To add to that good news, I also got a good report at my visit. Everyone is happy with the way I am progressing and healing up. They did decide to leave the stitches in the back of my head for at least another week. They also are continuing...

The Disciples on the Road to Emmaus  Luke 24 records one of the greatest Bible studies in all of history. After his resurrection, Jesus appears to two of his disciples as they walk from Jerusalem to a town called Emmaus. When he first appears to them, they don’t even recognize him and aren’t even sure if he has truly risen from the dead. But as he walks and talks and eats with them, he opens their eyes to see who he is, and he teaches them one of the most important Bible lessons you’ll ever hear: “Then he said to them, ‘These are my words I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the...

Dear First Baptist Family, Today is the first day I’ve felt able to reach out to you (and been allowed to!), so I wanted to share with you some of what has happened. Most of you know that on August 4, I went to the hospital for surgery to relieve the pressure on the trigeminal nerve in my brain that now, for five years, has been causing pain, spasms, and difficulty chewing, speaking, and swallowing. After surgery, it was immediately clear that the operation came with some significant costs as I lost all the hearing in my right ear. This was very discouraging. As the days progressed and I began to be able to get out of bed, it was also clear that I was dealing with an unusual amount of dizziness and disorientation. Having been through these surgeries before, I expected some unsteadiness,...

Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” The Bible sounds an alarm in Proverbs 29:25, telling us that we are in danger. It is a warning for a subtle, nearby sin that regularly visits though most are often unaware of it and the snare it lays. A snare is a trap laid and disguised to catch an animal. The trap is set, so the animal never sees it and is ultimately killed by it. Likewise, this sin is a hidden trap that will capture us if we are not aware of and combating it. The subtle sin in this verse that can so easily overtake us is the sin of people-pleasing or fear of man. We have all been there: the overwhelming anxiety you get when you think someone may criticize you, the fear that runs through your heart when someone doesn’t greet you...

January 1, 1773 is a momentous date for hymnody. It not only serves as the date that ‘Amazing Grace’ was first presented to the public by John Newton now almost 250 years ago, but it is also the date that William Cowper penned ‘Conflict: Light Shining Out of Darkness,’ based on John 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” We know the hymn today as ‘God Moves in a Mysterious Way.’ It is hard to imagine a more fruitful single day in English hymnody nor a starker juxtaposition of two texts depicting the nature of the friendship that these compositions represent—grace and darkness. January 1773 was a difficult month for Cowper, a man often plagued by lengthy periods of depression and even moments of insanity. By the winter of 1773, Cowper and Newton had...

If you are an evangelical Christian, the odds are that you know someone in the LGBTQ+ community. If you don’t, you will. 20% of Gen Z identifies as something other than heterosexual. Pretty soon, you will meet someone who has a partner of the same sex or “identifies” as something other than their biological sex. What do you need to know as you minister to your friend? This can be an overwhelming question if you are a Christian who believes the Bible. That is because two things are crystal clear: (1) the Bible teaches that the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is sinful and destructive, and (2) our culture is deeply hostile to anyone who would embrace what the Bible teaches. That means you are going to get into some tense moments if you are a Christian seeking to be faithful to Jesus during these times. There...