Sorry folks, I know this is not a Christian blog, or even a Baptist one at that; but I have to brag on my people a little bit.
Via The Baptist Press:
JOPLIN, Mo. (BP)–“We are praying and will be sending help in every way we can,” the president of the Missouri Baptist Convention said in the aftermath of the tornado in Joplin that killed 116 or more people May 22 in a state already heavy leaden with Mississippi River flooding.
John Marshall, president of the Missouri convention and pastor of Second Baptist Church in Springfield, urged the state’s Baptists “to seek out ways to work with Missouri disaster relief efforts, or to contact a sister church in the Joplin area to give aid through. May God help the people of Joplin.”
Wanda Shellenbarger, MBC women’s ministry leader and a member of First Baptist Church in Carl Junction near Joplin, reported that Harmony Heights Baptist Church was destroyed along with the high school across the street and that a second church, Empire Baptist, also was leveled. Three were killed when the tornado hit Harmony Heights.
“We’ve had massive destruction and devastation here,” said Shellenbarger, who works part-time for an engineering firm. At least six of her co-workers lost their homes, she said, and one employee may have been killed in a rescue attempt.
“Please pray for all of us as we minister to so many hurting people,” Shellenbarger said. “God can use even this type of thing to reach more for Him.”
The really cool thing about Baptists is that they do not sit around and wait for some so-called supernatural mandate from God to come forth; unlike the tongue-babbling idiot crowds that I used to hang around. The Baptists just take the Word of God literally and go and do the work. The Baptist Mandate is:
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. – (Matthew 5:13-16 KJV)
Of course, there are many others in the Word of God; not that I believe in a works based Salvation, at all. I believe this to be the truth:
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. — (Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV)
Yes, I know about the scripture that says “Faith without works is dead.” The problem is, that was the book of James; which was written before Paul had his revelation of Grace. The Baptist stance on that whole supposed contradiction is this; We Baptists are sinners, who are saved by Grace and our works are a physical manifestation of the Grace that God has shown us. That is our mandate, nothing fancy, no big production, no vain glory. Just do the work and let the Lord Jesus get the Glory and the Honor; and let people see our works, so that those who choose to, can come to the throne of Grace and accept him as their Personal Saviour and Lord. No high pressure sermons, no guilt trips; just do the work, and the people see for themselves the Grace that God has shown us.
That is the Baptist mandate.
That is what Baptists do.