South Decatur
Baptist Church

Every soul faces the most consequential exchange in existence, one Jesus Christ stated plainly: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). The word rendered life is the Greek psuche—soul. To clutch one’s own soul, directing it by one’s own will and sin, is to lose it eternally. To surrender that same soul wholly to Christ is to receive it back forever purified, kept, and made whole by His shed

Men err when they make Pentecost the birthday of the church. The record stands plain in Acts 2:1: “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” The Lord Jesus guaranteed, "I will build my church" (Matt 16:18), using the future tense because the church already existed in embryonic form in those disciples gathered around Him. What Pentecost accomplished was the enduement of power for a church already constituted: “But ye shall rec

The Greek verb phroneo, meaning “to think, to set the mind upon, or to have a disposition toward,” appears throughout the New Testament as one of its most defining words about the interior life of the believer. It has in view the whole orientation of the soul — what a person habitually esteems, savors, and sets his affections upon. When Paul employs phroneo in Romans 8:5 – “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit

One would assume that one of Christ’s churches will obey Him as the Head of the church. Those churches have the authority of Heaven. Here are some of the primary verses that support the authority of individual biblical churches on earth, which emphasize the church's role in maintaining purity, teaching doctrine, and acting on behalf of Christ. Matthew 16:19 along with 18:17-18 speak of the authority of binding and loosing, which is church discipline. The former outlines th

The New Testament presents a church as possessing a vertical authority derived from Christ as its sovereign Head and a horizontal authority expressed in the self-governing, mutually accountable fellowship of its members. The former is grounded in the lordship of Christ Himself. Christ purchased each church with His blood and constituted it by His will. Ephesians 1:22–23 elaborates His Headship, Paul affirming that God “hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be

In the Old Testament, a city gate was the primary seat of local government, serving as the official town hall, law court, and executive center, the designated location for elders and kings to sit and conduct the business of the state. As a judicial center, elders sat at the gates to hear legal cases, settle disputes, and deliver formal judgments. With the gate as an executive court, kings held audience and addressed their subjects from the gate to signify they were official

The further back history reaches, the scarcer extra-scriptural evidence becomes. Yet absence of archaeological proof does not disprove biblical events. Scripture itself is physical, historical evidence. The New Testament (NT) survives today as a remarkable artifact, with manuscript abundance far surpassing other ancient texts. Julius Caesar, arguably antiquity's most towering figure, is attested by only 250 manuscripts, none older than 9th century. Believers copied scripture

God’s covenants with the seed of Abraham are literal, unconditional, and yet to be fully realized. Consequently, Satan’s primary design is the total subversion of God’s kingdom program by seeking to annihilate the Jewish people, thereby attempting to make God’s promises fail. Satan’s designs began with the attempt to pollute the messianic line. The Devil understands that if the natural branches are destroyed, the literal fulfillment of the Davidic Kingdom cannot occur. This

Skepticism about the resurrection recurs in the New Testament. Even those closest to Jesus did not immediately accept His resurrection. Initially, the reports of the empty tomb were met with outright dismissal. When the women returned from the sepulcher, the apostles reacted with collective disbelief: “And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not” (Lk 24:11). Thomas remains a famous example of this struggle. He demanded empirical evidence before

“As I pressed against the amassed bodies of the crowd that bright spring morning outside Jerusalem, the dust rose in golden clouds beneath a thousand stamping feet. Palm branches snapped from the trees and waved overhead like green banners of triumph, while men flung their cloaks into the road until the path became a living carpet. I had come with the rest—curious, hopeful, hearts pounding—for word had spread that the prophet from Nazareth was riding in at last. Then He appe

The continued existence of true churches today bears witness to their origin in the first church in Jerusalem under the Lord Jesus Christ and to the truth of the New Testament. Jesus Christ declared, “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). This promise requires that His church would not cease, but continue from its beginning in the days of Christ’s earthly m

The atmosphere in Jerusalem following the Ascension was a potent mixture of trembling awe and “singleness of heart.” For Peter and the new church, the world had shifted on its axis; they were no longer mere followers, but witnesses charged with a celestial fire. They dwelt in a city that had recently crucified their Lord, yet they walked its streets with “great boldness,” fueled by the promise that they received power after the Holy Ghost had come upon them. Life in this bra

The concept of a mission evokes images of deployed and disciplined soldiers and the Great Commission mirrors that with its revolutionary objective. A military mission seeks the subjugation of territory through physical force, but Christ’s mandate focuses on gaining ground through transformation of souls through the sword of the Spirit. In the military, an order is absolute. Similarly, the Great Commission asserts its Commander: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in ea

Few tasks may be as humbling as sending out a mass mailing. The act involves a significant investment of time, resources, and hope. When the response to that effort is silence, it can feel like a failure. However, through a theological lens, this silence is not a void; it is a space where the principles of faithfulness, the free exercise of the gospel, and the divine law of sowing and reaping converge. In a results-driven culture, we often confuse faithfulness with effect

In Matthew 16:11, Jesus asks His disciples: “How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?” While they were preoccupied with their physical hunger and a forgotten grocery list, Christ was concerned with the spiritual contagion of false doctrine. For the modern professing believer, this verse serves as a sobering call to spiritual discernment and a warning against the

It is difficult for Americans to conceptualize or strongly to imagine a king and a kingdom, which then includes the King, Jesus Christ. The whole idea of a king smacks the American idea of freedom. The king would take control in a kingdom, which means an American person subjects himself to that king, something apparently in contradiction to freedom. To most Americans, freedom means you do what you want to do or choose to do. At this point, it would do well to consider th

The New Testament defines the church, not an abstract global entity, but a specific assembly that grounds a believer’s spiritual life. A biblical mandate for assembly warning against “the forsaking of the assembling of ourselves together” (Heb 10:25) establishes the physical gathering as the non-negotiable rhythm of the Christian life. Because the church is “the house of God, . . . the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15), it is the beli

Misguided compassion that enables sin or ignores divine justice finds stern rebuke in scripture. The Bible urges believers to prioritize righteousness over unchecked feelings for others, lest mercy become a veil for complicity in wrongdoing. Consider the folly of repeatedly rescuing the unrepentant: “A man of great wrath shall suffer punishment: for if thou deliver him, yet thou must do it again” (Prov 19:19). Solomon here warns that sparing consequences only perpetuates ha

Scripture teaches church discipline. Those two words are not in the Bible together, church discipline, so how can someone say that church discipline itself is in the Bible? Those two words describe a doctrine, which is also a process in the New Testament, that God, the Lord Jesus Christ, gave to the church. Most people that understand and believe in church discipline, either do or might think of Matthew 18:15-17 as the church discipline chapter, but they are not all there

The standard of “no-division” is a necessary aspect of the unity of the church prayed for (Jn 17) and required by the Lord Jesus Christ. God is one, so the church must be one, but one is not arbitrary or according to a creative or novel definition. The unity standard of no-division comes from Romans 16:17, which says: “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.” Do you see that?