Greenway challenges Pastors’ Conference attendees to ‘speak truth in love’ based on authority, sufficiency of Scripture

ANAHEIM, Calif. – The authority and sufficiency of Scripture challenge believers to speak the truth in love even when it is painful, Adam W. Greenway, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Texas Baptist College, told attendees of the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference in Anaheim, California, during a June 13 address.

“If we really are committed to the authority and the sufficiency of the Bible as the Word of God, then we must be a people who are willing to confront not just the truth we want to believe, but the truth as it actually is,” Greenway said, with his comments greeted by applause. “And that can be a disconcerting reality, especially in a moment where we have tended to mythologize elements of our past, where we have tended to aggrandize certain individuals. We have these confrontations with the truth.”

Under the theme, “We Proclaim Him,” the 2022 SBC Pastors’ Conference is being held June 12-13 as a pre-conference to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention June 14-15. Organized by Pastors’ Conference President Matt Henslee, a two-time graduate of Southwestern Seminary and executive director of the Collin Baptist Association in Collin County, Texas, the Fort Worth institution was the platinum premier sponsor of the conference. Attendees were led in worship by Matt Boswell, a hymn writer and founding pastor of The Trails Church in Celina, Texas, and the Cowden Hall Band, the graduate house band of the School of Church Music and Worship of Southwestern Seminary and TBC.

Recognizing the historical importance of the Bible to the Pastors’ Conference, Greenway introduced the most recent release of Seminary Hill Press, The Authority and Sufficiency of Scripture. Edited by Greenway and David S. Dockery, distinguished professor of theology and special consultant to the president at Southwestern Seminary, the book is a collection of essays by 15 faculty members from Southwestern Seminary and Texas Baptist College. A high view of Scripture is part of Greenway’s “big tent” vision for Southwestern Seminary. SHP is the seminary’s publishing arm.

“We stand boldly upon where Southern Baptists have stood concerning the inspiration, infallibility, inerrancy, authority, sufficiency, and total trustworthiness of the Bible as the written Word of God that testifies infallibly and inerrantly to the living Word of God Jesus the Christ, who is always the hero of all that we do as the people of God,” Greenway said.

Speaking the “truth in love,” Greenway explained, is because of a “commitment” to the Word of God.

Greenway noted the “painful” and “disconcerting reality” of speaking the truth in love “when the spotlight and the searchlight of the truth gets turned back on us” and because of taking “great solace and comfort” in the “things of this world,” including individuals, personalities, platforms, and programs.

Recognizing the current moment in Southern Baptist life where the denomination has “had to confront some very painful truths” about the past, beliefs that are challenged, individuals who were “idolized,” and perspective on “matters that we watch,” Greenway observed, “The truths we’re having to confront is not unlike the reaction that we have condemned from those in the world, when we have confronted them with the truth of the Gospel and they reject it.”

Reading from Paul’s admonishment to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 13:4-6 to love, Greenway noted in verse 6 Paul wrote he “rejoiced in the truth,” but did not “qualify” the type of truth in which he rejoiced.

Greenway said one of the “tragedies” of the day is “allowing the world to dictate” the “methodologies” and “models” that “determine what the Southern Baptist Convention ought to be.” Biases, prejudices, and preferences make people “more willing and ready to believe the lies than to be confronted with the truth,” he said.

Recounting the story in Acts 12 of God striking King Herod dead after he accepted the “praise” and “adulation” after the people called him a “god” and “not a man” following his address to the crowd, Greenway said “tragically” the “culture” in Southern Baptist life has been similar as “individuals, leaders, personalities, mere mortals” and “mere men” have been “held up in such a way” that “are we not guilty at times of doing that in Acts 12?”

Recalling the Southern Baptist Convention’s founding in 1845, Greenway said while “God has used a myriad of men and women to build the Southern Baptist Convention,” the “only one who actually deserves any credit for any success we have accomplished as a convention of churches is none other than the lovely Lord Jesus Christ.”

“To share that glory with any individuals is nothing short of idolatry,” Greenway added. “Only Christ is worthy of the kind of superlatives we often ascribe to people.”

Greenway encouraged attendees to “do what Paul calls us to do: we can rejoice even in the painful truth” noting that Scripture records “before revival comes judgment has to come” and “it has to come with the people of God.” 

Acknowledging divisions as the SBC meets this week, Greenway reminded attendees of the “truth” that though “various issues” may “separate” believers, if they are “blood-bought, born-again, Spirit-filled” children of God, they are brothers and sisters in Christ who will “spend eternity together.” He challenged believers to “figure out how to get along down here.”

“This has been a painful season for Southern Baptists,” Greenway concluded. “There are things we wish we did not have to confront that we’re having to confront. If there was ever a time for us to pray and to seek the face of God for divine wisdom and guidance, it is now. But that’s what He promises He will do for us as we speak the truth in love.”