Questions and answers
Easy Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
In what year was the most recent comprehensive revision of the Baptist Faith and Message adopted?
- A1963
- B1979
- C2000Correct
- D2012
Answer: 2000
BF&M 2000 · ESV
The current edition was adopted in June 2000. It revised the 1963 statement rather than replacing it, keeping the same article structure while clarifying several articles. Eighteen articles, a preamble, and a chairman's covering letter make up the printed report.
The committee's stated aim was to state plainly what the Bible teaches for a new generation, in the spirit of 1 Peter 3:15. The committee that produced it had fifteen members drawn from across the Convention.
Why not this one. 1979 is remembered as the beginning of the conservative resurgence in the Convention, but no revision of the confession was adopted that year.
Medium Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
BF&M2000 Article V addresses God’s purpose of grace. What doctrine does it affirm regarding God’s choice of sinners for salvation?
- AElectionCorrect
- BUniversal prevenient grace for all without distinction
- CPredestination based on foreseen faith only
- DOpen theism — God discovers who will believe over time
Answer: Election
BF&M 2000, Article V · ESV
Election is defined as the gracious purpose of God according to which he regenerates, justifies, sanctifies and glorifies sinners. The article then makes two claims side by side that Baptists have insisted on holding together: election is consistent with the free agency of man, and it comprehends all the means in connection with the end. Preaching and persuasion are not made pointless by election; they are the means it works through.
BF&M 2000, Article V; Ephesians 1:4-11.
Why not this one. This is the historic Arminian reading, and it takes seriously that God knows all things before they happen. But it reverses the article's order, making God's choice depend on the sinner's rather than the sinner's response flow from God's gracious purpose.
Hard Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
The 1963 statement said that in its broadest sense salvation includes which three things — a list the 2000 revision expanded?
- ARegeneration, sanctification, and glorificationCorrect
- BRegeneration, justification, and sanctification
- CJustification, sanctification, and glorification
- DElection, regeneration, and glorification
Answer: Regeneration, sanctification, and glorification
BF&M 1963, Article IV · ESV
The 1963 list omitted justification, which the article defined inside its paragraph on regeneration. The 2000 revision named justification in the list and gave it a subsection of its own. The 1963 article had three numbered parts; the 2000 article has four lettered ones, A through D.
Romans 8:29-30 sets out the fuller chain: those God foreknew and predestined he also called, justified, and glorified. The 2000 edition also added that there is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.
Why not this one. This drops regeneration, which the 1963 list did include. The word missing from that list was justification.
Easy Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
BF&M2000 Article XI (Evangelism and Missions) says it is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ to do what?
- ASeek to win the lost to Christ through personal witnessCorrect
- BLeave evangelism to ordained clergy only
- CWait for the Holy Spirit to draw people without human effort
- DPrioritize social justice over verbal proclamation
Answer: Seek to win the lost to Christ through personal witness
BF&M 2000, Article XI · ESV
The article says it is the duty and the privilege of every follower of Christ and of every church to seek to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth, and that the new birth in Christ's spirit is a birth into love for others. Duty and privilege are set side by side deliberately; the article treats witness as something owed and something given, not a burden laid on the willing.
BF&M 2000, Article XI; Matthew 28:19-20.
Why not this one. Clergy do carry a particular charge to preach, and Article VI names pastors as one of the two offices. But every follower of Christ is the article's phrase, and it follows from the priesthood of all believers that the work is not delegated upward.
Medium Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
In the letter releasing the 2000 report, the committee chairman said the structure of the confession had been retained and that the committee had done what regarding new articles?
- AProposed no new articlesCorrect
- BProposed one new article on the family
- CProposed two new articles
- DProposed replacing three older articles
Answer: Proposed no new articles
BF&M 2000 · ESV
The 2000 committee revised wording inside existing articles and left several untouched, but added none. The eighteenth article, on the family, had already been adopted two years earlier. Several articles were reprinted with no revision at all.
The committee described its task in the terms of Jude 3 and 2 Timothy 1:14, guarding a deposit rather than enlarging it. The chairman also said the substance of each article had been retained.
Why not this one. The family article came from the 1998 amendment. The 2000 committee inherited it and carried it forward without adding anything of its own.
Hard Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
The Baptist distinctive that emphasizes each believer’s direct, unmediated relationship with God — including the right to interpret Scripture for oneself — is classically called what?
- ASoul competency (or soul liberty)Correct
- BThe priesthood of the believer as a corporate, not individual, right
- CEcclesial magisterium
- DThe perspicuity of Scripture
Answer: Soul competency (or soul liberty)
BF&M 2000, Article XVII · ESV
Soul competency, also called soul liberty, holds that each person is competent to deal with God directly and is answerable to him for that dealing, including the reading of Scripture. It is the ground of the Baptist refusal of any human mediator between the believer and God, and, as Article XVII shows, of religious liberty for everyone rather than only for Baptists.
BF&M 2000, Article XVII.
Why not this one. Perspicuity is the closely related claim that Scripture is clear enough in what matters most to be understood by ordinary readers, and the two doctrines support each other. The difference is subject: perspicuity is about the book, soul competency about the reader.
Easy Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
Which doctrine does the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 take up in its very first article?
- AThe ScripturesCorrect
- BGod
- CSalvation
- DThe Church
Answer: The Scriptures
BF&M 2000, Article I · ESV
The confession opens with the Bible before it treats God, man, or salvation, because Scripture is the ground on which every later article stands. The 2000 revision strengthened it further, saying all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.
The article gathers texts such as Psalm 19:7-10 and 2 Peter 1:19-21 to affirm that God himself is the Bible's author. Article I also calls the Bible the supreme standard by which conduct, creeds, and religious opinions are tried.
Why not this one. God is the subject of Article II, not Article I. The order is deliberate: Southern Baptists state their authority before stating what that authority teaches.
Medium Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
What is the order of the first five articles of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000?
- AThe Scriptures, God, Man, Salvation, God's Purpose of GraceCorrect
- BGod, The Scriptures, Man, Salvation, The Church
- CThe Scriptures, God, Salvation, Man, The Church
- DGod, The Scriptures, Salvation, Man, God's Purpose of Grace
Answer: The Scriptures, God, Man, Salvation, God's Purpose of Grace
BF&M 2000, Articles I-V · ESV
The opening five articles move from authority to God, then to man and his fall, then to salvation, then to the electing purpose behind salvation. Article VI on the church follows. Articles I through V form the doctrinal core; the rest turn to the church and the Christian life.
The sequence mirrors the movement of Romans 1-8, from revelation and God's nature to sin, justification, and God's unbreakable purpose.
Why not this one. This inverts Man and Salvation. The confession states the problem before the remedy, so Article III on Man precedes Article IV on Salvation.
Hard Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
Which doctrine had an article of its own in the 1925 statement but appears in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 only as a lettered subsection of the article on Salvation?
- AJustificationCorrect
- BElection
- CThe Lord's Day
- DCooperation
Answer: Justification
BF&M 2000, Article IV · ESV
Justification stood as Article V in 1925. In 2000 it is section B of Article IV, defined as God's gracious and full acquittal of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Regeneration and sanctification made the same journey from article to subsection.
The definition follows Romans 3:23-25 and Romans 5:8-10, where God justifies the ungodly through Christ's blood. The 1963 edition had defined justification inside its paragraph on regeneration.
Why not this one. Election has never been a subsection. It opens the 1925 article on God's Purpose of Grace and still opens Article V under that same title in 2000.
Easy Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
The preamble to the Baptist Faith and Message, quoting the historic 1925 statement, names what as the sole authority for faith and practice among Baptists?
- AThe Scriptures of the Old and New TestamentsCorrect
- BThe decisions of the Southern Baptist Convention
- CThe confession of faith itself
- DThe consensus of the local association
Answer: The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments
BF&M 2000, Preamble · ESV
The preamble is careful to subordinate the confession to the Bible. Confessions guide interpretation; they never stand alongside Scripture as a second authority. The confession therefore ranks itself below the Bible, and says so before its first article begins.
This is the reflex of Acts 17:11, where the Bereans measured even apostolic preaching by the written Word. Isaiah 8:20 sets the same test: to the law and to the testimony.
Why not this one. The preamble denies exactly this. Convention actions bind no church's conscience, and the confession says so before its first article begins.
Medium Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
Which of these questions does the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 leave unsettled rather than decide?
- AWhether Christ's atonement is limited in its extent to the electCorrect
- BWhether salvation requires personal faith in Jesus Christ
- CWhether believers can fall away from the state of grace
- DWhether the unrighteous face everlasting punishment
Answer: Whether Christ's atonement is limited in its extent to the elect
BF&M 2000, Articles II, IV, V, X · ESV
The confession affirms a substitutionary atonement without saying for whom Christ died in the disputed sense, so Southern Baptists on both sides of that question can sign it honestly. The 2000 committee said it embraced the substitutionary character of Christ's atonement without denying other historic understandings.
The texts it cites, such as 1 Corinthians 15:3 and 2 Corinthians 5:19-21, establish the substitution itself without settling the extent debate.
Why not this one. Article V settles this plainly: those God has accepted in Christ will never fall away but are kept by his power. The article pairs that promise with a warning that believers may still fall into sin.
Hard Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
According to the 2000 committee, which Southern Baptist developed the concept of soul competency and was its first advocate?
- AE. Y. MullinsCorrect
- BJohn Leland
- CHerschel H. Hobbs
- DJames P. Boyce
Answer: E. Y. Mullins
BF&M 2000, Preamble · ESV
Mullins chaired the 1925 committee and gave the phrase its currency. The 2000 committee quoted his own qualification, that soul competency means competency under God rather than human self-sufficiency. Mullins also chaired the committee that wrote the five points on confessions.
The idea rests on the individual's direct accountability to God in Romans 14:12 and on the one mediator of 1 Timothy 2:5.
Why not this one. Leland was a genuine Baptist champion of religious liberty a century earlier, but the term soul competency and its development belong to Mullins.