Theology News & Updates for Missouri Baptists • The Pathway

Theology Stories

‘We’re going to save lives’: Sen. Schnelting, MBC’s Fowler discuss 2026 pro-life ballot measure

Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) Executive Director Wes Fowler sat down with state Senator Adam Schnelting (R-St. Charles) on Jan. 7 for a public dialogue about a Missouri ballot initiative that will aim this fall to restore pro-life protections to the state’s Constitution.

Ethics

Christmas carol recounts tragedy, encourages us to protect the innocents

“The Christmas story is a deeper and more complicated narrative than we often give it credit for.”

Faith

Could Satan be saved?

God designed hell as a final destination for Satan and rebellious angels. There is no hope of redemption for them. Not now. Not ever. But there is hope for us. Christ came in the likeness of sinful men and women, living a perfect life as the God-Man, and offering that life on the cross to the Father as an acceptable payment for our sin debt.

Columnists

Underestimating Ordinary

MBC Executive Director Wes Fowler writes, “... God oftentimes uses what we might label ‘ordinary’ to accomplish the extraordinary. In an instant, God can interrupt our ‘ordinary’ routines and reveal His power, purpose and presence.”

Columnists

This Christmas, remember hell’s horror, heaven’s glory

Early evangelicals, who saw the horrors of hell so plainly, magnified the beauty and loveliness of heaven, but in an age where hell is often downgraded and dismissed, heaven’s brightness is also often dimmed and its glory treated as cliché. During this Christmas season, it would do us well to declare both the terrors of hell and the wonders of heaven. After all, during this season, we celebrate the moment in history when heaven for a short time came down to earth, when God sent his Son, Immanuel—“God with Us”—so that “everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

National

Godly grief: ‘Blue Christmas’ not inevitable after a loved one’s death

Grief can harden hearts. Chet Stewart saw that many times through 60 years in the mortuary business. But he also saw hard hearts soften.

International

First Person: IMB missionary shares how cancer challenged beliefs, strengthened trust in God

"I felt as if I had been punched in the gut and could not get air. I was 33, a wife, mom of three small children, had always been healthy with no family history, and this man just came and told me I had a tumor."

Faith

Unreformed & undeterred

For Satan, hell is the final humiliation for the one-time guardian cherub. The “god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4) is stripped of his kingdom. The deceiver of the whole world (Rev. 12:9) discovers he’s the victim of his own ruse. The one who would set his throne above the stars of God (Isa. 14:13) is crushed beneath the Messiah’s heel (Gen. 3:15).

Faith

State of the Church: Bible use resurges in U.S. with Millennial, Gen Z men in front

Weekly Bible reading resurged 12 points this year in the U.S. after a 15-year low, with Millennial and Gen Z men leading the way, State of the Church researchers said in their November release.

Missouri

Sikeston’s Miner Baptist Church lifts high the cross of Jesus

Miner Baptist Church here is lifting high the cross of Jesus. To be exact, they have constructed a 120-foot-high cross on their property, visible from Interstate Highway 55, in hopes that more people would be drawn to Christ.

Missouri

MBC messengers adopt report on office of pastor, urge churches to fight for life in 2026

During their 191st annual meeting, Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) messengers celebrated their Great Commission partnership and were challenged to reach and baptize 8,000 new believers across the state in 2026. They also urged churches to continue fighting for the life of the unborn, and they adopted a task force report regarding the “office of the pastor, specifically as it relates to a woman’s role in ministry.”

Faith

‘If God spare my life’: English Scripture that Tyndale lived, died to translate turning 500 years old

Five hundred years ago, English evangelical William Tyndale fled for safety from the city of Cologne, Germany. Catholic authorities were eager to arrest him and stamp out his work. His crime? Translating the Greek New Testament into the English language.

Theology Stories

‘We’re going to save lives’: Sen. Schnelting, MBC’s Fowler discuss 2026 pro-life ballot measure