Ted Elmore

Dr. Ted Elmore is pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Harlingen, TX. Ted’s ministry has included writing, pastoral, evangelistic and denominational leadership.

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

An old quote - “You can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” Hilarious! Disclaimer: I raised chickens as a boy in the country!
@JDVance

[Edward Lawrence @EdwardLawrence]

Vice President JD Vance put up a chicken coup outside the VP’s residence. A spokesperson tells me he will tend to the chickens. His kids already named the chicks. The coop was made by Carolina Coops, an American-owned small business which has been in business for 18 years. The owner Matt DuBoise pictured here after putting the coup up. #Chickens #FreshEggs #VP (pics courtesy Vice President Vance’s Office)

[Chuck Swindoll @chuckswindoll]

Today is the quietest day of the Christian calendar. No triumphant entry. No resurrection announcement. Just a sealed tomb, a grieving handful of followers, and a silence that must have felt like the end of everything.

But heaven was not silent.

The cross was not an accident. It was not a tragedy God scrambled to redeem. It was love — deliberate, costly, personal. He gave His Son knowing exactly what it would require. And He did it anyway.

For you.

"But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." — Romans 5:8

In the silence of this day between Friday and Sunday, there is an invitation — not to rush ahead to the empty tomb, but to let the weight of the cross settle in. To sit with the question: do you actually believe He did this for you?

Not for humanity in the abstract. For you, by name, in full knowledge of your story.

Maybe today is the day that finally lands.

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

Very sad news. Cheryl and I join in prayer for Steve and Donna Gaines and their family.

[Wade Lentz @wadelentz]

Bellevue Baptist Church has announced that Pastor Emeritus Steve Gaines has entered hospice care. The family requests privacy and no visitors at this time.
Please join in praying for Steve, Donna, and the entire Gaines family for peace, comfort, and strength.
#SteveGaines #BellevueBaptist

[Albert Mohler @albertmohler]

"The great clarification: James Talarico, David French, and the battle for the evangelical soul" — my column today @wngdotorg. You can read it at the link below.
https://t.co/WPGKGTCpKR

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

This is classic Liberation Theology. There is not one place where Liberation Theology has been successful. It is a heretical distortion of the true gospel and poor politics. Avoid this like the plague. I do not trouble myself politically but I will defend the Gospel.

[Senate Republicans @NRSC]

🚨JAMES TALARICO: “Christ is the immigrant deported without due process. Christ is the senior deprived of their Social Security benefits. Christ is the protestor kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plain clothes officers.”

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

Huge indeed!

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

President Donald J. Trump announces that America First Refining is opening the FIRST new U.S. Oil Refinery in 50 YEARS in Brownsville, Texas. 🇺🇸

This is what AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE looks like. 💪

[Holy Bible @Holy__Bible1]

Lord God,
Please fill my heart with Your peace.
Calm my thoughts, quiet my fears, and remove all restlessness within me.
Let Your peace guard my mind and guide my actions.
Help me release anger, worry, and pain from the past.
Give me patience, understanding, and a gentle spirit.
May peace flow into my home, my relationships, and my future.
I place everything in Your hands and choose to trust You.

Amen 🙏

[HARRISFAULKNER @HARRISFAULKNER]

URGENT: Strongly worded Statement from the St Paul, Minnesota Church targeted by the anti-ICE mob:

“On Sunday, January 18, a group of agitators jarringly disrupted our worship gathering. They accosted members of our congregation, frightened children, and created a scene marked by intimidation and threat. Such conduct is shameful, unlawful, and will not be tolerated. Invading a church service to disrupt the worship of Jesus — or any other act of worship — is protected by neither the Christian Scriptures nor the laws of this nation.”

Entire Statement 👇

https://t.co/E7dfVyFm1R

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

Excellent!!

[Pastor Rich Bitterman @w_bitterman]

Thank You for the Disruption of the Church Service in Minnesota

The doors were already open when the voices came. A pastor paused mid-sentence.

It happened on a Sunday morning in Minnesota, during a service that looked ordinary until it wasn’t. Shoes scuffed. A few people stood. Others stayed seated, hands still folded, unsure whether to look down or look up. The sanctuary, designed for praise, became contested ground.

Arguments will swirl around that moment. They already have as motives are weighed and causes defended. Lines drawn and redrawn. Yet beneath the debate lies a simpler truth that should sober the church more than any headline. A boundary was tested, and it held only because people inside the room chose how to respond.

That is why this moment matters.

History teaches that pressure on the church rarely arrives dressed as persecution. It arrives first as intrusion. A disruption here. A rule there. An insistence that worship yield to urgency. In the last century, movements shaped by rigid ideology often treated the church as a rival authority.

Not because hymns threatened tanks, but because prayer forms allegiance that does not bend easily. The earliest signals were seldom dramatic. They were interruptions tolerated, boundaries blurred, and sanctuaries repurposed for political theater. Only later did pressure harden into policy.

The disruption does not prove a grand scheme. One event cannot bear that weight. Yet it serves as a warning flare. It shows how easily a worship service can be seized and turned into a tool for pressure.

Warnings like this are gifts if they are received while there is still time to prepare. Daniel knew the value of early preparation.

By the time we meet him in the sixth chapter of his book, Daniel has outlived empires. He entered Babylon as a teenager and he now stands as an old man beneath a new banner. Babylon has fallen. Medo-Persian administrators fill the halls. Fresh laws carry fresh seals, yet Daniel remains.

He remains because his life has been shaped by habit.

The new king needs order, so one hundred and twenty officials are appointed. Three presidents oversee them. Daniel rises above the rest, not through ambition, but through trust earned the slow way. His accounts balance. His word carries weight, as his hands stay clean. Corruption finds no foothold in him, and that becomes the problem.

Integrity obstructs those who want easy gain. Daniel’s presence blocks the channel where stolen wealth should flow. His enemies study him and find no weakness in his work. So they look elsewhere. They notice his prayers.

They understand something crucial. Daniel’s faithfulness to the king grows out of his faithfulness to God. His kneeling shapes his standing. Remove the kneeling, and the standing collapses.

The plan takes form with smooth words. A decree that lasts thirty days. A small window. Requests directed through royal authority. Worship is allowed, provided it bends. The law settles into place, unchangeable by custom.

Daniel hears the decree. He walks home and he climbs the stairs. The windows remain open toward Jerusalem. Light spills across the floor. Dust hangs in the air. Knees meet wood. Words rise. He prays as he did before.

Morning prayer passes. Midday prayer follows. Evening prayer returns. Each time the same temptation whispers. Adjust. Delay. Close the window. Preserve the position. Extend the influence. Daniel answers with silence and obedience. The courage seen in the lion’s den grows from these ordinary refusals.

The danger in Minnesota was not lions. It was interruption. A demand that worship yield its moment. The test was quieter than Daniel’s, yet it asked a similar question. Would the gathered people allow prayer to be reshaped by pressure, or would they remain steady?

History shows how much hinges on moments like that. When churches learn to brace for intrusion, they often learn to edit themselves. Hymns shorten and sermons soften. Prayers become cautious. The change happens gradually, justified each step of the way. That pattern has appeared before, in places where ideology sought to reorder allegiance.

Daniel refused to edit his prayers.

Guards escorted him away as officials watched with satisfaction. The king winced, trapped by his own signature. Daniel descended into darkness. Straw rustled. Breath steamed. Muscles shifted. An angel arrived with authority and the night passed.

At dawn, Daniel rose unmarked. His deliverance was real, yet it was not the point. The miracle grew from the ordinary….prayers spoken when prayers became costly.

This is where the St. Paul moment presses the church toward clarity. The positive hidden inside disruption is alertness. It wakes us while there is still room to choose our habits deliberately.

The call is not to outrage. Outrage burns energy without building endurance. The call is not to retreat. Retreat shrinks worship into something private and fragile. The call is preparation shaped by faithfulness.

Preparation often looks unremarkable. It’s Scripture spoken aloud at a service. It knees meeting the floor when no one is watching. These practices train believers to stand when standing costs something.

Daniel did not discover courage under pressure. Courage found him ready because he had practiced obedience when the cost felt small. The habit formed at fourteen held at eighty.

The church today stands at a similar threshold. The warning has sounded softly. A sanctuary was interrupted and a service was paused. The question now rests with us. How will we respond before pressure hardens?

The answer requires resolve.

Gathering matters. Public prayer matters. Scripture read aloud matters. Singing without embarrassment matters. These acts declare allegiance without shouting. They shape souls that do not bend easily.

Daniel faced his windows toward Jerusalem because promise oriented his prayers. The church must decide where its windows face. Toward convenience, or toward the kingdom that outlasts empires.

The course of action emerges from Daniel’s example and the moment we inhabit.

Pray at set times, not only when emotion swells. Habit steadies the heart. Teach children obedience in small things, because large trials grow from small refusals practiced over time. Keep worship central and visible, even when visibility invites scrutiny. Prepare calmly for disruption by agreeing in advance that prayer will continue, voices will lower rather than rise, and worship will not surrender its purpose.

These actions do not shout. They endure.

The protestor’s interruption reminds us that the church does not control the world’s response. It controls its own faithfulness. That faithfulness carries weight precisely because it refuses to perform.

Daniel’s story ends with kings passing from the stage and empires shifting like sand. Daniel continues. The remnant remains. That remains true today.

Pressure will come in many forms. Some will roar. Others will whisper. The response must be the same. Knees on wood. Windows open. Prayers steady. Courage quiet.

A warning received early becomes a mercy. It sharpens vision. It strips illusions. It invites the church to remember who it is before the test grows heavier.

The doors opened that Sunday morning as they always had. Hinges groaned. Sunlight fell across familiar faces. The interruption revealed something that had been there all along. Worship still matters enough to be contested.

That knowledge carries responsibility.

The time to pray as before has arrived.

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

Pray for the people of Iran.
Photo from USA Today.

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

Richard, my favorite SP was a contemporary of Koufax who passed on signing his contract with the Dodgers to fulfill his ministry calling - Frank Minton.

[Richard Land @rdland]

@OleTimeHardball Top 5 with Koufax number 1

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

This is awesome!

[James Lucas @JamesLucasIT]

West Texas storm chaser Laura Rowe captured the picture of a lifetime, a fantastic shot of a mature supercell thunderstorm illuminated at varying heights by the setting sun.

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

So saddened to hear this diagnosis but former Sen. Sasse’s comments worthy of your read.

[Ben Sasse @BenSasse]

Friends-

This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.

Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.

I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, “Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.” Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all.

Still, I’ve got less time than I’d prefer. This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad. I can’t begin to describe how great my people are. During the past year, as we’d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer — and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corrie was commissioned into the Air Force and she’s off at instrument and multi-engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex kicked butt graduating from college a semester early even while teaching gen chem, organic, and physics (she’s a freak). This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. (Okay, we’ve been driving off-book for six years — but now we’ve got paper to make it street-legal.) I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints.

There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.

Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.” To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.

A well-lived life demands more reality — stiffer stuff. That’s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope — often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.

Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet.

Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what’s to come doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity’s perspective:
“When we've been there 10,000 years…We've no less days to sing God's praise.”

I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.

But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9).

With great gratitude, and with gravelly-but-hopeful voices,
Ben — and the Sasses

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

I really, really, really hate to see a hard fought game turn on a questionable call by an official and NY crew. IMO @PVAMU got a bad call from the referee, but congratulations @SCState_Fb on a good game.

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

@RichardsJim @_SBTC The address is 1815 N. 7th. Please enter the church entrance in the rear parking lot off Williams St. Looking forward to this.

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

Awesome! Thank you Chevrolet, @jackngraham @bennyjohnson

[Jack Graham @jackngraham]

The Greatest Journey is the one you take together. Way to go Chevrolet

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

@Lane_Kiffin stay at Ole Miss and wait for Alabama!

[Ted Elmore @TedElmore]

@philipnation @Prestonwood @_jeremiahj Looking forward to receiving my copy. Pre-publication order.

[Trey Kent @trey_kent]

Love this!