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Southern Baptist Pastor Arrested On Child Pornography
The bad publicity of the Southern Baptist Convention is not going away. After a disastrous annual meeting where the messengers voted against banning female pastors. Now a pastor has been arrested on four counts of possession of child pornography. Jonathan Elwing, the (now former) pastor of Palm View Baptist Church has been arrested.
The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office said that Jonathan Edward Elwing, a 43-year old senior pastor of Palm View Baptist Church in Palmetto, Florida, was charged with four counts of possession of child sexual abuse images.
The arrest comes after detectives with the sheriff’s office received information on Thursday that Elwing used cryptocurrency to make an online purchase of the images.
According to the sheriff’s office’s press release, when authorities executed a search warrant on Friday at Elwing’s home and church, deputies said they found four “sexually explicit photos of children” on his cellphone.
Before Elwing was arrested, he resigned from his job, the sheriff’s office’s press release said. Elwing is now being held at the Manatee County Jail without bond.
Palm View Baptist Church has not yet released a statement, although they have publicly acknowledged the arrest.
Elwing was a leader in the Conservative Baptist Network’s Florida chapter.
“Upon learning of this news, he was immediately removed from the Network,” Timothy Pigg, the network director, said in an announcement.
What’s notable is how he thought that it wasn’t an obvious sting operation because he allegedly purchased it with cryptocurrency.
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Numbers 32:23 “But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out.”
Pray for this man and his family. Except for the grace of God, there go I. Jonathan’s transgressions have gone public. How about you and me? I believe our sexually saturated and warped nation has countless Christians whose sins are flying under the radar. This incident should place us all upon our knees, lest the same thing happen to us and/or others. Beware oh Christian who thinks he stands, lest he fall! When a preacher falls into sin, he preaches a sermon one Sunday and becomes a sermon illustration the next.
Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you there longer than you want to stay, and charge you more than you are willing to pay.
“The great and important duty which is incumbent on Christians is to guard against all appearance of evil; to watch against the first risings in the heart to evil; and to have a guard upon our actions, that they may not be sinful or so much as seem to be so.” -George Whitefield
“I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected” is a verse from the Bible, 1 Corinthians 9:27. In this verse, Paul compares the need for self-discipline in a believer’s life to athletic training. He describes himself as an athlete competing for the prize of a crown in eternity, and encourages believers to pursue godliness and the good of others with the same commitment.
People always erroneously believe they can control their sin and they will never be caught. Getting caught will hopefully be the initial step in Jonathan’s road to recovery. What about the sins of others who have not been arrested, yet God knows, and He will deal with us justly in His time. As I ponder on this heartbreaking incident, I look in my heart and see the need to stay in worship / fellowship with believers, to pray without ceasing, to stay grounded in the Word and disciplined, to witness, repent of known sin, and to obey God and live a holy life! Amen and amen. Pastor Steve <><
Even Steven 