Nothing Was Ever Hidden

Virgil Walker | Sola Veritas

It has been tough to put words on paper. Not because I don’t have thoughts, I have plenty of them, but because making sense of everything I’m watching and thinking has proven to be far more difficult than I could have imagined.

The past two weeks have been full in an ordinary way: sermon prep, meetings, classes, editing, articles, and carrying the private burdens of friends walking through hard things. None of that has kept me from writing. What has kept me from writing is the news coming out of Douglasville, Georgia.

Douglasville, Georgia, is more than the home of G3 Ministries. It’s where I lived for four and a half years. And Pray’s Mill Baptist Church has stood there for 184 years, older than the city around it and older than the Southern Baptist Convention.

Many of you are aware I left G3, Pray’s Mill Baptist Church, and Douglasville in August of 2025 and moved to Gilbert, Arizona. But there are some things that even 1,600 miles cannot separate me from, and this is one of them. I thought I had moved past it. I told myself that the anger and the pain was spent, that it had done whatever work anger and pain does and then gone quiet. But like a scab picked before the wound healed, the same conditions that caused my departure came back around, worse this time.

The men involved in the current situation are the same men who adjudicated the previous infractions. Of course, their framing is that sin was uncovered in an unbiblical manner. Josh Buice never got that sentence. What he did had a name, and they gave it one. They wrote that he had used anonymous accounts to “publicly and anonymously slander” faithful pastors, and that his actions were “sinful in nature.”

The difference, they will say, is that their accusations were true. Notice that no one asked whether Buice believed his were. For Buice, the anonymity settled it. For them, it cannot be allowed.

As of this morning and before my post, G3 has released a statement. According to David Morrill, it went out moments after sending the statement to FBC Lindale.

If you’re still in the dark, that’s a good thing. Many of you have already read the Protestia article. Fewer will have looked behind the scenes, and fewer still will know the specifics of when all four elders resigned. I am not writing this piece to add to the reporting.

I’ve watched scandals break in evangelicalism before, and I know my first move. It’s not grief. It’s something closer to relief that the name on the screen wasn’t mine. Grief comes second, and it comes slower. When it arrives, it lands on a congregation in Douglasville that heard about the resignations on Sunday and on children who did not choose their last names. Were it not for God’s grace, I’d be the next disappointment on the feed.

Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of preaching on Hebrews 4:11-13. A text I couldn’t wait to preach. Why? Because between verses eleven and thirteen sat one of my favorite Scripture verses.

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (4:12)

I knew that this verse was “black-church” preacher-ready, and so was I.

Then I sat down with the text.

The writer is in the middle of a warning about entering God’s rest and about the danger of repeating Israel’s pattern of disobedience and unbelief. He belabors the point. Three times in fifteen verses he returns to it (3:18-19, 4:6, 4:11), and the third time he says it like this:

“Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience” (4:11).

Only then does the writer land on the preaching text I longed to work. It opens with the word “for,” indicating that it isn’t an isolated text about the doctrine of Scripture. It is the reason for striving. The reason no one has to fall is that the “word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow…”

Then verse 13: “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

Notice what the text doesn’t say. It doesn’t say, “will be naked and exposed.” It doesn’t say, “At some point in the future, I shall be naked and exposed.” It says, “all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him...”

We already stand uncovered, and nothing conceals us from the Creator’s eyes. The word behind “exposed” is built on the Greek word for the neck, and it carries the image of a sacrificial animal whose head is pulled back so the throat is bared.

As I studied the text, I had to admit I’ve been using that verse all wrong for years. I had wielded verses 12 and 13 like a sword against doubters and men who challenged God’s word. The text was not handing me a weapon. It was baring my throat.

The writer of Hebrews does not remove himself from the warning. He writes, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest.” He is inside of it with them. That’s what caught me.

Far too often, our preaching is aimed at the people we intend to fix, or teach, or impress with how much we know. Rarely does it get pointed at our own heart first, and rarer still does anyone watching see the change it made in us before we stood up to deliver it.

I know what that looks like in my hands, and it doesn’t only show up in a pulpit. A few months ago I went on a two-day rant on social media about black teen takeovers. I was irate, and I took to X to vent. My language sharpened with each new post, more sarcasm, and more rhetorical punch. I felt exhilarated. I knew the punches were landing because X rewarded my intensity with a larger audience, and the engagement went through the roof.

Twenty-four hours in, a pastor friend texted me. He didn’t excuse the behavior I was describing. He questioned my approach, asking whether I was viewing it through a pastoral lens. I judged him as too soft for the battle I was fighting, and I kept posting.

Then I noticed Tomeka had gone quiet. That was rare. I read it as confirmation that I was over the target. She was waiting for me to hear from the Holy Spirit instead of from her.

It took another day and a longer text conversation with my friend before I could name it. What I had missed was not a matter of tone. I had loved being right more than I loved the people I was posting about, and I loved the noise from the audience more than I loved my wife’s silence. That is pride, and pride is not a lapse in approach. Pride is sin.

I did not have to be anonymous to do what they did. I only had to decide that the man asking me the question was not qualified to ask it. That is the same move, made where others can see it.

Once I was confronted, I had a choice. Justify my actions or submit to the truth. We all go through it once we’re caught. But I… But he… It wasn’t… I didn’t… Conviction takes time to do its work, and what follows should be repentance. Some men never get there. They stop at explanation, or at sorrow that the thing came to light. Four men resigned on Friday night. Resignation is not repentance.

And acceptance of those resignations is not church discipline. Both categories are important as these men look for what comes next.

Where this leads, I don’t know. The story is still being written.

What’s been devastating are the stories that keep pouring out of Pray’s Mill. Families that will never receive the phone call of repentance that these men required of Josh Buice. FBC Lindale is still waiting on a private apology for being told it had failed to deal with sin. In a week or so, the rest of us will have moved on. The families, however, will still be there, and the ones who left Pray’s Mill will still be carrying a wound.

Where does it end? I hope it ends the way the writer of Hebrews directs in Hebrews 4:14-16:

“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

The One from whom nothing is hidden is the same One we are told to approach with confidence. That is not a small thing for men who have just been exposed, or for the people they hurt, or for me. I’ll continue praying for all involved. I’d ask that you pray for me.

Blessings,
VW