Results 1 - 10 of 10
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Is infant baptism Biblical? | Bible general Archive 1 | orthodoxy | 5663 | ||
I fail to see how this is true. The Anabaptists were the first ones to rebaptise believers (hence their name, which means "to baptise again"). Other traditions took up the practice after contact with Anabaptists. But it is simply a historical fact that the church had always baptised its infants until the Anabaptists came along in the sixteenth century and the Baptists in the eighteenth. And most Baptist churches do not require rebaptism, they simply will not baptise infants themselves. As to soteriology, I stand by my statement. All it means is that my views on justification will not allow _me_ to support rebaptism. Since I obviously believe my soteriology to be generally correct, I believe that rebaptism is wrong. |
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2 | Slight historical skew? | Bible general Archive 1 | charis | 5669 | ||
Dear orthodoxy, I am happy for you. Absolute faith in personal dogma is admirable. I agree that you should stand by it. I am not sure where you got 'it is simply a historical fact that the church had always baptised its infants until the Anabaptists came along in the sixteenth century and the Baptists in the eighteenth.' Please tell me from the Bible your clear references for child-or-infant baptism. Only Anabaptists and Baptists (but not all Baptists) recommend the baptism of a believer? (there is but one baptism into Christ per believer) Obviously you have not met many Pentecostals or Charismatics or independents that have strayed from your form of orthodoxy. It is possible that they were not included in your education. My friend, there are quite a few Christians that do not follow the pattern you have been taught. I can only humbly suggest that you go to a variety of churches and fellowships to broaden your outlook toward 'other' believers. This might help you in your pursuit to serve Christ by serving Christians, rather than a limited form of Christianity. Print out this conversation and ask the opinion of your teachers. As I read the Word of God, I see that the Lord desires us to be of one faith in Him, not in lockstep tradition. In any case, I personally depart from the 're-baptism' topic, and simply state that water baptism in the Bible was for believers in Christ Jesus as a gift and a strength to their walk in Him. Peace upon you in Jesus' name, charis |
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3 | Slight historical skew? | Bible general Archive 1 | orthodoxy | 5688 | ||
Oh my. First of all, I detect a distinct, anti-tradition vibe here. Your first paragraph is simply sarcasm. Next, you have misconstrued me again. I never meant to say that only Anabaptists and Baptists baptise. How you could have gotten that from my post is beyond me. I assumed that believers' baptism would be understood as contra infant baptism. Of course I believe in baptism. Every Christian church baptizes believers, but only churches that have come out of traditions that have been influenced by the Anabaptists refuse to baptise infants. The Pentecostal/charismatic denominations are offshoots of the Holiness movement, an offshoot from Methodism. Methodism was founded by John Wesley, who was converted by a Moravian Anabaptist. As to historical church tradition, simply look around. We all came from Rome at one point, and they have always baptised infants, and still do. The Reformed denominations baptise infants, as do the Lutherans. Ceasing to baptise infants into the covenant is not the norm, but an anomaly in church history. |
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4 | Slight historical skew? | Bible general Archive 1 | charis | 5695 | ||
Dear orthodoxy, You are perceptive! I am not an adherent of man-made tradition, no matter how old it is. But, you do me an injustice. The first paragraph was not all sarcasm, though I admit that a bit creeped in :-) I do admire people with definite beliefs. I admire more those whose strong beliefs are tempered with humility, breadth, and clear Bible foundation. Perhaps I did not construe your words correctly. You did make a very strong statement that had a 'us and them' 'we are right, they are wrong' quality to it. And 'they' are not just a pitiful little minority. You make it sound as if anyone that has forsaken the tradition of infant baptism is but a deceived follower of Anabaptist heresy. Your view of historical 'offshoots' is terribly over-simplified. My friend, this is hardly the way to 'make friends and influence people.' "Only churches that have come out of traditions that have been influenced by the Anabaptists refuse to baptise infants." Well, believe it or not, there are a good number of saints that read the Bible and came to that conclusion as a result of conviction by the Holy Spirit. Your 'compartmentalization' of Christian belief and history is astounding. I do 'look around,' and I do not see that "we all came from Rome at one point." I know that I didn't! "Ceasing to baptise infants into the covenant is not the norm, but an anomaly in church history." I order to prove that, you will have to come up with incontrovertible proof that Jesus taught infant baptism and the apostles and new testament saints practiced it. As yet, you have not even started to do so. Thus far, you have only potificated your denominational bent. Give us some Scripture! Bless you in the name of Jesus, charis |
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5 | Slight historical skew? | Bible general Archive 1 | orthodoxy | 5730 | ||
I can take your first paragraph as either deliberately insulting or significant misunderstanding, and I'm not sure which would be more appropriate. I'll let you determine that. In any case, it is a red herring and quite possibly ad hominum abusive. I'll let it go at that. Your second paragraph is a little better. I am glad that you recognize, or at least make mention of, Anabaptism being heresy. At its inception, it was recognized as such by all of the branches of the church that were in existence at the time, Protestant and Catholic. Still, you are setting up a straw-man by restating my position in a manner that I do not condone and then proceeding to mock this restatement. This is not a sufficient answer. I recognize that a paragraph devoted to denominational history hardly does justice to the complexities involved, nor do I deny that those of ages past acted in good conscience. But there is no other way of tracing the development of the church without resorting to such "oversimplifications" as you call them. Everything I said was true, and I am not aware that I inadvertently suppressed relevant evidence. If I have, please present it for consideration instead of simply dismissing my arguments with a wave of your hand. If you find my words offensive, be that as it may. I am sorry of my manner offends you, but I cannot detect anything offensive in it. I am not primarily interested in "making friends and influencing people." I am primarily interested in proclaiming the truths of Scripture. It is not my responsibility to ensure that you or anyone else likes or agrees with me. It is my responsibility to tell it like it is, which I trust that I have done. Furthermore, when I said "we call came from Rome at one point" I was not referring to us personally, but our traditions. And you cannot possibly deny that you belong to a tradition. You were brought into the faith by someone, and you adhere to a church. When I say "tradition" I do not mean the Romish conception of tradition that is equal with the Word. I simply mean the history of the people of God. Unless you are Eastern Orthodox, and I see that you are not, then your church can be traced to Rome eventually, even if it be independant. Your profile indicates that you are probably a missionary of some kind. Who brought you into the faith? Who brought them into the faith? Trace it back through history far enough and you will come to Rome. Unless, that is, you hold to the exceptionally bizarre "Baptist Bride" idea. I am not simply "pontificating my denominational bent." When counting traditions, I am in the majority. On the infant baptistic side, we have the East, Rome, the Reformed tradition, the Anglican tradition, the Lutheran tradition, and some Methodist groups. On the believers' baptism side there are the Baptists and Anabaptists, which, I might add, are almost exclusively in the US. So I will call that into evidence. The requirements you set before me are utterly impossible. It seems that nothing I can say will have any affect on you. Since you are currently defining "incontrovertable" and "truth," you can redefine them as you see fit. Still, I will make a stab at it. Note in Acts 10, Peter oversees the baptism of Cornelius' whole household. In Acts 16, Paul baptizes Lydia's household. Later in Acts 16, Paul baptizes the household of the Corinthian jailer. In 1Cor. 15 Paul recounts the households he baptized in Corinth. It is safe to assume that infants were present at in all of these households. Since these are all of the times that baptism occurs where families are present, it would seem that infant baptism is not without significant support in the NT. Then there is circumcision. Yes, I know we no longer circumcise. But the Jews did. And they circimcised on the eighth day of life as a sign and seal of the covenant. Since baptism is the same thing, the sign and seal of the covenant, it makes sense that we should do as they did. The sign of the covenant is no longer a physical sign upon the body, but it is done shortly after birth all the same. |
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6 | Slight historical skew? | Bible general Archive 1 | charis | 5766 | ||
Dear orthodoxy, Please tell me who is being insulting? You have denounced every Christian that has Anabaptist, Baptist, or Pentecostal roots, and thrown in 'some' Charismatic, Methodist, and independents on the side, and declared them heretic for their non-traditional view of Scripture. Once you have aligned your tradition with the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, you are indeed in the majority, and state that 'majority rules, and others drool.' What a bigoted form of faith.(bigot-a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices-Webster) When you state that 'we all come from Rome.' you are saying that every Christian's faith rides upon tradition. I prefer to believe that personal faith in Jesus Christ and the personal revelation of the Bible by the unction of the Holy Spirit are still working in the church. Am I wrong to believe this? "...Almost exclusively in the US." Please tell me, how much have you travelled, and how many years of study brought you to this conclusion? We finally come to Scripture. Your doctrine is based wholly on the assumption that 'household' MUST include infants and children, and that NT circumcision is baptism, and must be done on the eighth day (or whenever it is convenient for infant-parents-church facilities). Is this generally correct? I am sorry to ask the 'utterly impossible' of you, but don't you think that a reference that Jesus instituted this rite, or the apostles practiced it is in order? Your extrapolation of Scripture is strained. Does not the Old Testament promise of a 'circumcision of heart' (Deuteronomy 10:16 and 30:6, Jeremiah 4:4) speak of faith on the part of the individual, as compared to a rite performed by religious officials with the parents consent? What I am saying is that the bulk of you argument rests on majority and tradition, not the Bible. You state that you "...cannot detect anything offensive..." in "proclaiming the truths of Scripture." I, the minority, heartily disagree. This Bible Study Forum is not a 'soapbox' for denominations, but a place for research of the tenets of Christian faith. I would be glad to discuss with you the doctrine of baptism in it's various forms, but please keep your label of 'heresy' and the like to yourself. If I 'cross the line' by denying the virgin birth, the Triune nature of God, the efficacy of the name of Jesus, the Blood of Jesus, or the like, then bring out your accusations, dear brother-in-Christ. Peace upon you in Jesus' name, charis |
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7 | Slight historical skew? | Bible general Archive 1 | orthodoxy | 5772 | ||
Okay, let's step back a minute. First, I have not "denounced" anyone. To say that because a denomination has heretical roots that all of its members are heretics commits both the genetic and division fallacies. I want to do neither of those. But I do think that it is worth mentioning that the first instance of a strict believers' baptism as opposed to covenantal baptism makes its appearance in the Anabaptists. If you can provide evidence of strict believers' baptism earlier than that, please do so, but I believe you will find it difficult. Why do I consider this telling? Because if the church has never acted in a certain way, it is extremely dubious to suggest that they had it wrong the whole time and now we have it right. If you can provide evidence of opposition to infant baptism from a non-heretical group before the sixteenth century, you are welcome to do so. Your analysis of my argument about tradition totally ignores most of my points. Were you or were you not brought into the Christian faith by someone else? I would wager anything that the answer is that you were. If so, who brought them? And who brought them? And who brought them? You see? And I am not "aligning" myself with either Rome or the East. I would, in fact, attempt to strongly distance myself from both of them. But I, contrary to what you have stated, will freely admit that both of those ancient denominations have good things about them, including but not limited to, their views on infant baptism and reverence in worship. About the scope of the Baptist tradition. Judging from the size of the SBC (somewhere about 10,000,000), and including all the rest of the hundreds of Baptist denominations in the US, there are probably 20,000,000 Baptists here. Where else are there Baptists? Well, there are some in England, but they have always been a tiny minority. Everywhere else in the world they are the result of mission works and exist in small numbers. My evidence? Look on the net. Search Google for "baptist denominations" and tell me what you find. There are several respectible Baptist history sites there (stay away from the Landmarkist stuff though). All of them place the origin of the Baptistic denominations in England and America, and it has spread only through missionary work ever since. This doesn't take world travelling or years of study. A cursory examination of immediately available evidence should suffice. But I did not simply make this up on the spot: I have been studying denominational history for several years now. On to Scripture. The idea that household does not include children seems to run directly contrary to the use of the word everywhere else in Scripture. Just do a word search using "household" and see what you get. It _always_ means the entire house. Assumming that household does not include children is out of line with the rest of Scripture. You are welcome to provide places in Scripture where "household" does not refer to the whole thing. And references about baptism do not count since that would be circular reasoning. While I do believe that baptism has replaced circumcision, exactly how long after the birth baptism occurs is of no importance to me, provided it is done in a timely manner and as soon as convenient. The eighth day regulation is not important. Furthermore, Christ's institution of Christian baptism says nothing about baptizing believers only, and also says nothing about baptizing adult believers only. Making any argument on either of those grounds is fallacious at best. Just as I cannot clearly say that Christ instituted infant baptism, you cannot clearly say that he instituted believers' baptism. Yet, all of the promises of God to his people are "for you and your children" or something along those lines. God works through families, and always has. Not baptizing infants is a denial of God's chosen method of action in the world. I see Paul's baptism of households as evidence that infant baptism was practiced by the apostles, Paul being an apostle and all. Your mention of "circumcision of the heart" does not help you, for the thrust is that physical circumcision is simply a sign of what ought to happen in the heart. Baptism is exactly the same, a sign of what should happen on the inside. Just because there is a spiritual reality does not mean that physical reality may be abandoned. Oh, and please do not put in quotes anything that is not either from Scripture or actually taken verbatim from my post. To do otherwise only serves to put words in my mouth, a profoundly uncharitible, unfair, and illogical practice. |
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8 | Slight historical skew? | Bible general Archive 1 | charis | 5801 | ||
Dear orthodoxy, I am not 'denounced' but my faith is 'rooted in heresy.'(?) Why don't I feel better about this? Friend, I am not an Anabaptist or Baptist. Never have been. I am not influenced by them. I am not just a product of someone's teaching, who is a product of someone's teaching, back to Rome. I am a believer in the Bible, and have come to my conclusions after reading and studying the Bible, Seeking the direction of the Holy Spirit, and studying the history of the church. I take offense at the suggestion that I could not come to some conclusions on my own. (and I don't take offense easily) "When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,(Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,)" John 4:1,2 NASB 'Then Peter said unto them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."'Acts 2:38 NASB I believe the above Scriptures speaks of baptism of believers. "Household" includes goats and camels. Please continue to sprinkle or pour water on you children, at your convenience, and believe that you have performed a work in their heart. I choose to wait, believing that God will keep them until their own faith comes forth. I believe that you are a Christian brother, and would hope to receive reciprocal courtesy. "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect" -Wesley Blessings in Jesus' name, charis |
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9 | Slight historical skew? | Bible general Archive 1 | orthodoxy | 5805 | ||
Well, on one hand, heretical roots should be of great concern. We should strive to be as Biblical as humanly possible by the grace of God. But don't let it bother you too much. Nowadays, almost everyone has been influenced by many numbers of people, some of whom are bound to be heretics. This is only a problem if one refuses to reconsider one's beliefs in light of Scripture. Besides, it is the grace of God that saves, not correct theology. If I were to "denounce" everyone with partly heretical theology, I'd have to ditch almost the entire American church, since I believe that Arminianism is heresy (no, I really don't want to go here now. just an example). I guess this is one point where I am going to have to offend. Charis, there is no way on earth that you could have come to your conclusions "on your own" for one simple reason: your conclusions are not new. You do not exist in a conceptual vaccuum, separated from all influence on the outside. You exist in a conceptual climate whose origins can be traced. You have been influenced by someone. The mere fact that you study anything but the Bible requires that you be influenced by at least one tradition. This is not a problem! It is a very good thing, provided one chooses one's tradition wisely. And don't be worried about tracing your origins to Rome. Mine are there too. Unless you are Eastern Orthodox, everyone does. The Reformers, whose tradition I follow, came out of Rome, and while they vilified the Roman Church, had no problem with admitting that they were once part of it. It's simply a historical fact, nothing more. Again, judging a thing because of its historical origins is illogical (genetic fallacy). Things change. But, if a problem has been dealt with in history and then resurfaces (or never goes away), such as belivers' only baptism, it is appropriate to bring out the answers that were given centuries ago. The verses you quote do not help you much. The passage in John is speaking only of Christ's disciples. Only adult men could be disciples. If you push your interpretation on this, only adult men may be baptized. You would obviously include women, which would require you to introduce a category of baptism not included in this verse. Why not children too? The passage from Acts quite likely included children. The speech was given during one of the Jewish holy feasts, when Jewish families from all across the Mediterranian region came to celebrate. The crowd was almost certainly men, women, and children. Once again, the text says nothing about children being excluded. Finally, what if they do speak of the baptism of adults? I certainly approve of that, provided they were not baptized before. So does everyone who believes in infant baptism. Since the crowd was entirely unbaptized, requiring them to be baptized only makes sense. Show me one instance where "household" does not include every member of the house. And the fact (which I may yet dispute) that "household" may include animals does not help you either. Scripture never puts animals and humans in the same category as far as I can tell. I have no doubt that you are a Christian, and part of the family of God. No one has to have all of their theology and practice perfect to belong to Him. I certainly do not. But insofar as I see disparity between myself and others, I will argue for my position until I either convince, am convinced, or the argument becomes unfruitful. |
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10 | Slight historical skew? | Bible general Archive 1 | charis | 5808 | ||
Dear orthodoxy, We agree that we are both Christians, and disagree on the method and timing of baptism, but not the necessity. I prefer the baptism of a believer, and think that the leading of the Holy Spirit should guide the individual to decide whether to be baptized as a believer or not. You prefer the tradition of your church, which needs no restatement here. Fine. I have no further arguments, I think it would be unfruitful. Your statements are abrasive and your attitude toward the me is patronizing and offensive, not caring or loving. You know almost nothing of my salvation experience, my environment, or my walk in Christ, yet insist that you must offend. The whole thing about Rome has nothing to do with Biblical faith, yet you are bigoted and stiff-necked. I know that you think that you have no need of 'people skills,' but I think you do if you are to serve the body of Christ. Shu Iesu Kirisuto no shukufuku ga yutaka ni anata no ue ni arimasu you ni. Douka, kono kudaranai arasoi wo ato ni shite, sei naru majiwari ga dekimasu you ni. Kami no megumi ga kyoukai no ue ni sosogaremasu you ni. Shu Iesu no na ni yori, karisu May the Lord Jesus Christ put His abundant blessings upon you. O, that we may put this meaningless argument behind us, and engage in holy fellowship. May the grace of God be poured upon His church. In the name of the Lord Jesus, charis |
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