"The greatest struggle in my theology has not been, oddly enough, the five points of Calvinism and the Reformed faith. I find these clear and well-defined from Genesis to Revelation. Rather, the thorn in my theological flesh has been baptism... As I look back to those days as a s sincere and searching seminary student I often wonder if I was search for the truth as honestly s I thought I was..."
Fred A Malone
A string of Pearls Unstrung, p9
To that end I most humbly recommend the book on
Christian Baptism by Adoniram Judson, a man of whom the world was not worthy, whose feet we are not fit to wash. At least you will have heard both sides out. As for me I am out of my league.
10 comments:
So, like a Hezbollah truce...
Yes I am a terrorist. All us Ana-baptists are. That is why Zwingli had us drown. Fine just Read Romans 4. Not faith alone plus baptism.
For Pete's sake...
Who's Pete? Peter's sake? What are you going Catholic on me now? Well for Pete's sake he was not the first POPE. Good greif! :-)
I enjoy watching this brotherly theological struggle. I really want to get that book by Judson, it looks good.
It is good! It is not perfect. I told Jared last night I wish Judson spent more time on the positive side of his argument. It mostly rips down. Its focus seems to be:
It is by immersion. This is a slam dunk (in my humble opinion) and he relies on the Greek Church’s understanding of “its own language” (orthodox dunk their) and seems to deal well with why immersion does indeed mean immersion and not sprinkling. (Most know this but interesting Luther believed you should immerse too)
On to whom it should be administered he does hit the positive but not enough for me. His focus is very much sola fide entering us into the covenant. I do think that give more meaning to the covenant but I am no expert.
It has a very touching letter by Ann to her parents describing the change as the most painful thing they had ever decided to do. It is interesting considering what they had already been through and what they would indeed go through after.
The cover is William Carey’s church where Judson was baptized by Carey as a believer. Much like Jesus before he started his ministry! (No Judson does not = Jesus, just touching.)
[oops, posted in wrong place, here]:
Did Judson deal with Luke 11:38, Mark 7:4 and Heb 9:10,13? Those are the places baptiso is translated "washing" partly because Heb 9 talks about sprinkling being a baptismo and the Luke and Mark passages is when the disciples are chastized by the Pharisees for not washing before a meal, which doesn't seem to mean taking a full bath. I ask because I haven't seen a response to those passages yet from the Baptist side and would be interested if Judson had an argument about them...
Yes he hits on those. I would have to read them again to know his case very well but it at least seemed logical.
The more I read up on it it does not seem many pedobaptist scholars have wanted to defend that it means sprinkling. Nor did they want to in Judson’s day. Because it really does mean immerse. Washing has some support I think but only in addition to burial from Rom 6 and Col 2.
Is it your experience then that the current generation of younger converts to it want to reclaim the language that prior generations of pedobaptist have said means immerse? Seems like it was never debated even for every long. Immerse has been “preferred” in the Catholic Church even until the middle ages. Hence Luther saying it is better to immerse is not that surprising. He is just speaking as a Catholic.
Do you great all Christians with a kiss? This is a commanded form of greating in the Bible (Rom 16:16, 1 Cor 16:20, 2 Cor 13:12, 1 Thes 5:26, 1 Pet 5:14) which if not performed, means you have taken more liberty with biblical forms than those who use a sprinkling or pouring form of baptism. Again, the Scriptures do not use Baptism and immerse as perfectly synonomous. See Luke 11:38 and Mark 7:4 for the use as "wash" and Heb 9:10,13 for sprinkling called a form of Baptism. To use "immerse" as a gloss would mean there are various immersions, one of which is sprinkling which is non-sense. The Didache (a document as old as the first century and perhaps even older than the book of Revelation) indicates that pouring was an accepted form of baptism in the age of the 2nd generation of the church (the Apostolic Fathers) and probably in the time of the apostles, if in fact the document was what it claimed to be, namely the forms given by the apostles.
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