Why? Why Not?

  Baptism is one of the more debated and resisted ideas from scripture. When it comes to the pattern of salvation you don’t get many folks arguing about the need for repentance, or the necessity of belief or even the requirement of confessing Christ. Yet baptism is the point people resist.

 Yet you don’t see that much in the first century. As I perused the book of Acts, I saw something else;

“So then, those who had received his word were baptized; …”

Acts 2:41 

“But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike.”

Acts 8:12 

“And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay.".

Acts 16:15 

“And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household.”

Acts 16:33 

 “and many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized.”

Acts 18:8

“When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Acts 19:5 

  People heard, they believed and were baptized. It didn’t matter if they were male or female, Jew or Gentile, a group or an individual, they didn’t delay or wait, they simply fulfilled the command. Even those that had done a type of baptism (Acts 19:1-5), didn’t object when given the command to be baptized in the name of the Lord.

  So why do we?

  The why of baptism could be summed up in the simple statement: “we are told to do it”. The Bible gives us a much clearer and complete answer than that, yet is numerously commanded and often exemplified. Is that not enough?

 If one said “Why should I be baptized” you could answer “Why should you not”? There really isn’t a good answer if one fairly considers the scripture!