Skip to main content

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!


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mysterious Ways

    William Cowper didn’t see any reason to live.   He decided that he’d jump off the bridge over the Thames. So, he called a cab to take him there.   But that night in 1763, a thick fog enveloped London. It was so thick the cab driver couldn’t find the bridge and couldn’t even find the way to take William home. In frustration, he ordered the driver to stop and get out to get his bearings. He walked up to the nearest house to read the number and it was William's house. Gone now were William’s thoughts of suicide and instead a new idea came into his head. So, he went in and wrote these words: God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm.  You fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy and shall break In blessings on your head.     I sometimes wish we could see all the ways God watches over us when need it. There are...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Gift You Give Yourself

    I always hated buying gifts for my Mom. If I got her something like a new set of pans, it was like saying “Here’s something you can use to go make me something to eat”. A gift for her was seemingly a gift for me.   There are however gifts you give that benefit you more than the receiver. For example, forgiveness. When you give it, you are giving it to yourself as much as you are giving it to them. Jesus said that when we forgive others it means God is forgiving us our wrongs (Matthew 6:14-15).  I once read: “ Heaven is where everyone's forgiven. Hell is where nobody's forgiven.  So, when we forgive we pull heaven down into our lives.  When we withhold forgiveness, we pull hell up into our lives ” Give yourself something nice today, Forgive.
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Does A Lion Tamer Use a Chair?

  Ok, I know you have seen the image. A lion tamer enters in the cage of the beast and forces it to obey his commands using a whip, a gun and a chair. Now you can see how the whip and gun could come in handy but you might be wondering why a chair would intimidate an animal as powerful as a lion? Clyde Beatty taming a lion with a chair   It's not that the lion is afraid of the chair -- it's that the lion is confused by the chair. Cats are single-minded, and the points of the chair's four legs bobbing around confuse the lion enough that it loses its train of thought. Casually put, the chair distracts the lion from wanting to claw the lion tamer's face off. The powerful creature could destroy the chair in moment’s notice but instead it is distracted into submission.  It’s not too much different than how Satan controls us today. By the power of God we could overcome anything that he would use to subdue us. We can overcome the evil one (1 st John 2:13-14). ...
Post a Comment
Read more