Babies Being Baptized?

[Peace-bwu]

MariaG:

St.If the child can speak for themselves, they could choose to not be baptized. But infants cannot speak for themselves.

Thank goodness! Long live uncircumsized baby girls!

HUH??? Did they circumcise baby girls??? I know some cultures do, but I thought in the Jewish Traditon the males were circumcised? Am I mistaken? I have never heard this before.
I say long live uncircumcised baby boys as well… it’s painful genital mutilation and unnecessary for Christian salvation, the medical benefits fall far below the risk of complication for the procedure. I read quite a few studies from AAP, as well as Canadian and European studies, before making my decision. People treat circumcision like it’s a haircut! BTW My son has never had a Urinary Tract infection. We are so glad we decided not to put our baby boy through an unnecessary medical procedure cutting his poor little delicate skin… just my opinion, I’m not criticizing others who decided to do it.

 

[Pax]

The answer is “No.” The Jews did not circumcise baby girls.

 

[Pax]

The arguments against infant baptism as presented in this thread are of no help. The statement that all of the households that were baptised, as mentioned in scripture, did not include children is a speculation that defies all odds. The real argument seems to be with the regenerative nature of baptism. If baptism is regenerative than baptism of infants makes perfect sense. Jesus would not let the little children be kept from him. Notice that Jesus lays his hands on them and prays over them. If so much depends upon their intellectual development then such spiritual practices even by Jesus would be meaningless. Remember it is Jesus that did both. He layed his hands on the little children and infants and prayed over them, and it is Jesus that instituted baptism with its regenerative effects. Consistency in this case has certain demands that cannot be ignored.

For sake of argument, let’s assume that we are at a biblical stalemate on the issue of children in the “households” being baptized. What we are looking at would be a stalemate of biblical interpretation. With that comes a new question. How do we know which interpretation is correct? The answer is really quite simple. We would look at the practices of the earliest Christians and the practices they followed throughout the ages. If you do your historical homework, you find out that infant baptism was always practiced in the early church and is still practiced in the Catholic church as well as a few main line protestant denominations. A departure from infant baptism is not consistent with the correct understanding of scripture, and is not in keeping with historical Christian practice and its historical witness.

Scripture is not always self-explanatory as some might have you believe. Scripture is a high context set of documents. If you do not know the context of Jewish culture and practice or early Christian practices you have no hope of knowing what the correct understanding of scripture is.

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

Anonymous_1:

Arent most of these refering to Baptism in the Holy Spirit? John said in Matthew 3;11…like maybe its just me,but it seems very apparent that we are cleansed of our sins when we are Baptized in Spirit and Fire. Not water…

Baptism in the holy Spirit is accomplished through water baptism. The holy Spirit is received in water baptism:

Acts 2:38
Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The circumcision of Christ is a circumcision of the heart performed byt he Holy Spirit.

Yes, through water baptism:

Colossians 2:11-12
and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

Why dosent the bible speak at all of babies being baptized. Only grown men. Am i wrong or what?

It’s important to remember that the NT was written to converts to the Christian faith. They were being told what they, as adult converts, needed to be doing. Thereafter the promise of baptism was to be for them AND THEIR CHILDREN:

Acts 2:39
"For the promise is for you and your children

Baptism replaces circumcision as the means of entrance into the new covenant. The means of entrance into the old covenant, circumcision, was performed at 8 days old. Consquently, the writings of the early Christians indicates that the disagreement wasn’t about WHETHER babies should be baptised but over WHEN they should be baptised. Some thought it should be 8 days because of circumcision, others thought it could and should be sooner.

In Christ,
Nancy

 

[mtr01]

Catholic4aReasn:

It’s important to remember that the NT was written to converts to the Christian faith. They were being told what they, as adult converts, needed to be doing. Thereafter the promise of baptism was to be for them AND THEIR CHILDREN:

Acts 2:39
"For the promise is for you and your children

Exactly. At this time in history there were no “cradle” Christians as such. It’s not hard to imagine however, that in such a patristic society, any adult convert would also have his entire family baptized (children included) as well.

Baptism replaces circumcision as the means of entrance into the new covenant. The means of entrance into the old covenant, circumcision, was performed at 8 days old. Consquently, the writings of the early Christians indicates that the disagreement wasn’t about WHETHER babies should be baptised but over WHEN they should be baptised. Some thought it should be 8 days because of circumcision, others thought it could and should be sooner.

In Christ,
Nancy

You beat me to this point . I’ve often wondered why Protestants, on average, seem to have an aversion to appeal to the writings of the Church Fathers to find out what the earliest Christians believed and practiced…

 

[ichabod]

In my experience, most evangelical-type Protestants tie “baptism of the spirit” and “being born again” with an emotional experience which helps to bolster their faith. I’m not trying to divorce emotion from faith; it’s natural that a spiritual experience evoke a emotional response; but not all emotional responses are based in (healthy) spirituality. I know that some churches view baptism as part of the membership process of their church, therefore implying that other previous baptisms are incorrect although they have no scriptual basis to their claim.

My point is this: even as we develop spiritually, there is NEVER any point where we can make a fully-informed decision to be baptised, because we can never fully know God in this life. During our life, we turn away from God as we know Him, and hopefully later turn back to God, always in varying degrees.

Why should we believe that at any one point in our life that X days/months/years ago we were incapable of receiving grace, whereas now we are? Is being re-baptised just a formal way of turning back to God? Is it being seen as a form of pennance, since these same churches don’t have a sacrament of Reconciliation?

Given that there is nothing in the Bible that forbids infant baptism, what tradition do you appeal to forbid it?

 

[LoneWolf]

I believe that one of the reason why boys were circumsized back then was because… well, lets face it, almost every thing in the bible has a sandy place and that calls for infections.

But I’m studying to be a doctor and having your boy circumsized isn’t a good idea. It can cause pains and other infections. The foreskin is there to protect.