BAPTISM ...Is it now required?

[Reuben_J]

This was the whole point, that I was trying to make, originally. LOL If you were in the middle of the arctic ice field, when you decided to give your heart to Christ, and there was no Church minister around, in order to perform a baptism, I’m sure that God would still accept your repentance and provide you with salvation. I doubt very much, that in such a case (or in similar conditions/situations), that water baptism really matters. He is interested in you becoming a Christian follower/believer, and being obedient to His commands.

But that is not what I mean.

You are creating a hypothetical situation. In real life this does not happen. The only time it is close is when a person is about to die and at that moment wants to accept Christ. In this case a Baptism of desire can be performed by any mature Christian. Even if no Christian is available, God would not be so unkind as not to see his desire or repentance.

On becoming a Christian is not a small matter nor it is a decision made at a spur of moment. It is not something you do today and undo tomorrow. For that to happen a person wishing to be a Christian therefore has to learn all about Christianity and about believing and about its way of life and worship. Normally this kind of learning process cannot be absorbed in a single day.

Therefore your hypothetical situation does not arise in a real world. We have the church and religious instructors where a person who is interested to become Christian can learn the faith in a proper way.

God bless.

 

[Thorwald]

But that is not what I mean.

You are creating a hypothetical situation. In real life this does not happen. The only time it is close is when a person is about to die and at that moment wants to accept Christ. In this case a Baptism of desire can be performed by any mature Christian. Even if no Christian is available, God would not be so unkind as not to see his desire or repentance.

On becoming a Christian is not a small matter nor it is a decision made at a spur of moment. It is not something you do today and undo tomorrow. For that to happen a person wishing to be a Christian therefore has to learn all about Christianity and about believing and about its way of life and worship. Normally this kind of learning process cannot be absorbed in a single day.

Therefore your hypothetical situation does not arise in a real world. We have the church and religious instructors where a person who is interested to become Christian can learn the faith in a proper way.

God bless.

Uh,…it does, and did happen. Many years ago, I read a story in the Reader’s Digest, where a woman was on a plane that crashed in the mountains during a winter storm. She read completely through the copy of the Bible that she had with her, and when she sought redemption from God, and began her life as a Christian, she and the others were rescued. Up to that point, none of the passengers had any hope of being rescued. I forget how long that they were ‘stranded’, but it was quite a while.

 

[Reuben_J]

Uh,…it does, and did happen. Many years ago, I read a story in the Reader’s Digest, where a woman was on a plane that crashed in the mountains during a winter storm. She read completely through the copy of the Bible that she had with her, and when she sought redemption from God, and began her life as a Christian, she and the others were rescued. Up to that point, none of the passengers had any hope of being rescued. I forget how long that they were ‘stranded’, but it was quite a while.

Yes, conversion can happen in the most unexpected and difficult situation. Praise God that somebody had a turn of heart after picking up the Bible. :yyeess:

But this does not become an impediment for Baptism; in fact I can say it’s a perquisite for Baptism.

But how did she begin her life as a Christian? She had to learn it surely, in a normal way when she came back to civilization and when the time was right for her. She would discovered that in order to be a full fledge Christian she had to undergo Baptism; attended church and practiced church and Christian life. She had to be assimilated to a Christian community because church is a community and a nation. As a community and nation there is governance.

What does it entail to believe? Jesus was clear about this and for the important ones he did themselves and that not for nothing but to show examples for the generations to come. He set up the church.

Today we simplify things to an extent that what Jesus had shown had become irrelevant. It should not be so. It is not simply as long as I believe I will be saved. No, it is not enough not because you will not be saved because you believe but because you will not be able to sustain it on your own.

You have to live and practice what it entails to believe. We call these visible graces on earth. Worship, Bible study, ministers of the church, Sacraments - these are the visible graces that strengthen our ‘believing’. We know that on our own we cannot sustain that ‘believe’ and the Lord knew and saw this. That’s why he set up the church.

God bless.

 

[mark_a]

In ACTS, we are told that the ‘eight’ (Noah’s family) were saved by water. From then forward, until the time that Christ & John the Baptist ‘came on the scene’, no further ‘saving by water’ was required.

We know that the disciples/apostles were instructed to perform baptisms after a person accepted Christ as their saviour, and began a new ‘Christian’ life. These disciples/apostles, were ‘annointed’ above ‘teachers’.

I can find no witten Word in the Bible, that gives authorization to ‘teachers’, for them to perform baptisms. Is it possible, that baptism was only required for the ‘first Christians’, and that we are in fact the ‘inheritors’ of their works, without us being required to also be baptized?

This may seem like a ‘dumb question’, but I am not so sure that it is.

Non-Baptizers like to think of themselves as the exception to the Catholic rule.

Better safe than sorry is what I say.

 

[Thorwald]

Non-Baptizers like to think of themselves as the exception to the Catholic rule.

Better safe than sorry is what I say.

This is why I went to God in prayer. It was He, that provided me with the wisdom to evaluate ‘water baptism’, from the point of view, of the hierarchy (those annointed, and those that are not) within the churches. There is a very, very distinct difference between being chosen by God to be a disciple/apostle/prophet and being selected by man (through formal education, experience, etc.) to be a ‘minister/bishop/deacon’, etc. The Catholic Church believes that one leads to the other. They are wrong. Those that teach and administer within a church, are usually in a ‘safety zone’. Those that are annointed, face persecution (even death), as they try to teach & correct those that are in darkness. They are used to provide wisdom, in order to ‘correct’ the errors being taught to the Lord’s sheep.

 

[Reuben_J]

This is why I went to God in prayer. It was He, that provided me with the wisdom to evaluate ‘water baptism’, from the point of view, of the hierarchy (those annointed, and those that are not) within the churches. There is a very, very distinct difference between being chosen by God to be a disciple/apostle/prophet and being selected by man (through formal education, experience, etc.) to be a ‘minister/bishop/deacon’, etc. The Catholic Church believes that one leads to the other. They are wrong. Those that teach and administer within a church, are usually in a ‘safety zone’. Those that are annointed, face persecution (even death), as they try to teach & correct those that are in darkness. They are used to provide wisdom, in order to ‘correct’ the errors being taught to the Lord’s sheep.

Don’t kid yourself, Thorvald. You know/don’t know that you are chosen by God as much as a Catholic priests know/don’t know that they are called by God. I would go for the Catholic priests who would be more sure of their calling rather than a personal discernment. A Catholic priest spends seven years in the seminary with an option of a few years after the seminary to discern whether priesthood is his calling or not. To enter the priesthood means a life of total serving and giving; and a life of celibacy as he is married to the church - the bridegroom rather. Anytime before the ordaination if he is not sure or in doubt he can always change his mind and not enter the priesthood. It is a decision not to be taken lightly.

Do not make the mistake of boasting that you are so sure about being called by God just by individual discernment because you may or may not be. Do not think that others are less called by God because we can never know what’s in the heart of a person. Do not under estimate the church founded by the Lord Jesus Christ to guide a person in his calling.

God bless.

 

[mark_a]

This is why I went to God in prayer. It was He, that provided me with the wisdom to evaluate ‘water baptism’, from the point of view, of the hierarchy (those annointed, and those that are not) within the churches. There is a very, very distinct difference between being chosen by God to be a disciple/apostle/prophet and being selected by man (through formal education, experience, etc.) to be a ‘minister/bishop/deacon’, etc. The Catholic Church believes that one leads to the other. They are wrong. Those that teach and administer within a church, are usually in a ‘safety zone’. Those that are annointed, face persecution (even death), as they try to teach & correct those that are in darkness. They are used to provide wisdom, in order to ‘correct’ the errors being taught to the Lord’s sheep.

I’m not sure I understand your point.

But I have a question that maybe you could answer, or maybe not:

I know someone who has been baptized.

After joining a Baptist church, one that claims that baptism is symbolic, this person needed (by the Baptist church) to be re-baptised.

Why so if baptism is symbolic?

 

[Christ_Imitator]

This includes ‘Bibles’ that deviate from my copy of the KJV Bible.

This is something I wanted to ask you (and anyone else) about.
Why is it that you only follow the KJV? You do realize that the KJV was translated from a different language! The NIV was only translated from older english speaking to the way we would speak today.

The scholars attending the Interdenominational Bible Translation Conference agreed on the need for such a new translation and the Committee On Bible Translation was appointed. This committee consisted of 15 scholars from different denominations.

 

[fbl9]

Thank you for your response. I always think of what Christ said, “Even if you only believe upon His name, thou shalt be saved.” If you notice, there is no mention of ‘water baptism’. In regards to your response concerning ‘water baptism’ (above), the 6-page document covers the reference to Acts, but seems to ‘over-power’ it, with the writings in the book of John. It appears, that some of the references in the Bible concerning ‘baptism’ are actually referring to ‘baptism by the Holy Spirit’. It seems to me, that there was in fact a mention (ie. in the scriptures presented in the 6-page document) of baptism by water not being necessary for salvation. I THINK IT SAID THIS.

God bless you also.

Hello all
And believing in Christ one would heed His words and be baptised.

Can you Thorwald give me an opinion as why Christ,whom had only 3yrs to teach, would waste His time with words that have no use.Why did He tell the apostles to baptise persons before His ascension into heaven? Why would He have His disciples running around doing something useless?