C
Church_Militant
Guest
Hi Spokes,Hi Danny, Were the girls circumsized also?God Bless
It’s me again…
Anyway, you keep bringing up the girls in this discussion and I don’t understand why. It’s not the Catholic Church’s fault that the NT compares Baptism to circumcision nor that the NT plainly says that entire households were baptised, which shows that whole families joined. Now just for drill let’s consider the passage about the Philippian jailer and his family.
Acts 16:
25 And at midnight, Paul and Silas, praying, praised God. And they that were in prison heard them.
26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and the bands of all were loosed.
27 And the keeper of the prison, awakening out of his sleep and seeing the doors of the prison open, drawing his sword, would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled.
28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying: Do thyself no harm, for we all are here.
29 Then calling for a light, he went in: and trembling, fell down at the feet of Paul and Silas.
30 And bringing them out, he said: Masters, what must I do, that I may be saved?
31 But they said: believe in the Lord Jesus: and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
32 And they preached the word of the Lord to him and to all that were in his house.
33 And he, taking them the same hour of the night, washed their stripes: and himself was baptized, and all his house immediately.
Okay, I note a couple of things here that are interesting.
(1) Off topic-kiss the immersion thing goodbye. This was the middle of the night and he had been washing their stripes…sounds like a container of water to me. I very seriously doubt that they went down to the nearest river (if there even was one,. We lack info of the geography of this city.) in the middle of the night.
(2) On topic- "and all his house " it says, now this could be anything from just he & his wife to him,his wife,kids extended family and even servants and their kids & extended families, but I would say that the logical context is that it was a family that included children and that CAN imply babies as well. The fact that the Jews circumcised on the 8th day is significant.
Now- the issue you keep making about the girls is irrelevent since the issue is baptism not gender bias in Judaism and we know that both males & females were baptised in the NT.
I’ll quote a guy I really don’t like much on this topic; Francis Schaefer, who said that w/in the form of Christianity there is great freedom of practice. Hence I say there is no reason, Biblically or traditionally to exclude infants from the sacrament of baptism.
I would also point out that since Christianity is a cult of Judaism that we carried over the profession of faith for infants by their parents the same as they did on the 8th day. That presentation on the 8th day wasn’t just about the child, but it was a profession of faith by the parents & a commitment to do their best to raise their children as faithful Jews. This is the very same thing that happens in a Catholic Baptism. the parents & godparents answer for the child and then commit themselves to seeing that the child grows up in the faith. This is scriptural because of the proverb “Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
We both know that if Christian parents do their job that their children generally profess the faith too (usually sooner rather than later. Deo gratias).
The whole non-Catholic practice of baptism is weird because almost none of them believe it washes away sins, yet the NT plainly says so… and yet most treat it as optional when the NT stresses its necessity.
(1 Peter 3:21 “Whereunto baptism being of the like form, now saveth you also:”).
I feel that the Catholic Church is more faithful to the contextual teaching of the NT on Baptism than any other church.
In reading acts 16 vs 31 it doesnt say IMMEDIATLY. You see the appostles knew the promises of God in His Word. Gods promise is that when we recieve the Lord Jesus Christ our family will also come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Its not an immediate process but it will happen in Gods time. As for me and my household we will serve the Lord. lThats Gods promise.Im hoping that you didnt add that word[immediatly] for that would be a no no. 
