my fifth blog: thoughts on baptism and tradition

As I promised on my myspace, I am going to articulate some thoughts on both tradition and baptism, which have unfortunatly become intertwined today. I confess that this will not be the most thurough (I know I just made a spelling error) exposition, but rather I just wanted to articulate a little bit of what I believe. The reason this is coming up is because soon my wife and I will have our daughter dedicated at church. This idea of baby dedication is essentially a thing evangelicals do to not feel left out when their more mainline and Catholic bretheren have their infants baptized. It is not found in the Bible, though history says that similar tings have been practiced throughout church history. As such, baby dedication is a tradition that has been handed down for generations. Man makes tradition, god makes doctrine. God makes what is binding, man makes what is sentimental and fun to do. In other words, there is no reason what so ever to have my daughter dedicated other than the fact that we want to honor this tradition. What is unfortnate is tha many traditions have usurped doctrine; man has done this for a long time, ever sinice Jesus told the Pharisees to stop doing it. Today we see people insisting that KJV is the only valid version, that old school hymns must be sung, or that certain gestures, prayers, or liturgies must be done in church in order to make church valid. All of these things are tradition, and can be beautiful and enhance faith when kept in perspective. Another tradition, one which I can not honor for reasons I'll tell you about in a minute, is infant baptism. This was not the practice of the early church, but rather became a practice is a matter of pragmatics. The tradition became widespread, and in many cases it is considered doctrine (some of the more harcore Lutheran churches and the Catholic churches place infant baptism in the place of doctrine). The problem, again, is that this was not the practice of the early church. The early church practiced what we call believer's baptism; ie. the believer himself (or herself) chose to be baptized. The Bible illustrates this principle over and over, after all, who can actually call on a child to repent and be baptized? But this is exactly what the Bible calls on those who believe to do.

That leads me to my next point: in the early church the idea of a believer and the idea of someone who is baptized was one in the same. You simply did not have unbaptized believers, nor did you have baptized persons who did not believe, including if they were too young to believe as is the case for an infant. Again, to be a believer and to be a baptized person was one in the same.

Another tradition of churches today is the mode of baptism. Those who practice infant baptsim by and large do so with sprinkling. There are also some churches who practice "pouring." This does not fulfill the definition of baptism however. Our word baptism comes from the Greek word baptidzo, which means, literaly, to immerse. A sinking boat, for example, could be baptidzoed (that was definitely poor spelling). We should not underestimate the importance of this point; the baptism as we read it in our Bibles is not a translation, it is a transliteration. In other words, no one wrote the English equivelant of the Greek word, but rather they left the Greek word there and simply wrote it with our alphabet. If it were to be translated it would read "immersion." The logical conclusion then is that the scriptures call on us who believe to be immersed; there is really no roon for interpretation there.

Immersion also gets to the heart of what baptism symbolizes, namely the believer dying with Christ and rising again a new creation. UGG. I'LL ADD MORE LATER

my third blog: some favorite scriptures

Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed
to this age, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may
discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God (Romans 12:1-2)
I like these verses because it points you on the path toward right worship by showing how right living is intertwined with it. We can not enter fully into true worship, the kind pleasing to God, until our lifestyle is one of worship. Paul tells us in this verse that worship, like most things i find, is holistic, involving your whole being.
We proclaim Him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present
everyone mature in Christ (Colossians 1:28).
I like this verse because I think it speaks first to those who are specifically called to ministry and also to all believers as far as their duty to non-believers. Paul is hardcore here, though it's hard to tell in the English. Paul speaks of warning people that they are headed to hell (dare we say it!?). He speaks also of teaching the scriptures; this is a solemn and sacred trust that should not be entered into lightly. The goal of this work is to present a person mature, or complete, in Christ. What happens if we enter into this job and fail?
Would the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
or with ten thousand streams of oil?
Should I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the child of my body for my own sin?

He has told you men what is good
and what it is the LORD requires of you:
Only to act justly,
to love compassion,
and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:7-8).
I like this verse because one, it knocks down the way most people try to become right with God (works, sacrifices) and then shows how very simple it is (if only we weren't so very depraved) to please God, simply do what is right. Do what is fair and just without showing favoritism (that's hard!); to love (strong word) compassion, kindness, mercy-that's all encompassed in the Hebrew word, and to be humble before God. Acknowledge our position and his position. He is creator, we are created. He is eternal, we are finite. He is all powerful, we do nothing but by his good will. He is holy, we are fallen. He has it all, we are in need. I do take exception to one thing, not in the verse of course but in the translation. Every translation I know of does this except for the Jerusalem Bible, which is a Catholic bible. The name of God is Yahweh, not LORD. How many people in the church do not even know the name of the god they worship?!

More later.

MY SECOND BLOG-REVOLUTION

I wonder if this is a pointless endeavor; not revolution, that has a point. I mean I wonder if a blog about revolution is a pointless endeavor. Granted, this is only my second blog, but I wonder who actually has the strength and courage needed to join a revolution? Do I? Do you? I wonder if anyone actually has the desire to see what I have to say about it. Perhaps I am just another arrogant blogger who thinks he has the answers everyone needs ok, so I DO think that-but will anyone else put up with it?). In the coming days I will be posting my views on a variety of topics (by the time you read this I will probably be done). I have several reasons for doing this. The first is shameless publicity. I want my opinions known and talked about so that I can move further along on this path I believe God is leading me on. Two, on the off chance that someone with questions in these matters comes across this page (can you search for this sort of thing on blogspot?) hopefully I will have some answers for them. Finally, I really want to hear what you have to say. If you have found this, read on, comment, whether you like what I said or not. Don't forget to check the myspace too (see my links section). Alright, here we go.