Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Infant Baptism

A while back, my friend Carrie posted some questions about infant baptism. I am the daughter of a PCA pastor. My dad grew up baptist and went to Master's Seminary headed up by John MacArthur which teaches believers baptism. It's a long story how he came to be a PCA pastor but I think you might find a recent teaching of his on infant baptism interesting. I have to admit I've never really understood it before now. I h aven't had my girls baptized and it's never been an issue between us but I was challenged by his Wednesday night service on April 9th. Now I don't know what to think at this point but I found it interesting and thought you might too. This isn't an attempt to get you to concur (I'm not sure I do) but just to help you understand why they do it. I think that's where we may have been misled. We haven't properly understood the "why". For some reason I couldn't get it directly in this post but you can click HERE and then look for 04/09/2008 Pastor Roy Carter, Sacrement of Baptism, Wednesday Night. Let me know if you have any thoughts you want to share.

2 comments:

Montee said...

I enjoyed listening to this. I really liked your dad's story at the end. My mother practically scared me into baptism. We were Southern Baptist. She was(and is) like the guy in your dad's story. "You are going to Hell without being baptized!" Also, like your dad said in the beginning of the sermon, I have learned more and more from many years of studying the Bible. I came to understand that baptism is a symbol of your faith and not a do or die kind of thing. A few months after Britnee was born, the Baptist church that we attended had a ceremony to bless all the newborns. I think most Baptist churches do this. The parents and infants gathered down front, the babies were blessed and this was our way of saying that we would raise our children in Christ. There was no sprinkling involved. I still believe that it is a choice made by people to be baptized and to show outwardly their faith when they are able to understand what the meaning to be baptised is. The Baptist church we attend now did something last year that I had never seen before. This could raise another question. A father requested that he himself baptize his daughter. Our pastor allowed it. Did this baptism count since it was not done by a minister? Mmmmmm. What do Y'all think and Tracy what would your dad think about it?

Jason said...
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