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Post by Ky on Oct 23, 2009 11:52:56 GMT -5
Hey, Mike...I am yet again cataloging endless-seeming piles of baptism tracts and pamphlets. I have seen SO many on whether to dunk, pour, or sprinkle, that I have started to ignore the content. Do we (textual critics, theologians, etc.) really KNOW what the original Greek baptizo means? And, in the end, does it really matter which way you follow Christ in baptism?
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Post by Mike Miller on Oct 25, 2009 5:51:54 GMT -5
The word means to immerse or to wash by immersion. Outside the Bible, it has also been used in reference to submerging things in water and metaphorically as overwhelming--as in battle or with calamities.
Does it matter, then, how we are baptized? That, of course, depends on whom you ask. My position is that baptism should be done by immersion because that is a more literal sense of the word and because immersion better symbolizes the identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Also, it seems that is how it was practiced in the New Testament and in the earliest Christian tradition. However, baptism by effusion (sprinkling) does not negate one's Christian walk, since salvation is by grace through faith. Therefore, mode of baptism should not be a dividing factor between brothers in Christ. The only time it becomes a non-negotiable is when someone believes in baptismal regeneration--that baptism saves a person. That belief constitutes a false Gospel in that salvation becomes works-based instead of faith-based.
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Post by dannydaniels on Oct 27, 2009 15:23:08 GMT -5
On a trip to Istanbul the group took a side trip to Ephesus. Our able tour guide took us out to the ruins of St. Johns Church. In the middle of the church was a sunken baptizmal with step leading in one side and out the other. It must have ben 4 to 6 feet deep. Hard to get baptized there with out getting immersed, especially since persons were shorter back then.
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