Does Your baptist Church "Honor" Baptisms Done By Non baptists As Valid?

I believe that baptism by immersion to show and testify to any witnesses and to the world that one has accepted and is following Jesus as their Saviour then that baptism would be accepted. The baptism need not to be executed by a pastor but it needs to be executed by another believer.

A baptism that is done to complete or as a condition for salvation or a baptism that is done in order to become a member of a church is just a dunkin.

Baptism is done only because you have accepted Jesus as your Saviour and you are following His command to be baptized.

Oh, and to answer the OP. Under the facts and beliefs stated above, the church I attend would accept the baptism. ( after all if Jesus accepts it, we really don't have a choice)

 

That's a little out of context there. Paul was not transferring a church membership. The modern idea of church membership would have been foreign to him. He was joining with them in a personal manner, not as a member of a local religious institution. The text clearly states that they were afraid to be with him because they were afraid of him as Saul of Tarsus. We should never eisegete our culture & traditions into the text of Scripture. Furthermore, the text says nothing about water baptism & we should therefore not assume something into the text that is not there.

 

Yes, their first refusal to let Paul join them was their fear of Saul of Tarsus. And of course they didn't call it a "transfer of membership," as we do today. But Paul did want to join their fellowship, and it took the testimony of Barnabas for that to happen. Certainly, there's a Biblical basis for a church to determine whom it will allow into its fellowship.

And, finally, there is no mention of water baptism in that passage. We may, however, infer it, since no one questioned its validity. That the correct baptism is important is shown in Acts 19 when Paul found some disciples of John the Baptist at Ephesus, and had them re-baptized in the name of Jesus.

 

Where do you see water baptism in the text? The baptism of John was water baptism. The baptism of Jesus is Spirit baptism. Paul laid hands on them & they were immediately baptized into the Spirit. They did not have to be re-baptized because the baptized didn't say the right words. It is much deeper than that.
I've heard it preached(falsely) that John's baptism was not valid because it was only for repentance based on this passage. That would mean that Christ's baptism was not valid; especially since He did not need repentance. Baptists have been slowly going the way of Catholicism by turning the Faith into a shallow religious institution & focusing on the physical types instead of the spiritual truths they represent.

Verse 5 says what happened; verse 6 tells how it happened. This is a common literary tool throughout Scripture.

When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.
(Act 19:5-6)

And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
(Joh 1:33)

 

It's a product of modern day Pharisaism. Power-hungry men are taking the Biblical truths which apply to the one true Church & applying them to their own little kingdoms. Believers must be baptized into THEIR church & faith. They are only interested in man-made unity that they can control.

It would be interesting to conduct a survey of how many times pastors reference water baptism into their church vs spiritual baptism into the Body of Christ. The same self-called preachers of personal preferences claim the authority to proclaim another person's baptism as invalid. What ungodly arrogance. They set themselves up as high priests over God's people; passing judgment that only Christ has the authority to pass. They will have MUCH to answer for when they stand before God. I can hear it now. "But, but, but YOU called us to it! What do you mean we were all priests under the High Priesthood of Jesus? We HAD to lord over them, how else would your people have known right from wrong without US?"

 

I dealt with this when I served in AR, apparently since the AR Baptist State Convention has in it bylaws that a member church does not recognize "alien immersion", personally I never heard that term until I moved up there. For me personally, if the baptism was done by immersion as a public profession of faith after becoming a Christian, I see no reason to go through the motions again. But if the baptism was by sprinkling or for salvation purposes, you have another set of worms there that need to be worked out first.

 

As you can guess, I see it differently. The 12 men in Acts 19 were disciples of John the Baptist, but had never heard of the Holy Spirit, nor had they ever believed in the Lord Jesus. So Paul set them straight, and once they heard of and believed in Jesus, they were baptized--water baptized; believers baptism, just as Jesus had commanded in his Great Commission. Only then did the Holy Spirit come on them.

We have a similar situation in Acts 8, where the Samaritans had believed in Jesus, had been baptized in His name, but had not yet received the Holy Spirit. Peter and John went down there to check things out, and once they laid hands on the new converts, the Holy Spirit fell on them.

In both situations, water baptism and Spirit baptism (or filling, or the gift of) came after belief in Jesus, and water baptism in His name.

 

Michael, I understand that you are coming at this from a different perspective from me, but I would not ascribe sinister, un-Christian motives to you or what you believe. You may have specific individuals in mind when you label some as Pharasaical, power-hungry. self-called, ungodly, arrogant, etc But it comes across as a blanket personal attack on those who see scripture differently from you. And that's all this is--a difference of opinion over what scripture teaches. It should not descend to the level you have taken it.

 

Where you start determines where you end up.

I'm assuming you're basing what you posted on I Cor 12:13, which you see as baptism BY the Holy Spirit into the Universal Church, which you describe as the Body of Christ.

I'm basing my comments on the correct translation of one Greek preposition in that verse--"en." The KJV translates it "by." The correct translation is "in." So, it renders "In one Spirit (or spirit) we are immersed into the body (local church, such as FBC Corinth).

Two ways to look at it. "Led by the Spirit, we are water-baptized into the local church."
Or, "In a spirit a spirit of unity, we are water-baptized....."

This is consistent with the events of the day of Pentecost, where 3,000 people were immersed in water; and those same 3,000 were added to the assembly at Jerusalem.

The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost on that group of 120 in the upper room. No mention of His coming on those who were saved that day.

I really didn't address your post completely. Do you not think any church should establish scriptural criteria for admittance to membership? Do you not really think that it is not important who performs the baptism and under whose authority? Could I come to your church and simply declare myself a member and your church have no say-so in the matter? Should the church at Corinth NOT have kicked out the member involved in fornication?

Just curious what responsibility--and accompanying authority--you would allow the local church to have--a church Jesus purchased with his own blood.

 

So, you believe that the indwelling of the Spirit comes after baptism? That would be the logical conclusion to your interpretation. My pharisee comment is not directed at any specific person on BB, nor is it a blanket attack on anyone just because they disagree with me. It is a condemnation of our church culture which focuses on the man-empowering institution more than on the Christ-centered truth of Scripture.

 

Can you be more specific? How does all this relate to what we're discussing?

 

Actually, I believe that our salvation is the result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. But we're dealing in Acts 8 with clear scripture which says the Samaritans had been saved and water-baptized, followed by Peter and John's laying on of hands and the falling of the Holy Spirit on the new converts. Same in Acts 19. I see the events in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and some other places where the Holy Spirit manifested itself as a means of authenticating the gospel, and authenticating the preaching of those who carried the gospel.

Interestingly, in Acts 10, the falling of the Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his household came before water baptism. It told Peter that the gospel was for Gentiles as well as Jews. I wonder why it didn't fall on the 3,000 at Pentecost. Or on the Gentiles at Pisidian Antioch? Or on Lydia in Philippi, or the Philippian jailer? But it did on the 12 in Acts 19 in Ephesus.

Regarding your caustic comments, I accept your explanation. I just needed to know if I should be offended or not. I'm not.

 

Thanks for the clarification. For the most part I agree that the work of the Holy Spirit in Acts is not normative for today. As I have discussed, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit was to authenticate the gospel, to establish that it was meant for the Gentiles as well as Jews, and to empower believers.

I also agree that the Spirit indwells at conversion. But since I do not believe the Universal Church exists, I obviously don't buy the idea of Spirit-baptism into the Body. We are placed in the Body (a local church) by water-immersion.

 

I dealt with your first question in post #53.

I believe what many refer to as the Church (Universal) is actually the kingdom, composed of subjects of the King. The New Testament knows primarily only the local church. There are some instances where the church is referred to in a generic sense, in the same way we refer to the family. But the generic family--and church--has its concrete expression only in a local assembly.

The U-Church is a fantasy, and a useless one at that. It sends no missionaries, never assembles, never holds a Bible Study or does any of the things that a local church does.

This is consistent with my view that baptism is an ordinance of the local church, and such immersions should be done under that congregation's authority.