Early Years Profession of Faith.

Why do you believe they were? There were times when people were immediately Baptized. However, the Bible does not make that a command. He does make being a Disciple a command. In Paul's case, he was Baptized 3 days later.

But your statement begs the point. You assume that the person must be a disciple. Yes, if I am convinced they are saved I think we should Baptize in short order. That is not the question. The question is whether we should ask questions and try to determine if the person has an accurate view and understanding of the Gospel.

I point to my missionary story above that I noted to Reformed Baptist. Do you think it was right for the missionaries to Baptize these people? Or do you think those missionaries did the tribe a disservice for not ensuring the people understood the Gospel message. I think those missionaries did a great disservice to the tribe and cause great harm.

 

You can't read Acts 2:41 and believe they were baptized any day other than the day of Pentecost--unless of course you don't believe the Bible.

Wow! Three whole days! Ruiz, how often have you baptized someone within three days of their profession of faith?

Yes, just like Philip we should ascertain whether the candidate believes. Going beyond this is not supported in scripture.

If they did a disservice it was not in baptizing them, it was in failing to disciple them after they were baptized.

 

Zenas,

The people were not Christians! That is the bottom line. Discipleship is not evangelism. To believe that anything takes away their sins besides Jesus is enough to make you not a Christian.

I think you hit at the bigger problem, too much of our discipleship is really evangelism. The problem is not that they failed to disciple but they failed to see true conversion.

 

Sorry, Ruiz, I can't go there. I don't know of anyone who believes baptism takes away sins but plenty of people, e.g., Catholics and Church of Christ, believe Jesus takes away sins through the modality of baptism. I'm not prepared to say they aren't Christians.

I don't think you can draw a bright line between evangelism and discipleship. They're not one and the same but they do blend into each other, and you should never ever abandon discipleship. Too many churches have and that is why we are losing membership.

 

I think Paul is clear, if anyone thinks you can be justified by anything other than grace alone, faith alone, in Christ alone, then you are severed from Christ. This is not my judgment alone, it is Paul's and the stand of Christians throughout the Centuries. It was a truth that Christians died upholding and the entire point of the book of Galatians.

 

I think part of that may be that evangelicals tend to view justification as something that needs to be a crisis event. While I do believe that justification does occur at a specific point in time, it's not reasonable to expect a child to have a dramatic conversion experience. I know that for me, conversion was more of a process as someone who went to church from a fairly young age. As a child, I believed and trusted in God, to the extent that I was able, as far back as I remember, gradually learning more about God and the Christian religion as I grew older. I also realized my own sinfulness and need for a Savior and repented of my sin and placed my faith in Christ alone as my only hope for salvation, at which point I was justified. However, looking back, I can't say it was on such and such a day that happened. If I had to guess, I'd say I was between ages 9-12 when I was truly converted. When I was 14, I joined the church by affirmation of faith and baptism. I think what ends up happening a lot of the times is someone is converted as a child, but doesn't have the whole dramatic experience and as a teenager he doubts his salvation because the dramatic conversion is what's expected of him. It seems to me that we should be more concerned about a person's current "faith status" than a specific event in the past.

When it comes the baptism issue, I think it's probably best to wait until the teen years to avoid the issues I've mentioned, with baptism serving as a profession of faith.

 

Paul, you've hit on an important point and it may be the real source of disagreement on this thread. I actually know very few people for whom getting saved was a crisis event and of course these are people who were saved after reaching some maturity. It is somewhat awkward when I am asked to testify about my salvation experience because there really wasn't a point in time where I was saved. I can point to the day I made a profession of faith and the day I was baptized but I didn't do those things because I had decided to trust in Jesus. I have always trusted Jesus from as far back as I can remember. Certainly the depth of understanding has improved over the years, and is still improving, but the basic idea that Jesus saves has always been with me.

Along this same line, Dr. Bob, were the schools you surveyed all evangelical colleges? I would assume they were. Do you think your results would have been the same had you surveyed college students who belonged to the so called main line denominations?

 

Ruiz, I don't want to start a debate on an extraneous topic here but is it really your position that people who believe in Christ, who walk with Him in a regular and active prayer life, who live lives of Christian rectitude, but who believe in baptismal regeneration will go to Hell when they die?

 

When the bible speaks of belief, it speaks of believing through faith on Christ. Belief and faith are interlocked. The bible says one that believes in Christ is born of God, period. The bible also says that believers are to be baptized. If a child comes forward and professes faith in Christ, who are you and who am I to deny them? Are we able to read their hearts? No. We can only go by what the bible says, and the bible says nothing about how much knowledge one must have before baptism. It does say that believers are to be baptized and are to be further instructed in the things of Christ. Instead of denying that child baptism, perhaps you should go through with it and bring them into church membership where they will be further instructed in the things of Christ.

We stand up in the pulpit and tell people that if they believe in Christ, it is their duty to come forward, be baptized, join the church, and take up their cross and follow Jesus Christ. How confusing it must be to the children who come forward only to be turned away!

 

I think Paul was clear in the quotation, if you rely on anything other than Christ Alone, Grace Alone, and Faith Alone, you do not understand the Gospel and are "Severed" from Christ.

I was once a Catholic, raised from the time I was born till I was saved at 15. Much of my extended family is still Catholic. While I do believe there are Catholics who are saved, I do believe the Catholic Doctrine, if believed, is damnable. I not only believe that, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Owens, Spurgeon, Bunyan, and many other respected theologians agreed. I believe that is the interpretation of the Galatians verse I cited.

The Church of Christ is a different issue as when I have studied them, they are more nuanced in their theology than most people tend to give them credit. It has been years since studying their theology (probably 1999 or 2000), but I believe they talk about normative and special cases. Thus, Baptism is not salvitic but good and necessary. Thus, a person could be saved without Baptism, but that is not normative.

I hope this helps.

 

When you did your research, I suppose you were surprised at the results. I certainly am. I have seen this phenomenon many times but it is only a small minority of the young people we baptize. Most of the children baptized in our church are between six and ten. Some are younger, a few are older. If I were guessing at the percentages of those who had doubts later on, it would be about 15%. That is almost exactly the reciprocal of what you found. I believe it must be tied in with whether a person regards being saved as a crisis event or a continuous process over a life time.

 

The reasons you are getting the numbers you are getting:

1) Children aren't being taught by their parents at home. They go to church, which is good, but they need that strong foundation at home and aren't getting it.

2) When in the teenage and young adult years, they are getting hammered from all sides. School, other teenagers, television, society, etc. They, having problem #1, don't have that good foundation from which to fight back and many begin to doubt and walk away from church.

As far as doubting goes, this doesn't question geniune experience. John the Baptist doubted while in prison. I think what it shows is that Satan is working overtime on the kids.

I don't support the whole focus on numbers, bus 'em in and dunk 'em stuff. However, if you have a kid that has been attending the gospel preaching for a while and that child comes forward and professes faith in Christ, what scriptural authority do you have to deny it, even for a time?

 

Why's that?

 

To add what Dr. Bob has said, I do not think you can be born again and disavow the Bible as innerant and be saved. I think from a philosophical perspective, you have no reason to be confident in anything you believe as it is all subject to error and you place your authority of salvation upon your one thoughts not that of God.

 

That's just silly. All of those churches you listed, except Catholic, all believe in justification by faith alone, by grace alone. I should know. I attended a United Methodist church for years until I moved back to Florida in 2003 and I know what they teach on justification. Also, I'm not worried about people being evangelical, but rather them having repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Am I going to hell because I used to attend a UMC?