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Featured Dramatic Moment in Baccalaureate Service at Liberty University

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by Jerome, May 13, 2019.

  1. FreeBaptist

    FreeBaptist Member

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    Priesthood of the believer (each believer) is a well-known Baptist distinctive. To remove it makes Baptists just another Protestant denomination instead of a denomination in the free church tradition.
     
  2. FreeBaptist

    FreeBaptist Member

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    As a footnote on this conversation, while I am not a fundamentalist, I certainly do not believe as many liberals do on the denial of the miracles of Jesus, their denial of His bodily resurrection, and other things. So, if I am not fundamentalist nor liberal, what does that leave? Either conservative, moderate, or a mixture, I would say.
     
  3. Squire Robertsson

    Squire Robertsson Administrator
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    My sector would term you a Conservative Evangelical, Think Francis Schaffer.
     
  4. rlvaughn

    rlvaughn Well-Known Member
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    So well-known, you hope, that you didn't attempt a case for the history of it. For example, while open to some interpretation without knowing what English Baptist writers might have said about it circa 1644, the wording in the First London Confession favors the plural reading.
     
  5. FreeBaptist

    FreeBaptist Member

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    In every listing of the 8 Baptist distinctives ( like the following) , it is "priesthood of THE BELIEVER": https://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~moon/oregonstatefscf/BAPTISTS.pdf

    Those making it plural either don't understand the difference or wish to abandon the principle and take the Baptist denomination away from being a free church and instead make it a creedal Protest denomination.

    If you haven't read my other thread, you should. I don't know if you have because I haven't checked it lately.
     
  6. rlvaughn

    rlvaughn Well-Known Member
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    Likely because they copy it from one another.
    Some possibly do, but others do not. I really don't have a problem with "priesthood of the believer" if we understand both it and "priesthood of all believers" as two sides of the same coin, which might be called the subject "priesthood of believers" (which is also plural, so I'm sure you'll object). I have a big problem with "priesthood of the believer" when some Baptists are using it to hide or excuse their non-Baptist heresies of all kinds. It would do well to have some more research on this, but the idea and definition of "priesthood" is often collective rather than individual. It seems to be collective/plural in the scriptures I called attention to earlier (which is the rule of our faith and practice). I have no interest in "creedal Protestant denominations," but I will submit that some Baptists seem like they would be more at home in them than they are in Baptist churches. While we can make the accusation of denying priesthood of the believer and making Baptists a creedal Protest denomination, the denying of the priesthood of all believers can make one a lone wolf who denies the propriety of the local church altogether.
    Not sure how many you have, but there is one I have read and commented on.
     
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  7. rlvaughn

    rlvaughn Well-Known Member
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    I don't see anything objectionable in what is stated there about the priesthood of believers; it fits with what I see as half of the equation. Does an individual Baptist have the right and responsibility to read and interpret the Scriptures for himself? Yes. Can an individual Baptist believe whatever he or she wants to believe. Yes, as far as religious freedom in concerned, "For men’s religion to God is between God and themselves." (quote from Thomas Helwys; Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, et al. may also believe whatever they want to believe, in that sense.) Can an individual Baptist believe anything he or shes wants to believe and be a member of a Baptist church? No, the church decides -- collectively. The individual is free to believe whatever he wants, and the church is free to label as heresy whatever that individual believes. The congregation does not have to accept the belief of the "individual priestly Baptist."
     
    #27 rlvaughn, May 21, 2019
    Last edited: May 21, 2019
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  8. rlvaughn

    rlvaughn Well-Known Member
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    Out of curiosity I searched for the origin of the "8 Baptist Distinctives" as commonly presented.
    The GARBC web site tells us "The BAPTISTS acrostic was developed in the early 1960s by L. Duane Brown when he was pastor of Pine Valley Baptist Church, Pine Valley, N.Y." They quote Brown:
    For further background, they say, "Brown’s acrostic has roots in Paul Jackson’s [Brown's mentor at Baptist Bible Seminary] summary of the Baptist distinctives, published in Doctrine of the Church (1956) and his later full length book, The Doctrine and Administration of the Church (1968). Jackson’s outline is quite similar to what became Brown’s acrostic, but interestingly, Jackson never used the BAPTISTS acrostic in print."

    "[Colin] Smith suggests that we should not confuse a teaching method with a theological system."

    Read the entire article for more detail.
     
    #28 rlvaughn, May 21, 2019
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  9. rsr

    rsr <b> 7,000 posts club</b>
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    Priesthood of all believers is not specific to Baptists — it was a principle of the Reformation, expressed by both Luther and Calvin — although it found a fuller expression among the Radical wing of the Reformation than among the Magisterial Reformers. The purpose of the priesthood of all believers is to nourish the body of Christ — we minister to others and they minister to us — and is related to soul competency (which is what Helwys was espousing) but is not the same thing.

    Those who want to make the priesthood of each believer, as opposed the priesthood of all believers, a central tenet of Baptist identity are reaching back only to the early 20th century and are untethering it from its traditional foundation. IMO.
     
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  10. rlvaughn

    rlvaughn Well-Known Member
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    Timothy George put it this way, “Soul Competency pertains universally to all persons, not merely to Christians. Baptists, however, do not teach the ‘priesthood of all human beings.’ Priesthood applies only to those who, through repentance and faith, have been admitted into the covenant of grace and, consequently, have been made participants in the priestly ministry of their Mediator, Jesus Christ, i.e., to believers only.”
     
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  11. rsr

    rsr <b> 7,000 posts club</b>
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    I have long been skeptical of acrostics, which seem to me to smooth over many historical and current differences in Baptist practice. Are there two ordinances? Maybe.The Philadelphia Baptist Confession of 1742 lists four (including singing of hymns and laying on of hands), and Primitive Baptists and many Free Will Baptists believe footwashing is an ordinance.

    Are there two offices? Usually, but historic confessions provide precious little advice on their duties. The FIrst London Confession mentions deacons once and the Second London only twice, and they assume everyone knows what they are to do. Maybe there are three offices, as the General Baptists believed?

    If you go back to the mid 17th century, you would find Baptists distinguished from the Separatists and Congregationalists (Presbyterians in theology but Congregationalists in ecclesiology) by a few things: Churches were to be composed only of regenerated members, and baptism was to be by immersion.

    Those two distinctives were to be what distinguished Baptists until the rise of Campbellism in the early 1800s.
     
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  12. rlvaughn

    rlvaughn Well-Known Member
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    An acrostic is a nice mnemonic device, but we also have to consider whether it is helping us memorize accurate information. Several things in the B.A.P.T.I.S.T.S. acrostic are not true of Baptists across the board, as you point out.
     
    #32 rlvaughn, May 21, 2019
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  13. Squire Robertsson

    Squire Robertsson Administrator
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    Because he perceived the B A P T I S T acrostic was weak, the late Dr. Richard Weeks taught (and I think developed) the BRAPSIS2 acrostic.
    Bible - The only rule for Faith and Practice.
    Regenerate, Immersed church membership.
    Autonomy and Independence of the local church.
    Priesthood of the believer.
    Seperation of Church and State.
    Immersion of believers and commemoration of the Lord's Supper the only two ordinances.
    Seperation Ethical and Separation Ecclesiatical.
     
  14. FreeBaptist

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    I don't have a problem with that. What I would have a problem with is a convention or a church telling someone he (or she) is not a Baptist when that person identifies as a Baptist.
     
  15. FreeBaptist

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    I strongly disagree. See my other thread about the SBC for why. One of these days I'll get around to reading through my own thread. :)
     
  16. FreeBaptist

    FreeBaptist Member

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    I am intrigued by your post. Can you tell me what you base it on?
     
  17. rlvaughn

    rlvaughn Well-Known Member
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    Affiliation with an association or convention and membership in a local Baptist Church are two similar things that are different.

    Our church is not affiliated with any association or convention, but thoroughly Baptist without any such affiliation. However, once an association or convention is organized, rules (usually called Constitution & By-laws) are necessary for fair and equal representation and participation. Under the rules, there will be some kind of membership standards. A church that doesn't meet the standards can be booted from the association or convention. If a church is excluded from the Baptist General Convention of Texas, for example, then that church is immediately no longer a Baptist General Convention of Texas church. It does not mean they are no longer Baptist.

    On the other hand, an individual is not a Baptist just because they choose to identify that way, even if they agree with Baptist principles. An individual Baptist is a person who is a member of a Baptist Church. I grew up in a Baptist Church, but was not a Baptist until I professed faith in Christ and was baptized. A local Baptist Church can exclude a member for such things as immorality and heresy. At that point, the individual is no longer a Baptist because he or she is no longer a member of a Baptist Church. That individual may generally still hold Baptist principles. Of course, in our current atmosphere, that individual usually just heads down the road a few miles and joins another Baptist Church that does not recognize the discipline of the former church.

    The waters get murkier when there are churches that use the name Baptist but do not hold Baptist principles. A Baptist Church that adopts infant baptism is no longer really a Baptist Church, regardless of the name on the door. Perhaps they are BINO, Baptists in Name Only.
     
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  18. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    A person who holds to Baptist beliefs but is not a member of a local Baptist church would be "Baptistic"
     
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