A Baptist Christian a contradiction of terms

dadlltj,

I've read most of your posts here. I don't agree with you, but I've read your posts.

Let me ask you, what is the name of the church you attend regularly?

 

Take a look at your own signature. It is highly offensive. We know the Scriptures you are talking about. You are obviously saying that fundamental Baptists are Pharisees, since in those Scriptures Paul was decrying his own past as a Pharisee. That is an insult.

Take a look at your own OP. You don't get that it is offensive to say that a "Baptist Christian is a contradiction in terms"? That comes across as "It is not Christian to be a Baptist." And you unload all of this on a Baptist forum, and expect people not to be offended??

If you are asking if I think I speak for the majority of Baptists, no, why would you think that from anything I've said?

If you are asking me if I agree that it doesn't matter what a local church is named, no I don't agree. A church planter (my ministry) should pray long and seriously about what he names the church. My co-worker named his church Bible Church. I named mine "Baptist." God led in both cases.

 

One more question.

I noticed that you were ordained in a IFB church. Since you no longer like the "title" Baptist, have you renounced your ordaination to and returned the document to the church that ordained you?

 

Can you show me where there is a building attached to any NT church? No, you can't. If you want to play this game, we would all meet in homes, have no pianos, never try to win children to Christ with Sunday School...the list would go on and on.

I know of two groups in recent church history who followed your so-called Biblical example of having no names to their church. First of all we have Witness Lee, the errant disciple of Watchman Nee. Lee is the founder of the "Local Church" cult. They call their churches by the name of the city (r. e. "the church at Taipei") rather than giving their churches names. Does this do them any spiritual good? No. They are still a cult.

There is another group known simply as the "nameless movement." I actually went to Japanese language school with two of their female "missionaries." They make the exact same claims as you do about the wrongness of any name but "Christian" and believe it is wrong to name a church, yet they are full of aberrant doctrines.

You, sir, need to concentrate on the wonderful doctrines of the Word of God rather than an incidental fact recorded in the Bible with no commands or principles attached to it.

 

Multiple queries have been about `axe to grind' and the church home of the thread starter.

I would be surprised if "Church of Christ" is not in its name. In my experience, the radical majority of the Churches of Christ is the only group that has ever played a `name game' as a debating strategy.

 

Evidently, you do not know as much about Scripture as you think you do.

Acts 11:26 "and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch" (NASB).

The ICB translates "followers" from the same word the NASB translates "disciples."

So, now I repeat: After Acts 11:26, Christians still referred to themselves as "disciples" and "believers" etc.. The name did not make or unmake one into a Christian. What s/he did made a Christian -- did s/he follow Christ. If so, then s/he is a Christian.

For convenience, many followers of Christ who have accepted that group's teachings as the best way per Scripture to follow Christ, continue to refer to themselves as Baptists.

The contradiction you wish for does not exist. Baptists follow Christ, which makes them Christians.

Amen. We cannot divide Him either, even though many of us like to pretend we can by separating ourselves into groups and disowning everyone else.

 

As for your `heat' in the post between my earlier ones today, I simply answered other people's questions.

I made no accusation to you.

 

The point is very simple: Christians do not have to call themselves only Christians in order to be Christians.

Not calling oneself a Christian -- to the exlusion of anything else -- does not make one a non-Christian.

That is per the examples of Scripture. To claim otherwise is contrary to them.

 

It was not an accusation. One person did believe you had an `axe to grind' with a `chip on your shoulder' and another wanted to know your church affiliation. I was talking to them and anyone else interested.

You could have taken it and the whole post as an answer to multiple queries by others -- and nothing more. This is how you should have, because that is how it was intended.