Featured Coming back to the Baptist:Help!

Any command, as in "Be baptized" (Acts 2:38) involves choice, whether to obey or to disobey. If you were baptized you had a choice. As I testified I was not baptized until two years after I was saved. That was my choice. I was also "baptized" as an infant when I was a Catholic. That was not my choice. And that is not baptism according to the definition of "baptism" in the Bible.

No, I disagree. You imply a theology of "Replacement Theology" which I consider to be a heresy. There is no expanded covenant, just as there is no continuation of Israel in Christianity, or replacement of Israel by Christianity.

Not every Christian.
Romans 9:4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;

The Covenants were given to Israel. That is what the Bible says here.
We are not part of Israel's covenants or of Israel.
Whether or not the Bible puts tremendous emphasis on covenants is of no relevance to me [except for the study of God's Word] if those covenants are not for me, and they are not.

 

That's not at all true.

God built the universe by speaking it into existence. He commanded and it WAS. There was no CHOICE in the matter.

God's commanding does not AT ALL demand choice- not at all- not one little tiny, tiny bit.

You ASSUME it does, but it absolutely, positively does NOT.

I could give example after example of this but I'll just give 1 here. God commands us to "Be ye perfect EVEN as your Father in heaven is perfect."

No person with five minutes of bible reading in their repertoire thinks that any human being but Jesus Christ ever had the ability to keep that command.

Yes, but you consider anything that does not flow from this new, weird Independent Baptist theology stuff to be heresy... so that is a meaningless statement.

A long time before there were people who thought there was no universal church and believed in eternal security without believing in biblical election- there were people who understood that the Bible is one congruent whole.

God did not say OOOPS! at the end of the Old Testament and say, "Ok. That whole 'law thing' didn't work out very well! Let's try this Calvary thing and see how that turns out."

No, there was always one plan from the beginning and the Bible records the outworking of it in the testaments.

 

Your response here hardly deserves an answer. You are not being rational.
Any command to man ought to evoke a response which means a choice of obedience or disobedience.
Repent; believe; Be baptized; Go! Be a witness! Preach! Pray! Give thanks! Rejoice! etc.
These are commands. We have choices here--to make up our minds to obey or disobey. That choice is ours. God gives us that choice and every day we need to make the choice whether or not to draw nigh to Him.
Being baptized and becoming a member of a church is a choice that every Christian needs to make.

Let me tell you about IFB theology. It means to study the Bible; take it literally; and obey it. That is all. David O. Beale, in his book, "Pursuit of Purity," defined a Fundamentalist as, "One who not only believes the Bible, but obeys the Bible." I would agree with that. And if you don't fall within the parameters of that definition I feel sorry for you.

Most of us here believe the Bible is one congruent whole; what makes you think we don't? In fact my take on the Bible, looking at if from the eyes of a dispensationalist, makes more sense and shows how the Bible in its entirety fits together as one unified whole, rather than one who believes it is chopped up with various little covenants.

God knew and does know the end from the beginning. We are not Israel. He dealt with Israel in a different way than he deals with us. That is exactly what Heb.1:1,2 teaches. God makes no mistakes, but it is a mistake to wrongly divide the word of truth.

 

My response was a lot like I am- intelligent. If you cannot see that, I am wasting my time. I could be wrong about something, DHK, but no thinking person thinks I am an idiot or irrational like you claim here.

And before you explode into some mindless rampage about me being arrogant because I said I am intelligent, are you intelligent? Do you think you are? Then be sure to apply the tirade to yourself as well.

That's the problem with you independent baptists. You have this one gear in your mind and you cannot even think on any other level.

If something contradicts what you have long assumed to be the case you just cannot fathom it.

I thought like you for years.

Yea or "RISE!" like Jesus said to Lazarus. I sure am glad he chose to obey!

No, no.

That's just what you tell yourselves.

Christians were ACTUALLY doing that who bragged about doing it a whole lot less a long, long time before ya'll came along.

You guys are Johnny-come-lately's to this thing. You got a lot of catching up to do.

 

water baptism in the NT NOT exact equivalent of circumcision under the Old Covenant!

And the New Covenant superceded, rendered obsolate the Old one, as jesus was the mediator of a far superior one, as per Hebrews!

 

I was a PCA member for 26 years, just as you were a member of the RCC. How many times have you chided me for incorrectly stating the RCC doctrine when I was not a member? I am not going to return the favor, but you need to recheck your understanding of Presbyterian doctrine, to be nice about it.

 

they do see the ordinaces such as water baptism and communion though differently than we Baptists would, correct?

More in a "spiritual" semsse, not fully symolic or types, right?

 

Chris,

I was a member of a PCA church for 26 years, and have been with my local Baptist church 35 years. I can give you my perspective between the two from a layman view.

I suppose the main issue is Baptism. As you and I know, Presbyterians (PCA) do not believe that sprinkling an infant saves the infant. It is a covenant sign from the parent to the child that the parents are going to bring the child up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and some, not all, believe it covers the sins from parent to child until the child knows right from wrong, something we call the age of accountability. At some point (usually 12-14), the child goes through a six week communicants class, and learns the basics of doctrine and theology, along with questions and answers. After this, the pastor and session question the class members, and if acceptable, bring them before the church for membership. At this point, it is said there is a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the PCA churches, there is no debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. The elect are saved. There is no walking to the front, no "sinner's prayer" (which I do not believe exists) or a repeat after me prayer, or choice.

The reason I am trying to get at is there is no Baptism after salvation as in a Baptist church. The original mode was sprinkling and ours was immersion. That told me the Baptists had that one correct hands down One point to be made though, in favor of the Presbyterians, they do not believe baptism is necessary for salvation, just election.

The next biggest reason was the hierarchy of a Presbyterian church. Most churches in the NT are local churches. Frankly, I did not like the presbytery having part of the decision making process for picking a pastor, creating a budget, modifying the building, or dictating what Sunday School material to use. In a local church, that is made within the confines of the membership by congregational vote. Again a slam dunk for the Baptists.

Next was elder rule, which in the case of our church, became elder worship. Elders were suppose to be elected based on spiritual maturity, but more often than not, it was based on social status. Some local Baptist churches in our area have gone to elder rule, which when combined with a local church is probably not so bad.

Baptist churches seem much more open and friendly than Presbyterian churches, which really has nothing to do with doctrine. Anyway, there were other issues, but those are the main ones.

I do think the unwritten morality rules that some Baptists stand by are a negative for them. (dancing, moderate drinking, lottery tickets, movies, TV, etc, etc) are man made standards, that encourage people to live a Pharisee type life instead of a victorious life through the power of the Holy Spirit. They are not Biblical, and add nothing to a relationship with the Lord and your church.

Another thing that I do not like about the Baptist church is the diversity of doctrine to a ridiculous degree. There are very few beliefs that all Baptists agree on, as you can tell from this board. In the PCA, there is no Calvinistic debate. There is no disagreement about drinking in moderation. Look at one of our threads on drinking. Baptists will argue about anything. The only unity I have found is within the local church. My point is not that I agree or disagree with any of the issues, it is that too much diversity is not a good thing.

In the final scheme of things, Baptists come out on top when compared to the PCA.

 

That is correct. The ordinances, (sacraments to them) are totally symbolic, nothing physical, no magic acts. The Lord's Supper between the two is almost identical, except that some local Baptist churches believe in closed communion. Praise the Lord there are only a few of them. Also, even though the PCA does sprinkle infants, they do believe as we do in the fact that baptism is not required for salvation. There is no regenerational baptism in either denomination.

There are two things that I do not like about the PCA baptism. One of course is the mode, and the other is not baptizing after salvation. The ceremony as an infant to dedicate the child be brought up according to the Word of God by the parents in a covenant relationship does not per se bother me. If that was called a dedication ceremony, and there was an actual immersion after salvation, it would be fine to me. I have seen infants brought up before our local church a few times in our church to ask the Lord to help the parents to guide the child in His ways, and to bind the local church to help the parents. It is usually just a prayer, or a prayer circle, but no sprinkling of course.

 

I don't know what you believed in the PCA--Politics??
I do know this. Not to far from where I went to college there was an American Baptist Church. It had a female pastor, and the church was very liberal in its doctrine. If I were them I would be ashamed to call it a Baptist church.
I also know that there are Presbyterian churches that are worse off doctrinally and otherwise than that Baptist church. Who knows what they preach--probably not the Bible at all.
I said my wife was raised a Presbyterian. She was, but it was in the Bible Presbyterian movement connected with Carl McIntyre. Their churches were fundamental--a total different breed than you are familiar with. They are evangelistic. She was saved in that church because they preach the gospel there. They would align themselves with preachers like Ian Paisley, whom Bob Jones would invite to preach from the pulpit of BJU in chapel. My understanding of baptism in the Presbyterian church comes from my wife, someone who grew up in a Presbyterian church that preached the gospel, not a dead church stuck in its reformation hyper calvinistic idealism.

 

they have the realGospel, and teach strongly he doctrines, but just wrong in how they see the ordinances, thats all!

 

[sarcasm]
Wow! You shouldn't hold back like that. Let it out, tell us what you really think!
[/sarcasm]

Sheez ... you probably didn't like D. James Kennedy, either.

 

Gimme a break!
As I admitted earlier: just as there are Baptist churches that don't preach the gospel I am sure that there are Presbyterian churches that don't preach the gospel. That is not a hard conclusion to come by. Are you really going to tell me that all Presbyterians churches preach the gospel? I am not that naive. I have come across many of them in my visitation that don't have a clue what it means to be saved.

 

I usually do. :smilewinkgrin:

 

my comment was more adressing the general idea that many of their churches do teach nd preach same Jesus and Gospel as we Baptists do, its just that their eschatological and ordiannces views are somewhat wrong from Baptist perspectives!

And think that the churches that are liberal , such as presby denominations that alow for gay pastor ordination are NOT biblically at all!

 

Please elaborate/explain your strange terminology.

 

There is a lot of liberalism among Presbyterian churches in general. From the latter half of the 19th century onward liberalism hit it hard and never let go.

In 1936, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was formed. In 1938, the Bible Presbyterian Church was organized. In 1973, the Presbyterian Church of America came about. In 1981, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church was formed.
The above are the more conservative groups, and the ones that would preach the gospel. But the great majority of Presbyterians are swallowed up in their hyper-calvinistic beliefs and have no interest in evangelizing anyone. Their interest is in works, having a nice liturgical service to go to, etc. Evangelism is not a high priority. I doubt if salvation is either.

 

You didn't define your terms

What does the above have to do with hyper-Calvinism and the other words you attached to it? You need to flesh it out a bit more.

Can you please document the above? I have never heard of any Presbyterians being hyper-Calvinistic. Name some names.

 

Are we saying it is O.K. to believe and practice baptismal regeneration and infant baptism?

Ecumenism is become rampant.

"Come out from among them, saith The Lord; touch not the unclean thing..."

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Bro. James

 

After all, you said the great majority of Presbyterians. Or are you just blowing hot air?