OK for a woman to baptize?

Thanks TC;

 

I guess I'm not understanding how some believe baptism is only the work of the Church. To come to this conclusion, the Great Commision only applies to the Church, and not individual believers. I don't buy that.

 

Webdog, I believe it all boils down to discipleship...
Because within the GC we are commanded not only to Baptize but Disciple.

The GC was given to the church. Each local church is commissioned to fulfill the GC... by home missions... state missions... and foreign missions.
(Acts 1:8)

So it is unthinkable to me to baptize someone and not do it under the authority of the local church... because with authority comes responsibility, and the local church is responsible for the new Christian it just baptized to disciple him or her....

IOWS if the person being Baptized must be discipled and that happens within the local church...

Now unless that local church (where the authority to baptize resides...I will explain more in a minute) gives a woman the authority to Baptize, then no she shouldn't be able to baptize....

But... since the GC was given to the local church, the local church can authorize anyone it wants to baptize. Normally this authorization is given to Pastors and Deacons upon ordination.... but I have seen a local church vote to authorize someone else (another member) to baptize on a temporary situation....

I was one of those temporarily authorized right after I was called to preach... I had not been licensed yet, nor ordained, and my oldest son got saved... I wanted to baptize him, so our home church voted to authorize me to baptize him. It was a glorious day...

I believe in the autonomy of the local church so much that if a congregation voted to authorize a woman to baptize, on a temporary basis, I could go along with it. Afterall, the Bible is silent one way or the other... So it would fall upon the local church to decide.

Just my 2 cents...
(Wow I said "local church" 10 times.... and I am one that believes in the universal church as well!!)

 

Mar 5:19 Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.

We as a union of churches would consider a church to be in disorder that would authorize a woman to baptize and that church would be called before the Association to give an account for their actions. But that is just us.

 

How can a church be called before an association if the association is not in control of the church?

I understand what you are saying, but there is a fine line of power and control here that must not be crossed...

No other Baptist church has the right to tell another Baptist church what to do...

I know you are talking about threatening disfellowship here, but isn't that really one organization (The association) asserting it's control over another organization (The church)?

I guess that is why I am ABC-USA... The association and denomination serves the local church, not the other way around...

But since I believe in the autonomy of the local church, I support your stance Brother Bob... and wish you well....

 

(((OF COURSE))) a woman can water baptize someone. Any believer can baptize any other believer. Whether they are "ordained" by some religious organization is 100% irrelavent. If they are born of the Spirit, they are ordained by God! Whether they are a man or woman is 100% irrelavent.

Every believer is *ordained* of God by the Holy Spirit.

I am a born again christian. I am not in any religious organisations position of "pastor". But if my next door neighbor came to me tomorrow and said "Mike, I've been under conviction for a long time, and last night in tears I surrended my life to Christ and placed my faith in Him for my eternal destiny. I feel so *different* now! Would you water baptize me?"

I'd say (((of course))) I will! We'de find a tub or creek or garden hose or something and we'de have us a baptism!

And I would do the same thing if I were a woman. :godisgood:

God bless,

Mike

 

A Association is made up of several churches, who as a union have agreed upon articles of faith, rules of decorum and a constitution. The Association does not lord these rules over on no one. All churches involved letter up with the association each year by work in their own church to do so. While lettering up with the Association, we are agreeing to abide by all the Articles of Faith, Rules of Decorum and Constitution.
At anytime a church does not feel they can abide by these agreed upon rules they themselves have withdrawn from the Association. If a church does something that is not in agreement, then they have themselves broken what they had agreed upon before. Each year, the association has a yearly meeting to help all the churches and if there is a conflict to try and work out that conflict with the church or churches involved. In most cases the problem is usually agreed upon by all parties concerned of a way to still hold the union together, but if a church insisted on not abiding upon what they themselves had already agreed upon, then fellowship with that church would be broken until such time that church agreed to abide with all the rules set forth by the Association. Those rules were not made by a few brethren or a committee but were made by the majority of the delegates representing each church in that association. I hope I made this clear. No one has to stay in that association or even become a part of that association in the first place. In order to have a union, there has to be an agreement by all for all.

Now, maybe you are going to say, "use the Bible", of which I have heard many times. Well, just look here on BB and see in order to have a Union, all parties must sit down and agree upon Articles of Faith, Rules of Decorum and a Constitution in order to have a Union.

Now we as an Association believe every one of those rules are supported by scripture. Apparently if a church decided to go in a different direction, they no longer believed in those rules, and really separate themselves from the Association. Hope I made it clear.

Each Church in our Association "holds its own Key" and the Association "lords" nothing over on a church. The Association does give "advice" to all the churches as an adviserary council. No church has to follow any rule the Association has. Association is something where many churches can come together as one, even though probably each one differs from the other somewhat, but in order to have a "Union" we all agree to be a part of this Association.

 

Well Mike, that is all well and good for you and I do not know if you are independant by yourself or if you belong to a church or union. If you do belong to a union and they disagreed with your position, then the person you baptized would not have a visible home here on earth.
If someone came here the same way as you said, I too would baptize them as long as I had a witness, but the church would be the final authority on whether they accepted my work or not.

If I were a woman, I would not baptize anyone.

This is how we work, let others do as they may for they sure have a right to do whatsoever they want.

 

Brother Bob,

Oh, I'm involved with a good strong biblical fellowship of believers. I'm not a pastor or deacon, but I do play an instrument with the worship group.

I'm not sure I'm following you. What do you mean by "disagreeing with my position?" Disagreeing with a new believer being baptized?

If I invited that new believer to fellowship with us I would probably introduce them to the pastor and share that they are a new believer and I baptized them, at their request, earlier. Our pastor would probably say "Well Praise the Lord! Welcome to the body of Christ and to our fellowship. If I can help you in any way just let me know"

Why a witness? And what if its just the 2 of you?

????

Do you mean they would decide whether or not the new believer is really saved? Or whether or not to consider the baptism as legitimate?

Mike

 

Are you sure this is the policy of your church. You Pastor may say, "well Mike, you had not authority to baptize him, so we will have to do it over with the right authority performing the baptizing. Have you ever ask him this question. I never knew a church that allowed any of its members to go out and start baptizing."

In the eyes of the Lord it would not matter, but I take my membership with my local church very seriously. Let me advise you that if you ever visit the widows or sisters, I would advise you to have someone with you, for a brother can be "murdered" with just one false statement.

2Cr 13:1¶This [is] the third [time] I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.

No, they might question him to how he believes. What I am referring to, is will they accept your work of baptizing him. Don't you have to have a move and second to receive someone into your church?

1Corth 14:
38: But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.
39: Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues.
40: Let all things be done decently and in order.

 

And you would be usurping the authority of your church in doing so.

 

Maybe someday you'll see the light about the imaginary universal church, but as for the rest of your post, you are right on target.

 

First let offer some logic. Let's say that a woman leads someone to Christ in another country. There is no men who are Christians around and no near hope of any being around. The first command of the new believer is to be baptized. I say that she can baptize the new convert. Now since she can do this in this case she should be able to in any case. There is no scripture that says only a pastor can baptize. Also I hold that every believer no mater gender or age can baptize a new convert and should. This is a serious downfall of the church today making it seem like it takes some sort of special man to baptize. There is little wonder why so many do not go since they are left out of the blessing.

Now for scripture. There is scripture to support what I have said.It is this;

Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

I know of no bible teacher that would teach that women are not included in the command to go. If that be the case the scripture structure is such that the ones going also Baptize and that would include women.

 

How many churches you know of where the women baptize, is a good place to start? Why is it a serious downfall for the church?
So as Paul and the brethren went throughout Asia, I am sure there were times there was not many brethren around but somehow Paul seem to always follow the example layed down by The Lord and John the Baptist. To try to justify women baptizing, you come up with some story about some land I never been, have you?

How many women were in that bunch the Lord was talking to?

 

I got hairy legs too.

 

Yeah I know.. My dad keeps telling me the same thing!!!
lol

And Bob.. That was not me trying to get churches out of the ABC... I stand against Homosexuality, but I felt the way some were doing it was usurping local church autonomy... It was coming from too high up...
And I didn't feel right giving the denomination that much power over churches....
There are those of us within our association that is working for a change in the denomination... and it is slowly changing.

Now if a church in our association were to start supporting Homosexuality our church would vote to break fellowship from that church. The vote would be within our church... and my guess would be each church in our association would do the same... But we would not have the right to tell that church what to do... BUT we as a church would do what we feel is right concerning ours...

And as for hairy legs... hmmmm...
nah... I better not comment.

 

Bro. Bob I was not saying a woman should be able to baptize. I was just saying I did not think it mattered. After reading your posts I see what you are talking about. I was not thinking about the Church I was thinking about a showing of salvation. I agree with what you are saying.

 

Brother Bob,

That situation has never come up with me, but it may have come up with others, I dont know. I'm just saying that what I would speculate he would say, from knowing him fairly well.

I tend to think not. He seems to have a good understanding of the truth of the "priesthood of the believer". Tell you what, if I think of it I'll ask him tomorrow after the service and let you know. :wavey:

No, but see above.

I never said anything about my "going out" and starting to baptize "people". I presented a particular situation, which was in essence a modern day example of the Ethiopian eunoch encounter from Acts 8. The Ethiopian was born again and asked Phillip what hindered him from being baptized. Phillip stopped right then and there and water baptized him. He didnt wait for some special gathering at a place of fellowship/worship to baptize him, did he? One believer baptizing a new believer.

The statement about getting "murdered" is a little unusual for me, I dont know quite what you are getting at there, but I agree about going with someone in that situation, but I dont know how that would apply to water baptising someone.

Well, by then I would have already spoken with the person at church and assured them that they are born again. I heard the persons testimony earlier. But if they would want to talk with them that would be perfectly fine.

They SHOULD.

Of course not. And it wasnt that way at 2 of my previous 3 churches either. The way to become a "member" of our fellowship, and the others I referred to as well, is to start coming regularly. Thats it.

After a while everyone gets to know them, and opportunities to testify are given. It becomes obvious that they know the Lord. The only time we vote on things is decisions on buying new land, buying a new sound system, etc. If people want to vote on those kind of things they just put there name on list and they can then do that. The only other voting I know of is for the Pastors...we have 2...or Deacons.

Christians are members of GODS church, not some supposed "membership roll" we have. Its just "the better way to go" to leave it at that.

Just about every time I have heard Pastors presenting their reasons for stressing "church membership"...meaning of course the (((MEMBERSHIP ROLL) for those that come to (((THAT BUILDING))) on Sundays...it always reeks of legalisim, *numbers* building, and an attempt to keep people from ever seeking another biblical fellowship rather than that one.

(I am NOT saying the YOU are doing that. I am speaking generally, and you may very well not be in that category.)

God bless,

Mike