The only reason I am a Baptist

Maybe so? Please pray

 

No, I speant my time in Baptist Bible colleges and seminaries.

So, are you claiming that we must believe the Gospels were written by the apostles, as a scriptural mandate? WHere in scripture is this?

Never said otherwise, and for you to imply I don't believe such is a lie and an insult.

 

Being a Baptist means you hold to the Baptist Distinctives. Unfortunately, many Baptist adhere to faiths and confessions, but treat the Baptist Distinctives as optional. There are even some Baptist here who have never heard of the Baptist Distinctives.

 

And who developed and approved the Baptist Distinctives? John the Baptist? Just kidding.

 

Yes. It's clearly stated in the book of Second Opinions, verse 4.

 

I got involved with the Baptists because I so much wanted to be baptized after I was saved. A drag was though, the pastor said I should go trough some baptismal classes.

Guess he was just doing his job, but I wanted to go under and up out of that water as quickly as possible.

 

David, maybe my Anglican background is showing here, but I never baptized under 6 months after conversion, and insisted on classes beforehand.

Cheers,

Jim

 

I think of the Ethiopian eunuch and Phillip.

Waiting 6 months would have driven me crazy.

Wonder what the early church did in Acts.

Repent and be baptized said Peter and thousands joined in a single day.

All good study stuff.

Maybe my conversion was a bit out of the ordinary, not coming from Church etc, but then again it was perfectly normal when looking at the beginnings for the Church in Acts.

 

I personally believe that your approach is very wise.

In the days of the NT the cost of identifying with the church could very possibly mean that one would die for their faith. In most places today that is not the case. So I think more caution is called for today.

 

Yes, I saw too many involved with the "easy believism" and they just didn't last. Now what do we do with a false believer, immersed in water?

In the Anglican Church, we had to go through confirmation classes. It was during these classes I realized the Christ as my personal Saviour. I always believed in the Jesus of the Bible, and had a good knowledge of biblical teaching.......I just never took that step into Jesus.

I think you are correct. Times are different. Compare a conversion and baptism in the old communist Russia! They didn't even have pews in their churches!

Cheers,

Jim

 

Jim, I agree, this easy believing thing is probably prevalent.

And when your in charge your responsibilities will govern you.

No fault there.

 

I have been a Baptist since I was saved on May 18, 1963 at age 17. Because of being condemned by deacons after being divorced, I have considered going non-denominational. However, since there are none in this area, I guess I will remain Baptist. Does our denomination matter as long as they teach and preach "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"?

I am a northerner by birth and grew up in Michigan. I've only been in Florida since August 17, 2005, but I LOVE it here! However, I prefer the northern Baptist churches to the southern Baptist ones. It's just my preference.

 

I'll repeat a story I've told before:
During a mission trip to Romania, a pastor there related how it was when the country was in the grip of Communism.

"When someone would come to us, desiring to be baptized and make public his confession of faith, we tried to talk him out of it."

Talk him out of it? I said. We American Baptists spend untold amounts of time and effort trying to talk people into it. Explain, please.

"We tell them the downside first. Publicly confessing Christ as Lord could get them killed, beaten up, thrown into prison. They could lose their jobs, their family. After explaining that, we ask, do you still want to do this? If they said yes, we figured they were serious about it."

Our church rolls in America are filled with people who walked some aisle, who got baptized, and now are nowhere to be found.

Maybe some probationary period or at least some orientation period is not such a bad idea.

 

This is just my opinion, and mine alone, but deacons condeming you in a Baptist or any other church is not what they are there for. They are servents, and not judges. It sounds to me like the congregation needed to take upon itself the power it has to remove them. Deacons are (I am one) sinners like everyone else, and are there to edify.

Back to the op, I am a Baptist because I feel it comes the closest to the Word of God as to beliefs and the structure of the New Testement church. If we want to go to a church away one Sunday and there is no Baptist church, then I look for a conservative Presbyterian church.