Wait for baptism until...

Believe and be baptized.

 

Perhaps, seeing as how we are trying to be "biblical" and all, we ought to also make baptism very PUBLIC. That doesn't mean in the PM service inside the walls of our Baptist churches, where only home folk can witness the event. Go to the local river, go to the local lake. Draw a crowd of onlookers who will witness the testimony of the believer. Then see if immediate baptism is indicated. Bet a lot of folks change their minds...

I still see the immediacy pushed by some here on the board as a very human scare/fear tactic. Those who press hard for immediate baptism are trying to press the new convert into doing something immediately that they may or may not understand at all so that they do not have to be afraid of that new convert changing his or her mind in a few days. Sheesh... Can anything be more un-biblical?

 

The Biblical model seems to be one of being baptised immediately after being saved, but I think there is also a Biblical case to be made for examining his fruit first, as well as his testimony and his understanding of the Gospel.

The other thing to consider is that baptism is often tied to church membership, so it's prudent to see that the baptism candidate meets the requirements for church membership before he is baptised.

This would be along the lines of what we do in our church.

 

We do this.

I never will forget the time a pastor friend of mine was going to hold a baptism service at a local spot on the Chesapeake Bay. He had an outstanding Gospel presentation all ready and all of the details were perfect. Except for one tiny thing...he forgot to check to see what time the tides were.

Never having done it before, it never occured to him that low time might not be the best time to hold a baptism service. He and the poor baptism candidate ended up having to slog about 100 yards out through knee-deep water to find a spot deep enough to immerse them.

 

Glad you know the motivation of all those who baptize immediately. That's why we do it, we seek to baptize immediately so we can inflate our numbers. We really don't care about people or about being biblical. Wish I had been less obvious and hidden my desire to scare people into doing something they might not do....

by the way, where is the sarcasm emoticon?

 

If he was obviously inebriated, I'd be inclined to hestitate.
If he showed no obvious signs of inebriation, appeared to have an honest profession of faith couple with admission and repentance for sin, would it not be sinful to refuse their next step of obedience when it requires your help?

I have five children. All five profess faith. One us baptized. Repeatedly. I had gone over the truth with her and let her speak about faith and salvation in her own terms. This wasn't enough for her Sunday School teacher at the time. THEY wanted pat answers and she didn't give your typical "I asked Jesus into my heart and to forgive me my sins." She went all theological on them and told them about how Jesus is the Son and how overcoming death made the sacrifice permanent. (we SO don't go to that church anymore!) They wanted pat answers and I refused to let them corrupt her by feeding them to her. She was unhappy and brought up baptism and it happened earlier this year. She is 15.

The next one professes faith but doesn't have the desire to be baptized. While this makes me sad, I am waiting for her to come into her own. She knows this is the next step she should be taking, but I refuse to do anything that can be construed as her trying to please me instead of the Father. I do see some spiritual struggles going on in her, so maybe she needs to straighten those out. She has questions and needs answers that she's going to have to find on her own.

The third shows evidence of Christianity but I think she's not fully grasping the concept. She's a very young teen.

The fourth one will get saved and want to be baptized every service if it will get him a little attention. He admits he's really only trying to get us to let him go up front and "get saved" for the attention. He has no interest in doing the exact same thing at home...if it doesn't involve him gaining something real like a gift or attention or to try to change the topic and get out of trouble, there's no evidence of faith. So no, we don't let him get baptized. He doesn't mean it and that's obvious.

The youngest doesn't seem to care one way or the other. She's claim to be a Wiccan if she thought it was a way to get a cookie or something.

Our youngest is nine. I pretty firmly believe that each human being comes into this on different time schedules. It depends on the person and their mental capacities. I honestly expected a minimum of 18 before I saw ANY of my children make honest confessions, but my oldest surprised me and continues to with her dedication to mission type work and the strength of her conviction to live a worthy life.

I'm patiently waiting on the rest.

But your guy? He's an adult. Shoot, even if he was inebriated, maybe you should anyhow just in case. I really wouldn't want to mess that one up.

 

town drunk

I don't think he/she has to show us anything in order to get Baptized