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Feb 23, 2011 · Yes. The question among Baptists over whether to baptize small children is sensitive, and I’ve gone back and forth on it. There are several pastoral difficulties, and parents face many questions that they don’t often feel equipped to answer. Local churches who take conversion and church membership seriously have often taken a more ...
- John Starke
- Should We Baptize Very Young Believers?Link
- Credible vs. Mature Professionslink
- From Childhood to Maturitylink
- Embrace The Professions, Wait on The Waterlink
Some of my fellow Baptists may think this inconsistent. Many argue that we have no warrant for withholding baptism from our believing children, even when they are young. Therefore, they encourage the baptism of young children based on their sincere, childlike professions of faith. And they do so for good reasons. Like me, they have a pastoral avers...
For me, the solution came through thinking more carefully about “credible” professions of faith. I think we Baptists should move away from the language of a “credible” profession of faith when it comes to our children and teens, and instead speak in terms of a “mature” profession of faith before baptizing. The difference lies in this: A credible pr...
A full biblical defense of this distinction is beyond the scope of this short article. Suffice it to say, many of the standard arguments for believer-baptism would still apply. On the maturity question specifically, Galatians 4 is helpful in giving us a window into how Paul and other biblical authors thought about childhood and adulthood. (I’m not ...
I close by highlighting that this distinction between credible profession and mature profession allows us to do two things in relation to our children and our church. First, it allows us to shepherd them well, to encourage and affirm their incipient faith, to teach them wholeheartedly to believe, to speak to them and treat them like Christians so t...
Sep 11, 2012 · One of the ongoing discussions among Baptists relates to the age at which children can or should be baptized. (Here’s a brief article that lays out the 3 common positions on the age of baptism.) Many children raised in a Christian home—perhaps even most of them—profess faith at a young age.
Aug 17, 2023 · Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, to be unto the party baptized, a sign of his fellowship with him, in his death and resurrection; of his being engrafted into him; of remission of sins; and of giving up into God, through Jesus Christ, to live and walk in newness of life. “Baptism is a sign of the believer ...
As Baptists, we still reject the practice of “infant baptism” because we believe baptism to be immersion of a professing believer, not the sprinkling of an unbelieving baby. And yet, many Baptist pastors baptize children at very young ages without sensing any sort of disconnect. Gina Welch, the atheist who faked a conversion experience at ...
Jun 11, 2015 · Baptism is the most pure profession of faith that a follower of Jesus can make publicly. Baptism is an ordinance of the church, and as a result, should be performed under the authority of the church. It should likewise be noted that nowhere in Scripture do we see that the act of baptism saves sinners or removes sin.
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Nov 2, 2021 · Though many testimonies do not reveal the age of the children baptized, a few do. In one case, a five-year-old girl was immersed.[6] Despite their age, children as young as “six years old were baptized” and even sought “the Holy Ghost as honestly as an older person.”[7] Thus, children were often baptized, but they were understood to be immersed as believers.
