One more thing here and I'll shut up (and the whole board says, 'Yeah, right):
it is unfortunately human nature that we pick and choose the right or wrong things to focus on. Which passage at the expense of which passage. Let me give just one basic example - baptism.
Baptists (my own forbears) - has to be by dunking and by believers only; sprinkling doesn't count nor does infant baptism
Churches of Christ - if you aren't dunked and the preacher doesn't say the words 'for the remission of sins,' you go to Hell
Presbyterians not named Trump - baptism replaces circumcision in the OT as a sign of a covenant relationship and therefore it is to be done to children
Presbyterians named Trump - baptism is a really wet thing. I know when I was baptized, I was really wet. Nobody was baptized quite like I was. I've always been for baptism as found in the book of Hezekiah, where Sarah, David, and their twin sons and daughter, Luke and Leia, were really baptized. I mean REALLY baptized you know. Really baptized.
Point out to Presbyterians there's not a single passage of an infant baptism anywhere and they'll tell you it is logical to assume that when 'the whole house' in Acts 16:31 was baptized that SOME of them must have been children. Church of Christ folks will say that the Bible doesn't say that ANYWHERE and then turn right around in passages where people were saved but NOT baptized (or its not mentioned) and they.....just like the Presbyterians.......will then find it 'logically' by saying that since it DID happen in Acts 2:38 and 22:16, whatever other passages mean they CANNOT mean that the person was not baptized. Meanwhile, back at the INSP network, the Baptists will somehow work refusal for a person raised a Methodist into the implication that if he or she doesn't they are disappointing God and are less than full Christians.....all while telling everyone you cannot lose your salvation.
I mean - is this a great show of unity or what? I can't deny some of the criticisms leveled.
it is unfortunately human nature that we pick and choose the right or wrong things to focus on. Which passage at the expense of which passage. Let me give just one basic example - baptism.
Baptists (my own forbears) - has to be by dunking and by believers only; sprinkling doesn't count nor does infant baptism
Churches of Christ - if you aren't dunked and the preacher doesn't say the words 'for the remission of sins,' you go to Hell
Presbyterians not named Trump - baptism replaces circumcision in the OT as a sign of a covenant relationship and therefore it is to be done to children
Presbyterians named Trump - baptism is a really wet thing. I know when I was baptized, I was really wet. Nobody was baptized quite like I was. I've always been for baptism as found in the book of Hezekiah, where Sarah, David, and their twin sons and daughter, Luke and Leia, were really baptized. I mean REALLY baptized you know. Really baptized.
Point out to Presbyterians there's not a single passage of an infant baptism anywhere and they'll tell you it is logical to assume that when 'the whole house' in Acts 16:31 was baptized that SOME of them must have been children. Church of Christ folks will say that the Bible doesn't say that ANYWHERE and then turn right around in passages where people were saved but NOT baptized (or its not mentioned) and they.....just like the Presbyterians.......will then find it 'logically' by saying that since it DID happen in Acts 2:38 and 22:16, whatever other passages mean they CANNOT mean that the person was not baptized. Meanwhile, back at the INSP network, the Baptists will somehow work refusal for a person raised a Methodist into the implication that if he or she doesn't they are disappointing God and are less than full Christians.....all while telling everyone you cannot lose your salvation.
I mean - is this a great show of unity or what? I can't deny some of the criticisms leveled.