I know, too many posts in such a short period of time. I guess interesting things are happening and I feel the need to share them and get feedback.
Tuesday nights are GBU (University Bible Group) meetings and we were going on a prayer walk around the UQAM campus. We were only six people (three leaders…) so I went on a prayer walk with one of the leaders. He’s actually learning French at l’UQAM so we went to a few of our classrooms and prayed for our teachers, classmates and the university in general. We prayed about many different things, but at one point I asked a question that made us stop and talk for the remaining time.
“I know everything is possible with God. But since the world is always getting worse and will one day reach a point where it’ll be judged by God and will be destroyed, can we pray and hope for a revival in the Québécois society?” That was my question.
I’m sort of tired to pray for God to move hearts, to bring life to the students, to help them make right choices and be delivered from sin because if they don’t hear the message of Jesus Christ, no change will come. I do not mean that we should not pray for those things to happen, but we should pray that God would open our hearts and eyes to see what we can do and how we can bring His gospel on campus. We need to pray that God would strengthen and equip US to shine His life around us.
My conversation with my prayer partner though was very inspiring. I’m realizing how superficial I am when it comes to the things of God, how quickly I get discouraged at praying and how I forget about the spiritual battles that are going on around me. And because of that, I’m no threat to Satan and his demons.
We were three people going for something to drink after the meeting. The leader and I had some stuff to talk about and the other person accompanying us was a student. We didn’t know he was Catholic so it opened up a range of discussion topics. I had to stop them on infant baptism and make sure my understanding of it was real. It’s quite interesting the views people hold and it’s good to rub shoulders with them. Both guys were pretty much for infant baptism. The Catholic guy seemed to change his view or words as we talked (going from “it’s to ensure the baby will go to heaven if he dies before a certain age” to “it’s the symbol of a blessing to be born in God’s family” - I might lack some info here though) but anyways, what I’m wondering about it that they were saying that early Christians associated baptism with circumcision. Circumcision was not to be performed anymore (no more blood needed) but baptism was a replacement for it (an alliance of water). I get the point and see how people at that time could have linked the two together, but I personally don’t see any evidence for it in the New Testament (if you have some Bible sources about it, please let me know). But the guys argument was that this thinking (link between circumcision and baptism) was so deep into the philosophies of the Jews, that there was no need to write about it in the New Testament (to me, this is quite a weak argument, they might have sources, but I have no idea what they are). It’s okay if baptism is a symbol as described in the Bible, but the only baptisms talked about in the Bible are done after repentance and I don’t think we should baptize for any other reason than what the Bible tells us we should. I have little knowledge about this all, so your comments are welcome!
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Hi Gabe, you’re absolutety right, only after repentance, no other reasons are acceptable.
Claudius! You read the entire text! In English! Good job!
Gabe, if I remember right it was Zwingli who first drew a parallel between infant baptism and circumcision (i.e. as infants were circumcised into the nation of Israel, so are infants baptized into the church, which is the new Israel). As to my admittedly limited knowledge that was actually rather novel in the 16th century, but then again I have not read all of the church fathers.
The guys with whom I was talking were saying that infant baptism is found way back in the history of the Church, even down to the early days of the Church. So that was one of their arguments, “Since it’s been done since the beginning of the Church then it must be right.” I don’t know, to me it is not an argument and I don’t know their sources either, but eh.
Thanks for your input.
Yo, yo it’s Coco!
I used to think like you, in the sense that, why prayer, why hope? We’re all waiting for the World to get worst so that God will get tired of th eatrh and come back to destroy it.
But in fact, it’s the opposite. God is waiting for all his people to awaken, then he will come back take us and destroy everything. So it’s all about the perspective you have. Either you will forsake prayer and wait for the world to get worst. Or you will pray and be a testimony in all the earth to raise his people. I don’t think that our God will come back before that!
Infant baptism was never practiced in the early church and certainly is not a teaching of Jesus Christ. Even the Jews did not baptise infants simply because a person had to confess his sins, repent and desire to change his life (Mat. 3:1-12 & Luke 3:7-18). It was Martin Luther when he was doing the reformation that kept infant baptism in his churches (he was a former Catholic). He saw it as a symbol of being part of the family of God - as circumcision does. But Calvin and others did not baptise children because they could not repent of their sins. That is why the Catholic church has a godmother and godfather who ÈacceptÈ Christ as Savior in favor of the child! The Catholic Church also teaches that baptism will take away the ‘original sin’ that came from Adam and Eve! -Ray
That’s how I think too.
The thing that “paedobaptists” (in favor for infant baptism) like to say is that we can see instances in the New Testament, where entire families are baptized, and so, this must have included young children and even babies (that’s what they say). I am not sure what the “entire” family actually meant in those days (was it the parents and children, or did it include uncles and aunts and grandparents and cousins? I don’t know the culture).
Some people today don’t necessarily believe that infant baptism takes away the baby’s sins or gives salvation. Rather they believe that baptism conveys grace, it’s sort of a tool by which Christ imparts grace or special blessings. Others simply see it as a symbol of welcoming the child into the Christian community.
Anyways. As you said, from the Bible, it is clear that people had to repent from their sins and be willing to follow Jesus to be baptized and only mature people can do that. It is disturbing that people believe that baptism (infant or credo) does anything to the baptized person, or keeps infants from being thrown into hell on the basis of its baptism, I think this view belittles God and again change His grace into a man-earned righteousness.
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