I don't have much to talk about today. For my morning study I searched the words "baptize" and "baptized" throughout the Bible. I have been pondering lately the Baptist and Presbyterian views of this New Testament ordinance of baptism.
I did not come up with any notable things to write about, except that I am still in the Baptist camp. If nothing else, looking up those words in the Bible only confirmed my stance on believers baptism.
It seems to me, that in order to link Old Testament circumcision with New Testament baptism, you have to have a system of theology already determining your answer. The nearest link I could find was in Colossians 2. And this at best was uncertain. If Colossians 2 is teaching that children of Christian parents are to baptize their children into the covenant community, then what of the other New Testament books?
Let's say I am a member of the Colossi Church. The letter of Colossians is read one morning from my Pastor. The Pastor then interprets chapter 2 to mean the Presbyterian understanding of baptism. Ok, let's baptize the kids!
What if I am a member of the Corinthian Church? Or the Thessalonican Church? Or the Church at Phillipi? Do you see what I am getting at? If the doctrine of baptizing infants is not talked about anywhere else in the Bible, then to me it begins to be like proofing the millennium from one text from a highly allegorical book like Revelation.
I am open to learn, and have been praying and reading about it. So far though, I just don't see it. I am open to input from anyone who may have some understanding.
revelation allegorical?
ReplyDeleteArthur Patzia defines allegory as follows..."A literary form where a story is told for what it signifies rather than for its own sake. The characters and sometimes events or places are interpreted as abstract ideas or personifications of historical persons, which moves the focus from the personality of the character or the nature of the event itself. For example, in Nathan's story of the ewe lamb, the lamb itself is not the point of the story but rather is a personification of Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:1-14). Similarly, the vineyard is Isaiah's parable is Israel (Is 5:1-10). Some of the parables of Jesus also have obvious allegorical aspects (e.g. the parable of the sower, Mt 13 par. Mk 4 and Lk 8). Generally, in allegory the point is not so much that each item signifies something but that the allegory itself signifies a virtue, vice or type of character, or occasionally, a correlative historical person or event."
ReplyDeleteI find the book of Revelation to be one of the hardest books to understand. I believe that the book combines a literal and an allegorical method in its inspiration.