[Linux4christians] Baptists & Biblical Doctrine

[Timothy Butler]

>
>> 1.) Baptism: covenant child or just believer? Immersion
>> or sprinkling? The Bible doesn't say.
>
> Why the artificial difference?  The Bible doesn't make one.
> This is an example where religious folks have complicated
> the simple.  A saved person is a child of God, a saint, a
> member of His eternal family, a participant in the new
> covenant, etc.  It's in the Bible - we don't need the
> self-serving ramblings of confused religious folks to get
> our answers - God's Word and the enlightment of His
> indwelling Holy Spirit are all we need - God says so.

	Well, my point is this: I'm not sure about your semi-Baptist group,  
but most would reject baptizing infants. I would argue that the  
Biblical position would include baptizing infants. Good, believing  
people disagree here.

	I personally think I can scripturally justify my position, but I also  
realize I accept a framework when I go into a denomination (or "non- 
denomination"). Everyone has an ideological bias -- the trick is to  
critically locate one's own interpretive framework and thereby be  
aware of it. No one is a tabula rasa.
>
> No church history necessary for context or understanding beyond that  
> reported in the Bible.

	I was referring more to denominational tradition on that example. If  
we started back from "scratch," it might lead to any number of  
conclusions -- not necessarily just the one we think ought to be  
chosen. I think this is really part of what the author of Hebrews was  
saying when he talked of the great cloud of witnesses (11-12). I do  
not think the point was that God's working in history through his  
elect simply ended with the closing of the canon so that nothing the  
faithful saints of the last two millennia have done is of use.

>
>> 4.) Scripture: which books? Canon was settled by the
>> church.
>
> No, Canon was settled by God, He led folks in religious
> organizations to recognize it.  A vital difference.

	Well, but if we don't accept church history or tradition as helpful,  
how are you going to determine what God selected?

> If mere man decided what is Canon, without the direction of
> God, then we may as well toss our Bibles in the trash as they are  
> unreliable.

	Of course, I was not suggesting it was mere man, but man did play a  
role. God works through people, after all.

>> 5) Covenant theology? Dispensationalism? Etc. (The
>> rapture in its modern sense appears in the 19th century.)
>
> The rapture is recorded in the Bible, that some failed to recognize  
> that and then recognized once it again in the 19th Century is "shame  
> on them".

	Well, see, I would disagree with that. I'd suggest the most faithful  
readings of the texts does not present a rapture such as Left Behind  
presents at all. (And, I'd be inclined to say the vast majority of  
folks coming straight to Scripture would never formulate the  
rapture... that was actually one reason I decided to reject it and  
follow the traditional Reformed view.)

> It is the same with Luther recognizing again what the Bible
> taught about faith and not works - it was always there - the
> religious folks had merely obscured it for Satan-manipulated
> self-serving reasons.

	Well, but if we reject church history... Luther is part of church  
history and must be ignored.

>
> Same as the Trinity - it was always there - that it took so long for  
> some in religious leadership to rediscover it is again "shame on  
> them".


	Actually, I don't think it was that they rediscovered it, it was just  
newly revealed by God in the New Testament and it took awhile for  
people to figure out how to describe it. Yet, I am thankful that I  
don't have to do all of the work of people like Athanasius, Alexander,  
etc. all over again.


	-Tim