Lately I’ve been receiving a spate of biblical “corrections” to various verses that I’ve used in Words for the Day to illustrate diverse points. I appreciate everyone’s opinion of Scripture as it’s always helpful to see other people’s perspective on the same passage.
I always viewed baptism as going completely underwater to symbolize the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible clearly says that Jesus emerged from the water and I always interpreted that to mean that he went underwater and then broke the surface as He emerged from it.
Then one day a guy told me that he interpreted that to mean that Jesus “emerged” from the Jordan River as he walked up the bank. He said Jesus could have waded out and received a sprinkling baptism instead of that good old fashioned Southern Baptist dunking in which I’m more comfortable and then waded back out and emerged from the river.
Hmmm…
In Deuteronomy 29:29 it states: The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law”. I believe that arguing this point is senseless because God has only partially “revealed” the Baptism “ceremony”, and thus has left it to various interpretation.
We should not lose sight of the fact however, that the main point of the passage is not centered on ceremony or ritual, rather that Jesus Himself was baptized and we should follow Him in it. Whether John sprinkled Him or dunked Him is not the point. The point to me symbolizes that once we accept Christ as our Savior, we should take a public stand acknowledging to one and all that Christ died for our sins, was buried, but the grave could not contain Him and He rose again just like we will do one day.
There is a verse in 2 Timothy 3:16 that states: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” As you become more familiar with the Bible and feel the need to correct others, don’t lose sight of the last four words of this passage and that ambiguity in certain passages is more likely there by divine design as nothing in God’s word is an accident.
Romans 14
Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written:
“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.’”
So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way. As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.
Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.
So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.