Hi akthomas
Also, why do you think God would choose to include baptism in some verses and not in others as a means for salvation. i.e. John 3:16.
Probably because baptism is implied in those verses. It would naturally be assumed that one who believed would be baptized (since from the beginning of Christianity the necessity of baptism was preached, cf. Acts 2:38 ), and so "believe" would be shorthand for "believe and be baptized". (Just as in the book of Acts, baptism in "the name of Jesus" is a shorter way of saying one is baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity).
After all, do you believe that one only need to "believe" (i.e., render intellectual assent to certain truths) in order to be saved? Do you think repentance of sin is unnecessary, or that trusting in Christ for salvation is unnecessary, or that loving God is unnecessary? Is belief, such as even the demons have (cf. Jm 2:19) the only thing necessary? Or do you believe those other aspects are necessary as well, and that they are implied?
I come from a non-denominational background and have always been curious about the Catholic stance on this
As for me, I have to admit I don't understand this approach to arguing against the necessity of baptism. It seems to me an argument from the silence of certain verses, while ignoring other verses that
do mention the necessity of baptism.
It's as if one were to post verses from Scripture that demonstrated Christ's humanity (and do not mention his divinity at all), and then conclude that Christ was therefore not divine (all the while ignoring the verses that
do demonstrate Christ's divinity).
As I said eariler in this thread,
all of Scripture is authoritative, so we have to take into account
all of what Scripture states, not just certain verses.
Hope this helps