Baptism without immersion, should I go ahead?

[LoricaLady]

Albion I have gone back and looked at your posts and have found 3 comments that you appear to be referring to:

1. Baptizo does not mean immersion. At least it does not mean immersion exclusively. The word also means to dip, or plunge, or wash. The claim that it has to mean immerse is bogus.
Again, baptizo springs from the Jewish word mikvah and I gave you pictures of first century, and current, mikvahs which clearly show places for immersion, not sprinkling or splashing or ankle wading.
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2. And as for the Bible reference to much water...the locale being referred to there was one that was known for having a lot of shallow pools. It was not on the shores of a great, deep lake, etc. You probably could NOT immerse someone in one of those pools, and the reference certainly is not about there being water deep enough to permit immersion in the usual way.
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"You probably could not..." is again opinion based, not data based. Again, if all the Ethiopian needed was a splash of water he could have gotten his servants to give him a jug of water for that purpose, maybe even drawn from the water where he got baptized.

3. That is exactly how Jesus' own baptism is pictured in one of the earliest examples of Christian art that we still have from the ancient church.

"One of the earliest examples...." Of course ancient art works are notorious for not uncommonly being inaccurate. Can you give data about the artist, like if he actually was living at the time of the Messiah, and like if he (or she) actually knew much about the Bible? If so, please cite it.

I gave actual, reliable, data, with pictures of ancient mikvahs, not just opinions, or artwork from unknown artists.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Truth isn't popular.

 

[LoricaLady]

Truth isn't popular.

Traditions of men are way popular, though, sadly.

 

[Invalidusername]

In the most obvious way. And it is still done today.

You wade out into the water, perhaps waist deep, and the minister who is standing by pours water over you. That is exactly how Jesus' own baptism is pictured in one of the earliest examples of Christian art that we still have from the ancient church.

Pours water on them? So they just dragged a bucket in the water with them? Strongly doubt that. Might as well not even bother going to the river and just get water from a well. You people make me chuckle at the lack of logic.

 

[JackRT]

Baptism is a public ceremonial celebrating an event that has already taken place --- a spiritual transformation. Whether the baptism is by immersion or by sprinkling is, in my opinion, inconsequential.

 

[LoricaLady]

Baptism is a public ceremonial celebrating an event that has already taken place --- a spiritual transformation. Whether the baptism is by immersion or by sprinkling is, in my opinion, inconsequential.

Is it your opinion that counts, or what the Bible says? Rhetorical Q.

 

[LoricaLady]

Pours water on them? So they just dragged a bucket in the water with them? Strongly doubt that. Might as well not even bother going to the river and just get water from a well. You people make me chuckle at the lack of logic.

And I checked out the earliest artwork on Baptism. It was done about 2 and one half centuries after the time of Messiah. By that time many truths in the Bible were being misunderstood and misapplied. Of course the people then generally did not have access to the Scriptures, just oral stories handed down to them.

 

[All4Christ]

And I checked out the earliest artwork on Baptism. It was done about 2 and one half centuries after the time of Messiah. By that time many truths in the Bible were being misunderstood and misapplied. Of course the people then generally did not have access to the Scriptures, just oral stories handed down to them.

FTR, the historical document I posted earlier from 215AD was immersion. We still do immersion today. Many early images have a hand on Jesus head, which is part of how we baptize people (through immersion).



This is a 4th century baptismal font.

 

[LoricaLady]

FTR, the historical document I posted earlier from 215AD was immersion. We still do immersion today. Many early images have a hand on Jesus head, which is part of how we baptize people (through immersion).

View attachment 228724
View attachment 228725
This is a 4th century baptismal font.

Cool.

 

[Albion]

Pours water on them? So they just dragged a bucket in the water with them?

Of course not.

 

[frater_domus]

Guys, please simmer down and take a step back. This is the sort of behaviour that splits the church of Christ. Everyone insist on being right and discards what the other said. We have to remember that apart from the Lord, no one holds the truth.
My original plight has long been lost beneath an argument about tradition and interpretation and by now it seems it is more about being right and seeking the truth.
So please, do not let pride get the better of you. Be loving and stop arguing among yourselves. Take a break and come back with a renewed mind.
While I wanted to discuss this issue, but had I known that it leads to arguments such as these, I probably wouldn’t have. The unity of the body of Christ and peaceful conduct among brethren is more significant to me than whatever I wanted to know.

In short, chill out

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Whether the baptism is by immersion or by sprinkling is, in my opinion, inconsequential.

While this is not true in and of itself, it is more apparent when looking at other things associated with each position. Like many other errors throughout history, throughout the world, errors sort of "group together" in common with one another, and often that is what the most consequential problems are about; not just about one or another error by itself that might be temporary and irrelevant overall, but many continued errors together that are passed on over generations, one generation to another, causing much unbelief and harm.

 

[LoricaLady]

Guys, please simmer down and take a step back. This is the sort of behaviour that splits the church of Christ. Everyone insist on being right and discards what the other said. We have to remember that apart from the Lord, no one holds the truth.
My original plight has long been lost beneath an argument about tradition and interpretation and by now it seems it is more about being right and seeking the truth.
So please, do not let pride get the better of you. Be loving and stop arguing among yourselves. Take a break and come back with a renewed mind.
While I wanted to discuss this issue, but had I known that it leads to arguments such as these, I probably wouldn’t have. The unity of the body of Christ and peaceful conduct among brethren is more significant to me than whatever I wanted to know.

In short, chill out

Friend you are making an assumption, and therefore an accusation, though I don't think that is your intent. Personally, when I post it is not about me and my pride, it is about defending the Gospel in hopes that things will be more clear for someone else. The Bible tells us what to do and there is data to help us determine what that is, in this particular case.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Having finally overcome my reservations about church communities, I found my desire to be baptized. This usually includes a few weeks of studying things about bible and church, which I do not understand, but it isn't bothering me. What bothers me is that they practice baptism without immersion, something I just found out. I am not sure how I feel. Maybe it is because most things I know I learned from Baptists or because the word 'baptizo' means 'immerse' or because the bible only ever mentions places with sufficient water as places of baptism, either way, it bothers me and I am not sure how to react. I feel bad going to them and suddenly call it off, but I am not sure how to feel about baptism without immersion. I know that it isn't technically in the bible, but it is what I was looking forward to and what I imagined.

Any thoughts on how to handle it?

There's an old joke I once heard.

A Methodist and a Baptist were having an argument about how much water was needed for baptism to be valid. The Methodist asked, "If I were to stand in water up to my ankles, would this be a baptism?" The Baptist responded, "No, that wouldn't count." The Methodist then asked, "What if I stood knee deep in water, would that count?" The Baptist responded, "No, that's not a baptism." The Methodist asked, what if I were chest deep in water?" Again the Baptist shook his head in disapproval. The Methodist inquired, "What if I were to be almost completely submerged under water, but just the top of my head stuck out of the water?" The Baptist again said, "Still not a baptism." The Methodist, then said with a grin, "So, in the end, all that really mattered was a little water on the top of the head."

As for a serious answer, Christianity has always accepted different methods of baptism. The oldest statements we have about how to perform a baptism come to us from a 1st century document known as the Didache, which says that it is most preferable to immerse someone in "living" (i.e. running) water, the practice of triple immersion was the standard way of baptizing in the earliest days of the Church and the early centuries, and Christians in the East still do this. The Didache also mentions that if there isn't a sufficient amount of water available, pouring water on the head three times is also acceptable, for various reasons the practice of pouring became the normal way to baptize people in the West during the middle ages. Single immersion is almost never heard of in antiquity, though I recall once reading that there were parts of Visigothic Spain which had a local tradition of single immersion, it was noteworthy because it was very unusual. The modern practice of single immersion is very knew, relatively speaking, only to within the last five hundred years.

Scripture simply doesn't tell us this information. But seeing as the Sacrament of Baptism is based on the Jewish practice of ritual washing (tevilah) in a mikveh (ritual bath) which involves a full submersion of the whole body, that this was most likely the way it was done early on. Triple immersion and the use of pouring as an alternative is clearly ancient, as it is mentioned in the Didache, thus recording Christian practice during the time when the Apostles were still alive (the Didache is dated generally to between 60AD and 90AD). The Didache does not proscribe single or triple immersion, just immersion; but we know from what Christian writers talking about these things that triple immersion was how Baptism was done.

It's not about how wet you get, it's about the gracious work of God through His Sacrament, by which you are being adopted into the Church as a member of God's household by His grace, united to Jesus Christ.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

The main problem over the earth is the false gospel that claims people don't have to repent.
That they don't have to turn to God and do what God says to do.
That they should just be left to live as they want to live, and don't try to change them.
That everyone should just join together and forget differences, and 'be' 'one' in what the world calls 'good', and what God calls an abomination and death.

 

[LoricaLady]

And P.S. Frater Domus All was not always agreement and harmony between the Apostles. You asked for advice. We have been trying to give it. Unity is not always the #1 goal. The truth is. If you get upset by people having disagreements here, you may very well be upset again if you start another string on a controversial topic. In fact, you can count on it.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Since we are discussing the meaning of words, I figure it might be worth offering the Greek text from the Didache relevant here:

Περὶ δὲ τοῦ βαπτίσματος, οὕτω βαπτίσατε· ταῦτα πάντα πρειπόντες, βαπτίσατε εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος ἐν ὕδατι ζῶντι. ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ἔχῃς ὕδωρ ζῶν, εἰς ἄλλο ὕδωρ βάπτισον· εἰ δ’ οὐ δύνασαι ἐν ψυχρῷ, ἐν θερμῷ. ἐὰν δὲ ἀμφότερα μὴ ἔχῃς, ἔκχεον εἰς τὴν κεφαλὴν τρὶς ὕδωρ εἰς ὄνομα πατρὸς καὶ υἱοῦ καὶ ἁγίου πνεύματος. πρὸ δὲ τοῦ βαπτίσμος προνηστευσάτω ὁ βαπτίζων καὶ ὁ βαπτιζόμενος καὶ εἴ τινες ἄλλοι δύναται· κελεύεις δὲ νηστεῦσαι τὸν βαπτιζόμενον πρὸ μιᾶς ἢ δύο. (Didache, ch. 7)

I'm going to go out on a limb to say that the writer(s) of the Didache knew what the words they were using meant, seeing as Koine Greek was their language. As such, if one were to choose to argue that the word must always, always, always mean immersion and nothing else, one has to content with the simple fact that this isn't how the word is actually employed by native speakers and writers of the language. And I would argue that if one must make a decision on whether to believe 1st century native speakers of the language or whether to believe 21st century people engaging in educated guesswork with a clear bias and agenda--that we should probably trust ancient native speakers of the language on this matter.

Early Koine Greek speaking Christians used this word without trouble to describe the act of pouring water, not only immersing in water. That should tell us something.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[☦Marius☦]

Why do Christians so often feel they need some "expert" to tell them what to do? They are quite capable, generally, of thinking for themselves and reading, and researching, the Bible, for themselves. Where do we find the One and only true Authority speaking? In the Bible.

Because some Christians believe that there are people blessed with the gift of spiritual analysis and theological understanding that the rest of us could only dream of. Not only that but the apostles themselves didn't trust each other's "private interpretation" of scripture- which is why they held the first church council to decide the matter of circumcision. We are all corrupted to some degree. That means our personal way of thinking has corruption- therefore our way of reading the Bible can be corrupted. We should not rely on ANY individual to interpret scripture, as that is exactly what the pope does when he invokes infallibility. Instead we should submit to the Church Councils as that is what the apostles established as the proper method for deciding doctrine.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

That should tell us something.

Mostly , I think, and obviously, I think, that tradition, even when wrong, is very very difficult to break free from.

 

[☦Marius☦]

And P.S. Frater Domus All was not always agreement and harmony between the Apostles. You asked for advice. We have been trying to give it. Unity is not always the #1 goal. The truth is. If you get upset by people having disagreements here, you may very well be upset again if you start another string on a controversial topic. In fact, you can count on it.

No there wasn't always unity, but how did they solve that? They held a Church council and collectively decided what would be the proper teaching- and they tell us that the Holy Spirit influenced them as a group.

Then they collectively submitted to the decision and the Church remained one.