WAB said:
tlf... hate to have to post this, but there is so much supposition included in your recent dialogues with Schroeder et al, that I feel obligated to point out that you went from quoting clear Scripture early on, to quoting the ideas of men, as if they were equivalent.
Hi WAB
Actually, when we quote scripture to each other, we aren't really only relying on scripture, we are relying on
INTERPRETATIONS OF scripture. Our own, or someone elses. How correct that interpretation is directly correlates to how correct our understanding is.
Think it through with me a little more here.
When we read the bible, as marvelous as it is, we are reading words on a page.
The way we were created, the way our brains are hard wired, everything we take in through our senses, including the words on a page through our eyes, the brian has to decode and interprete.
First it has to decode the symbols that are on the page, the letters, making sense of their placement and goupings, Then it has to decode the words, phrases, sentences, etc . . .
Then it has to interpret what is being said . . Is it literal? Symbolic? Is it in jest? Serious? What is really being said?
Part of this interpretive process is to determine to the best of our ability who said it and what did
THEY mean by
their words? How did
THEY intend
THEIR words to be undersstood?
Now . . I am going to say something next that might shock you, but after giving it serious consideration over many months a few years ago I had to come to the inescapable conclusion it was, indeed, true . . . so bear with me rather than react.
The scriptures were never meant to stand by themselves.
Think this through with me further.
Who were the NT scriptures written to?
They were written to Christians, those
ALREADY brought into the faith, those
ALREADY born again . . .
Those who had
ALREADY been brought into the faith, who had
ALREADY been born again
had ALREADY been taught by the Apostles and those they ordained to do the same, such as Timothy, the basic, foundational truths of the Chirstian faith.
In other words, the the actual,
in person teaching of the Apostles
LAID the FOUNDATION of the Christian faith in their lives,
BEFORE any letters or Gospels or anything else in the NT had been written.
So what were the purposes of the NT books?
The Gospels were to record the life and teachings of Jesus - gospel genre
Acts was an histoircal book . . a historical genre
The Epistles were written to encourage, exhort, correct, elaborate upon what was already taught - the epistle genre
Revelation was the only apocalyptic genre in the NT
None of these books were written to those who
needed the foundational truths of the Christian faith taught.
These books were written
to those who already had been taught the foundational truths of the Christian faith.
This is extremely important to understand when one approaches the NT scriptures.
If you look at the Old Testament, the Pentatuch, the first 5 books include very detailed instructions of the Judaic religion. . . those instructions are the foundational teachings of Judaism. It is laid out like a map -an insructional manual for Judaism 101.
When God started the Old Covenant and Judaism, He gave them WRITTEN instructions from the start.
There is no counterpart for it in the NT.
Everything written in the New Testament was written
AFTER the detailed instructions on the Christian faith were given by the Apostles to the Church.
The foundation of the Christian faith was laid, in person, by the Apostles.
The epistles were written not to lay the foundation again, but to
BUILD UPON that foundation already laid!
So, rather than concern themselves with giving us a clear, detailed, step by step Christianity 1010, like we have in the OT for Judaism, they
ASSUME that those reading the NT books have
already recieved the
FOUNDATIONAL INSTRUCTION given by the Aposltes, and so there is
NO NEED to lay it again!
True, there are places in the epsitles where the writers had to deal with those who needed to be
CORRECTED regarding some foundational truth,
but there was no attempt to relay the entire foundation, and mostly what they wrote about
BUILT ON the foundation already laid
IN PERSON.
So . . these books, especially the epistles,
ASSUME that the one readng them has
ALREADY BEEN TAUGHT the
fundamentals of the Chrsitian faith!
This concept is extremely important to understand.
If one doesn't understand this, then one looks to the NT books to provide for Christians what the OT pentatuch does in its instruction manual for Judaism, and it just isn't there.
So, I go back to what I said earlier . . .
The scriptures were never meant to stand by themselves.
They were meant to be understood looking at them
form the perspective of the foundation laid by the Apostles.
How do we do that today?
One of the ways is to look at how the Early Church taught, lived, practiced their faith.
One of the ways to do that is to turn to the archeological evidence that shows us clearly how they did so.
When it comes to understanding what the scriptures really have to say about baptism, and whether or not the Apostles taught that we are to be baptized in water, the archeological evidence, such as what I provided above, helps to make that clear.
The scriptures were not written in a vacuum. They were written to specific people, with specific needs in mind, and need to be understood in that light.
To
ingore the historical context the writing of these books was set in, what the writers assumed about those they were writing too (ie that they already had been taught the fundational truths of the Christian faith), is
to open wide the door of error in understanding the scriptures today.
So, when you say I have turned from the words of scripture to the words of men, and that this is an error, no . . its not an error.
It is
essential that we understand what the Early Christians understood, for if we don't, then we are divorcing ourselves from the very context needed to understand the scriptures as they were intended to be understood by those who wrote them.
Will address only one issue in this post to keep it as brief as possible, but it should be enough to show that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump."
In the above quotes by de Rossi, and Marucchi, when one looks at the admittedly large "cisterns" and the depth of water therein, there is no reason to assume the necessity of such large amounts of water to baptize by sprinkling or pouring.
Eighteen square feet in surface area by three feet deep is hardly necessary for sprinkling.
In addition, where in any history of Christian burial does one find the corpse in a "squatting" position? After all, baptism does signify the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ; so... why could not the recipient of the baptism be laid prostrate on their backs in the water? Seems to me that would illustrate burial in an even more literal fashion than baptism by immersion (which I certainly believe is Scriptural) as it is carried out today.
Did you read the link? They speak of the East as well, which used the method you advocate.
The purpose of giving the article was not to show one is better than the other . . but to demonstrate that WATER BAPTISM was the NORM for the EARLIEST Christians.
That the WEST did it a litle differently than the EAST is not the point of why I shared that link.
Even de Rossi uses language that gives him a way out when he says: "it is almost certain ....that this was the mode of baptism employed..."
He is
NOT qualifying anything about whether or not water baptism was the
NORM, but
HOW water baptism was performed in the
WEST.
PLEASE understand what the link was presented for and what it
was not presented for.
You have taken it off on a tangent I did not intend.
Just one more point. To adhere to the belief that infant baptism is equivalent to being born-again, as the RCC declares, is totally contrary to Scripture. You will not find one Scripture that teaches that doctrine.
Again, what we are dealing with, when we throw scripture back and forth to each other, are
INTERPRETATIONS OF scripture.
Again, to know whether we are, today, correctly interpreting scripture being divorced in time and space and culture and langauge from those who wrote them and those to whom they were written, we
HAVE to go back to the Early Church to discover how
THEY understood these doctrines . . . Did
THEY believe and teach and perform infant baptism?
Yes, they did.
And, by the way, nfant baptism is
not a Protestant/RCC issue . .
It is a
PROTESTANT/PROTESTANT issue . .
In addition, how about the multiple thousands upon thousands (probably millions) of those who were sprinkled as infants and then went on to live lives that were in every respect against the Scriptures, and died unrepentant. Do you really think they go to heaven?
No.
Here we are touching on salvation . . . if one sees salvation as a one time event ASSURNING one of heaven no matter how they live, then one does not have the same belief taught by the Apostles and held to by the Early Chirstians.
If one understands that salvation is a process, that one enters onto the path of salvation with the New Birth, then one can also understand that one has the freedom of will to leave that path if one so chooses.
Heaven is not promised us simply because we are born again.
Heaven is promised to those who PERSERVERE.
One can be born again and not enter heaven because of their own choice to walk away.
The members of the Italian Mafia come to mind.
Straw man.
Nevertheless... May you enter into that state of peace that only He can give... WAB
Thank you WAB. The peace God has given me is indeed what only He can give.
May God keep you in His Peace.
Peace
