Aineo wrote:preacherintraining wrote:Alpha wrote:webmaster wrote:preacherintraining wrote:Hopefully those reading this will see that I have made it plain that baptism is not a command you can choose to obey.
Nobody has said you are to disobey it.
But if you accept Jesus in a church on Wednesday night and you plan on being baptized on Sunday morning, but die on Thursday driving to work, are you still saved? That is the point.
This is what I was trying to tell him. He who has ears, let him hear. Try to understand what webmaster just posted instead of using hazy generalites. Jesus always taught us to discern things. Not just accept it. God wants us to use our minds.
I said I wouldn't post anymore, but if you accept Jesus on Wednesday night, why not get baptized on Wednesday night?
Why don't you ask churches that question. Every SBC church I attended baptized once or twice a month and
before you could be baptized all new members and believers were required to attend a 7 week study on what it means to be a Christian, in other words they start the discipling process prior to baptism. Baptisms were also scheduled for Wednesday night services so that Sunday services would not go beyond 12 PM. I have never attended a church of any denomination that baptized immediately upon a profession of faith in Christ.
My Presbyterian minister great grandfather baptized me when I was 10. Since Baptists don't accept sprinkling when I joined an SBC church they required I be immersed. The scheduled baptism was postponed twice because the heaters in the baptismal font were broken and the pastors didn't want to get in the cold water.
Baptism is a command, but it is not a prerequisite to salvation.
BTW, your example of soldiers being baptized in Iraq, a short war with relatively few casualties in no way compares to Viet Nam, WW I and WW II where taking the time to find a river or digging a whole would have cost you and others their lives.