The Biblical Case for Covenant Baptism [Introduction]

As promised a month ago, I would come back and attempt fill in the details of our transition to a paedobaptist position. In the last post I explained the historical progression of our understanding, but did not give much in terms of biblical explanation. I assured my readers that I came to my conclusion based on submission to the biblical text as I understood it, and I hope my readers knowledge of my commitment to biblical fidelity gave them the faith needed to take me by my word: that I indeed had scriptural reasons - although we may now and in the future disagree on the hermeneutics behind them.

I’ve taken a month for several reasons. The obvious being that I’m a pretty busy guy. The second is that I’ve been brainstorming - how in the world do I cover such a vast topic on a blog post?

I’ve decided that I’ll need to post a series of posts over an indeterminate period of time. That is why I’ll titled my posts “The Biblical Case for Covenant Baptism [y of x]”, where y is the current post in the series, and x is the number of total blog posts, which is and will remain currently unknown until the end of the series!

Feedback requested!

I hope to use the feedback provided by my many baptist readers to guide future posts. I know you’re out there! Give me feedback, privately through email, or through posting here. Hopefully I can sufficiently answer your questions or comments.

It should go without saying that I am in no way an expert, and given the medium will not be able to cover every scripture that speaks to the topic of baptism and the People of God. I will at times recommend books on the matter under discussion for further reading.

Why am I doing this?

Like Social Security reform is the “third rail” of politics, no doubt baptism is the “third rail” of theology! Such passion on both sides! Why touch this topic? Why approach such a controversial subject myself, let alone stir the pot in such a public way? Am I bringing this up in a haughty manner, throwing it in my baptist friends faces, trying to make them look stupid for not understanding my supposedly “sophisticated understanding” of the bible? God forbid! I have attempted, and will continue to, approach this delicate subject with as much charity and gentleness as I can! Please do not let my direct writing style persuade you to think I am being disrespectful or believe that I’ve “arrived”.

I recognize the huge shift that our family has taken, and it would be beneficial to document this change. It’s such a change that I believe that I owe a public explanation of our rationale to our friends and family. I hope the series will act not only as a defense of the covenant baptism position, but my prayer is that a charitable dialog on the scripture will serve to promote unity and fellowship in the body of Christ.

At the end of the series, we may still disagree. But I hope you will approach this with charity and an open mind. If infant baptism were true, would you want to know? Would anything change your mind? If the answers are no, then I pray you’ll be more open to what has been a majority position of most of the church for two thousand years. To not even be open to a historically orthodox position is, in and of itself, a proud and dangerous position.

From my years as a Baptist, I can say from my personal experience that I never, ever spent any time to truly understand the Covenantal position. If I did look into it, it was from a superficial level, usually being explained by someone who didn’t believe it! I don’t think I’m alone in my experience. So in the name of iron sharpening iron, join me in examining the scriptures with an open mind. Let me warn you, paradigm shifts are painful.

At the end of the series, I hope you will at least not count me among the heretics, and will at least drop the unhelpful, uncharitable rhetoric like “It’s just not in the bible” and “It’s a relic of the Pope”, and instead say, “Well, I still don’t agree for whatever reason, but it’s at least a well thought out position, with a robust biblical foundation and grid behind it.”

There you have it - I’ve run out of time again, and still no scripture! :) I’ve done enough in terms of introduction, I will dive in next time!