Tuesday, April 22, 2008

A letter

I wrote this letter to my step-dad concerning infant baptism. He sent me an email that contained a debate between 2 people, a baptist and a catholic. it will be an on going debate that i will keep you updated on. but for now, here you go. please feel free to give me any thoughts about the topic. i'd like to discuss this


hey bill


I've been trying to figure out why i never felt right about infant baptism. this priest in the letter makes it very clear that we have to be reborn of the spirit because the spirit births spirit, and no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they accept Christ as their savior and are baptized with water.However, i honestly don't see the validity in there is no concrete evidence that says either way. i'm still studying it, but i know that to enter the kingdom of God, you have to first make a conscience decision to accept his gift of grace. then baptism. never in the bible does it go the other way around.

Acts 8:13 "Simon himself believed and was baptized"
Mark 16:16 "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned"

and on many cases, it even mentions them confessing their sins and then getting baptised

Mark 1:5 "The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River"
Matthew 3:6 "Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River"

a child is not conscience of such a thing, and therefor could not do step 1 to get to step 2. But then we get to the next question which is;
"when is a child able to understand to accept God's love and grace?"

why this is important is obvious, because this series of questions can be unraveled from this, eg; how old do they have to be for God to ignore the fact that they are incapable grasping this concept? this goes for mentally challenged people as well. so then i simply go back to this verse.

1 Samuel 2:3 “Stop acting so proud and haughty! Don’t speak with such arrogance! For the Lord is a God who knows what you have done; he will judge your actions."

God is the ultimate judge. he will judge everyone, and i know that we baptize because we feel we need to do anything we can to save our children. But we can only do so much on our own. the truth is, is that we can't save our kids from the pit of eternal darkness. by taking it into our own hands to "save them" we are robbing God the glory and bringing a sense of humanism to it.

i understand that saving someone like this is not meant to be selfish, but when we skip the part where someone needs to accept Jesus into their life and just tossing water on them, we really truly are. its putting our decision in front of theirs.

i know you understand this Bill, and you also understand how tricky of a topic this is.
there are other things i'd like to discuss with you concerning this letter, but i would like to know your honest opinion about this. what do you believe as far as babies and hell are concerned

love
luke

p.s. i've been trying to understand this one verse. i know it seems like it's taken out of context, and that's why i did not use it, but the Lord is speaking, and i'd like to know what he means by "and the little ones that you said would be taken captive". this whole section is talking about seeing the promised land, but he gives the promised land to the children despite their age, and clearly defines them as not knowing right from wrong. the same things that kept people form entering the promised land (no faith in God) are the same things that keep them from entering heaven. it even mentions how they were afraid that their kids would not enter because of the soldiers and whatnot, and afraid that they will die. Death was used very often in the bible as a symbol for hell.

so i know its a stretch, but i'm studying that entire passage right now, and trying to find more information on this topic

Deuteronomy 1:39 "I will give the land to your little ones—your innocent children. You were afraid they would be captured, but they will be the ones who occupy it"

Friday, April 11, 2008

Well here we go

Hello everyone!

I've survived 3 days in London so far, and the jet lag is slowly wearing off. Well, i guess it's taking it's time considering it's 2am over here and I am wide awake.

We hung out with an old friend of mine who works at this amazing church here in Waterloo. The church's website is

www.Church.co.uk/Waterloo

He was very encouraging and we've decided to make that our home church for our stay here. It's a great church full of excellent people, and I am excited to be a part of it.

Our orientation for school is tomorrow night, so we'll see how everything goes with that, and I'll fill you all in on how my week to week will be like!

Thank you again for all your support, and please keep us in your prayers.
-Luke

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

I have arrived!!

Well I'm here in London! The shock of being in another country hasn't quite settled in yet, but I have this strange feeling that tomorrow will be a big shock when I wake up. The plane ride was extremely long, so I'm about to go to bed. I will have plenty of time tomorrow, so I'll go into more detail on the next post.

Thank you everyone for all your support! I honestly could not be here right now if it wasn't for the incredible group of friends and family that I have in my life. I can't thank you enough, and want you to know that with all my heart, I am grateful.

Until tomorrow
-Luke