Notes From Jon

A couple of weeks ago, a good friend of ours from Birmingham passed away – Alan Roper.  I was asked to speak at the funeral, but since I had other commitments, I wasn’t able to go.  Instead, I sent a video.  This is a transcript of that video, plus some content I had to edit out to make the video shorter.

If you don’t know Alan, this won’t mean a thing to you, and you can wait for the next post.  This is my tribute to a good friend who loved music, loved his church, and loved being a Baptist.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’m long overdue for quite a few posts, and now that I’m on “vacation” of sorts, I’m glad to be able to get some up!

This first one includes some documents I wrote in the first part of 2007 regarding baptism by immersion.  For those of you who aren’t Baptist (and maybe even for some who are), it has been a long-standing Baptist practice to require anyone who wants to join a Baptist church to be baptized by immersion.  Most will still accept someone who was immersed somewhere else – though there are a few who want you to be baptized in THEIR particular church.  If you were baptized by other methods – sprinkling, pouring, etc. – then you have to be re-baptized in the “proper” way.

I had long disagreed with this practice, but never had a chance to figure out why.  Then in late 2006, when the church began discussing changes to our bylaws, a few other church members asked if we would consider changing this policy.  It led me to do a LOT of research on the practice, and to draw some conclusions of my own.

The documents are linked here in two PDF files – one is a LONG version, that goes into detail of the history of baptism, original words used to describe baptism in the New Testament, and argument based on other biblical principles.  The other is a shortened version that uses that research to answer some of the common defenses given for the practice of re-baptism.

Feel free to use these for your own study – and I look forward to your comments!

baptism-and-immersion-long-version (PDF)

baptism-and-immersion-question-answer (PDF)