Further, John's baptism is clearly not proselyte baptism. He was baptizing Jews. His baptism was a typical symbolic prophetic act meant to illustrate his call to repentance. And the imagery he is importing is that of the red sea crossing. Paul makes the connection between the red sea and baptism in 1 Cor 10 and treats it as an obvious fact. I don't think the point was lost on John's multitudes. Like Moses, John was calling ALL the people (including the children of course!) out into the wilderness to pass through the water. Did he mean to analyze each individual and determine if they were genuinely repentant? No, of course not. Even if he wanted to disciple those multitudes it would have been impossible. In the likeness of those who crossed the red sea, some would inherit the kingdom and some would die in the wilderness. Some would pass through into judgment and some into life, just as some passed through the sea into life (faithful Israel) and some passed through the sea into death (unfaithful Israel). The relevant point here though is that children passed through the sea with their parents, and John would have known that, and so would not and could not have hesitated to baptize an infant in his call to repentance.

Further, John’s baptism is clearly not proselyte baptism. He was baptizing Jews. His baptism was a typical symbolic prophetic act meant to illustrate his call to repentance. And the imagery he is importing is that of the red sea crossing. Paul makes the connection between the red sea and baptism in 1 Cor 10 and treats it as an obvious fact. I don’t think the point was lost on John’s multitudes. Like Moses, John was calling ALL the people (including the children of course!) out into the wilderness to pass through the water. Did he mean to analyze each individual and determine if they were genuinely repentant? No, of course not. Even if he wanted to disciple those multitudes it would have been impossible. In the likeness of those who crossed the red sea, some would inherit the kingdom and some would die in the wilderness. Some would pass through into judgment and some into life, just as some passed through the sea into life (faithful Israel) and some passed through the sea into death (unfaithful Israel). The relevant point here though is that children passed through the sea with their parents, and John would have known that, and so would not and could not have hesitated to baptize an infant in his call to repentance.

Further, John's baptism is clearly not proselyte baptism. He was baptizing Jews. His baptism was a typical symbolic prophetic act meant to illustrate his call to repentance. And the imagery he is importing is that of the red sea crossing. Paul makes the connection between the red sea and baptism in 1 Cor 10 and treats it as an obvious fact. I don't think the point was lost on John's multitudes. Like Moses, John was calling ALL the people (including the children of course!) out into the wilderness to pass through the water. Did he mean to analyze each individual and determine if they were genuinely repentant? No, of course not. Even if he wanted to disciple those multitudes it would have been impossible. In the likeness of those who crossed the red sea, some would inherit the kingdom and some would die in the wilderness. Some would pass through into judgment and some into life, just as some passed through the sea into life (faithful Israel) and some passed through the sea into death (unfaithful Israel). The relevant point here though is that children passed through the sea with their parents, and John would have known that, and so would not and could not have hesitated to baptize an infant in his call to repentance.

1) Being brought up baptist doesn’t mean you understand all the theology behind the idea of a “believer’s baptism.”
2) I really doubt most readers here are baptist. I’m a Mennonite (which is really a very different sort of thing than a baptist). I’m not sure what tradition our co-editor Kim is, but I know that Mike is Methodist. Our readers are very diverse.
3) I really find it interesting that you think paedobaptism is such a no-brainer. Is it really THAT cut-and-dried in your favor? And is it really as prevalent as PACIFISM? Really?

I’m a pretty informed guy. The assumption that paedobaptism is the norm is based upon the practice of household baptism. But there are only a couple instances of this recorded and it isn’t really that spelled out what it entailed.

My basic take is this: for John, baptism was a cermonial washing ritual signifying repentance. Almost every scholar I’ve ever read would tend to rule children out on this one. In later accounts, we read of baptism being linked with repentance. Any sort of system that assumes children were baptized are building an argument of silence. Every other instance ties baptism with repentance and the actual accounts only specifically mention adults.

So the claim that paedobaptism is simply a cut-and-dried case of good praxis (like nonviolence) is a really huge claim, man. I’m not saying that paedobaptism is unbiblical. But I am saying it doesn’t just fall from the Scriptures as an assumed, ready-formed practice.

To me, the face value of the accounts lends itself to believer’s baptism. But I think theology plays into where one lands on this. And that’s fine. From my perspective, it all comes down to how one integrates the old and new covenants.

Anyway, I see you have changed the praxis article to a new one, so I’ll take that as a hint that we are done with this subject. I hope I didn’t distract too much from Jason’s excellent article.

1) Being brought up baptist doesn't mean you understand all the theology behind the idea of a “believer's baptism.”
2) I really doubt most readers here are baptist. I'm a Mennonite (which is really a very different sort of thing than a baptist). I'm not sure what tradition our co-editor Kim is, but I know that Mike is Methodist. Our readers are very diverse.
3) I really find it interesting that you think paedobaptism is such a no-brainer. Is it really THAT cut-and-dried in your favor? And is it really as prevalent as PACIFISM? Really?

I'm a pretty informed guy. The assumption that paedobaptism is the norm is based upon the practice of household baptism. But there are only a couple instances of this recorded and it isn't really that spelled out what it entailed.

My basic take is this: for John, baptism was a cermonial washing ritual signifying repentance. Almost every scholar I've ever read would tend to rule children out on this one. In later accounts, we read of baptism being linked with repentance. Any sort of system that assumes children were baptized are building an argument of silence. Every other instance ties baptism with repentance and the actual accounts only specifically mention adults.

So the claim that paedobaptism is simply a cut-and-dried case of good praxis (like nonviolence) is a really huge claim, man. I'm not saying that paedobaptism is unbiblical. But I am saying it doesn't just fall from the Scriptures as an assumed, ready-formed practice.

To me, the face value of the accounts lends itself to believer's baptism. But I think theology plays into where one lands on this. And that's fine. From my perspective, it all comes down to how one integrates the old and new covenants.

Anyway, I see you have changed the praxis article to a new one, so I'll take that as a hint that we are done with this subject. I hope I didn't distract too much from Jason's excellent article.

The ana-baptists, like the baptists and others today may think they are rejecting infant baptism on biblical grounds, but I guess I think they need to re-evaluate their intellectual commitments. Exclusive believer’s baptism is not biblical. It’s a 16th century novelty rooted in extra-biblical assumptions about human reason and an admittedly justified detestation of catholics and other protestants.