One In Jesus

The kingdom of heaven is like a man, who trained for years to run the Olympic 400-meter race, and whose hamstring failed, making it impossible not only to win the race, but even to finish. For I tell you that when a runner is broken and fallen, the runner’s father will rescue him and carry him over the finish line — and the crowds will stand and cheer the heroism and devotion and love of both father and son.

And I tell you that there will be men who know the rules and who know that it’s against the rules for a father to carry his son over the finish line and who would keep the father from carrying his son — because it breaks the rules.

But it is far better to be broken, fallen, and lifted up than to be perfectly healthy and standing in the father’s way.

In the Olympics the rules matter. They aren’t the only things that matter. Sometimes those disqualified from the race receive even more cheers than those who can finish on their own.

Guy asked,

But where’s the bottom? At what point is it not a baptism at all? If there’s no bottom, then no one really needs baptized at all. Because if everything’s a baptism to some degree, then nothing is.

It’s a legitimate question, but not a question that I create. After all, the Churches of Christ have wrestled with and divided over exactly this issue for over 100 years: Where is the bottom? No one gets to escape the question. Continue reading →

Perfect baptism

Does God require a perfect faith to save someone? Or a perfect penitence? Then why on earth would he require perfect baptism when faith and penitence are are of the essence?

There’s a strain of thought in 20th Century Church of Christ thought that selectively insists on perfection in certain matters, while denying the need for perfection in others.

We can be imperfect in our love for our neighbors and still go to heaven — so long as we aren’t rebelling against God, of course. But we’d better have 5 and exactly 5 acts of worship on Sunday morning, or else we’re going straight to hell. So evidently perfection is not required for the most important things — like love — but is required for acts of obedience found in the silences of the scriptures. It’s a devilish, double standard. Continue reading →

JMF asked,

1) Jay—

Functionally, how would we go about asking if one had received the Spirit? As you said in your book, there are atheists that blow us away in ways that look like Spirit fruit.

JMF,

That’s a very good question. I’ve thought a lot about it over the years. Here’s how I see it. Continue reading →

Guy said,

(1) The Ephesian disciples would know they received the Spirit because when Paul laid his hands on them, they prophesied and spoke in tongues.

That’s entirely true, but it’s not the only way to know whether someone has the Spirit.

(2) i don’t see why you must conclude from the text that Paul’s question was the test of a valid conversion. Those disciples may have been in the same situation as those of Samaria in Acts 8 who had been baptized but not received the Spirit who needed the laying on of the apostles’ hands. Paul being an apostle was in a position to give this to these men in Ephesus if they didn’t already have it.

I disagree. Paul didn’t ask whether they’d received miraculous gifts of the Spirit. He asked whether they’d received the Spirit. And all saved people (and only saved people) have the Spirit. Continue reading →

Infant baptism

Now, the other place where the Churches of Christ (and Baptists) disagree with most of the rest of Christianity is in the acceptability of infant baptism (even if performed by immersion). I don’t want to re-walk well-worn ground, other than to summarize what the readers surely already know.

Those opposed to infant baptism argue — Continue reading →