Child Evangelism/Baptism

[biscuit1953]

Justin Peters: “If you baptize a child before he’s truly converted then as he grows up he’s going to look back [and say] ‘well I was baptized when I was 7 or 8 years old; you know when I prayed the sinner’s prayer but there’s been no conversion’...you’re creating a factory of false converts.”

“If you were a typical 8-year-old child making a profession of faith in an Evangelical Church...if that child does believe intellectually because that’s the worldview in which he’s raised but if you were to take that same child and raise that child in Japan, he’d be a Buddhist...I would say generally speaking a young child, babies, young children, they’re born with a sin nature but they don’t truly understand that when they disobey mommy and daddy that they are sinning against a thrice holy God.”

This is a subject that is very controversial among Christians but I believe Justin Peters is on the right track. When I was 10 years old sitting on the front pew on a Wednesday night in a Southern Baptist Church, the preacher told everyone who was saved to raise their hands. He pointed at me from the pulpit and said, “are you saved?” I shook my head no so he brought me down to the altar, led me in a sinner’s prayer and shortly after that I was baptized in a local river. I believed everything about Jesus, heaven and hell, and all the fundamentals of the faith, and for the next several years I convinced myself I was saved because I prayed a prayer and was baptized, but the only problem was, I could lie and steal among other things with no conviction whatsoever. I had no desire to live for God and Jesus was merely an insurance policy to keep me out of hell.

For the next several years I continued to go to church but when 18 years old as a bag boy at a supermarket (1971), someone left a gospel tract in a flower pot which I picked up and put in my pocket. I went home and read that tract and great conviction came over me like I had never had before and I suddenly realized that I wasn’t ready to meet God. After a week or two of sleepless nights I finally came to the point of true repentance and faith in the finished work of Christ and my life was radically changed. I don’t believe everyone has to have the same experience I had, and some may not even know exactly when saving faith came to them, but anyone who has been born again will experience a change in attitude toward sin and Jesus will be precious to them. I believe there is a lot of flippancy in child evangelism and much care must be taken when dealing with children.

 

[Baptist Renegade]

Good insight here. Yes, we are often way too quick to get our kids "dunked" and for many growing up in church, this is a rite of passage no different than the sacramentalism of the Roman Catholic Church (First Communion, Confirmation, Etc.) where you "check the box" and say I done that. In many cases, kids go forward, profess Christ, and get dunked out of "peer pressure" and this is not a good thing either.

It is almost like Justin Peters is saying to wait until they become adults and I am not certain of this either. Seems like we are jumping to the other end of the extreme?

We baptize maybe once or twice a year and those who are baptized need to go through a baptism class that is taught by the pastor and he is very thorough in his approach making sure that they have a clear testimony and are aware of what they are doing. It is mainly adults and older teenagers getting baptized. No young kids.

 

[Ekklesian]

Anything said in the video could be applied to an adult who is converted. In fact, I'm more inclined to believe the testimony of a young child than I am that of an adult.

But we're not the judges.

Suffer the little children to come to Him, and forbid them not.

 

[sword]

I think the younger the child the more time that needs to be spent making sure they understand and if they seem to not really understand then one should wait until they can understand better.

On the other hand I believe if they can understand they are a sinner, and understand God puts a penalty on sin, and that penility is death and eternity in Hell that's step one.
Number two if they can understand the gospel, that Jesus came to this earth, lived a sinless life and paid our price for Heaven then they are clearly a candidate.
Third if they are sorry for their sins, and sincerly desire him to come into their heart, forgive them of their sins and take them to Heaven when they die he will.

In some ways it may seem complicated, but actually it is very simple and a child may or may not understand.

A heavy responsibility is on us to be clear with whoever we may talk to and to be sure they fully understand.

Lastly, I think it becomes our responsibility to get them in a good church and to grow. This may take a lot of time, but I believe its our responsibility.

 

[Ransom]

Our previous children's pastor baptized younger children occasionally (i.e. under 10). When he did, he would ask them some basic questions to see whether they had an adequate understanding of faith, and also also have their parents on stage and asked them whether their children came to this decision on their own.

Nothing's perfect, of course, but weeding out some kids who were being coached by their parents into doing something they didn't properly understand, is better than none.

 

[Ekklesian]

How Baptists seem to read Matthew 19:14...

Suffer not the little children to come to me, and forbid them.​

​

or

The children may come to me if they first suffer an inquisition. ​

 

[Ransom]

Why can't baptism be like in the olden days?

When new Christians were catechized for years before being permitted to be baptized or participate in the Eucharist, so as to minimize the risk of falling away.

 

[Ekklesian]

Why can't baptism be like in the olden days?

When new Christians were catechized for years before being permitted to be baptized or participate in the Eucharist, so as to minimize the risk of falling away.

LOL, because that's not what it was like in the even older days as recorded in the Scriptures.

 

[biscuit1953]

LOL, because that's not what it was like in the even older days as recorded in the Scriptures.

“The language of Salvation in the New Testament is rather adult sounding language. Deny yourself. How many little kids do you know who deny themselves? How many adults for that matter do you know who deny themselves and take up the cross? When Jesus said take up the cross 2,000 years ago, people knew what he meant. Jesus was calling for death; death to self and maybe even physical death. Paul said, ‘When I was a child I used to think like a child but now that I’ve become a man I’ve done away with childish things.’ There’s a difference between how children think and how more mature at least teenagers to adults think.”

I think what Justin Peters is saying has merit. I grew up listening to sermons on hell and I remember at the age of 4 or 5 thinking about the subject and would even ask my mother if children died because it was such a scary subject. In my mind if I had to die my thought was all I had to do was call out for my mother and she would save me. I didn’t understand the work of Christ on the cross and the substitutionary atonement even though I did believe in Jesus and sang songs about him. Being baptized is for many including adults nothing more than a ritual. My neighbor who is a Church of Christ minister believes I am going to hell because I wasn’t baptized by a minister in his church.

It comes down to this. No one can come to Christ on his own. It is the Spirit through the scriptures that draw us to the Savior. At ten years of age I was under no conviction of sin when I went down to that altar and prayed that prayer but I was religious and became a false convert. At 18 years of age through a gospel tract God brought me under a strong sense of condemnation and I realized my church membership and baptism meant nothing as far as salvation was concerned. The night I fell down on my knees and cried out for Jesus to save me, trusting only in Him and what he did on the cross is the first time in my life I had a peace in my soul about dying that I had never had before. I was born again with new desires. The very next day I went to school (my senior year) and immediately wanted to tell everyone I was saved and started handing out gospel tracts. Everyone has different mental abilities to understand things at different ages. This is a serious subject and when dealing with children we should take careful thought when counseling them. I don’t believe it should be rushed.

 

[Ekklesian]

...and what part of and forbid them not is so hard to understand?

 

[biscuit1953]

...and what part of and forbid them not is so hard to understand?

This is from someone who believes if an infant refuses to repent and believe the gospel will burn in hell for eternity for the sin Adam committed.

 

[sword]

Why can't baptism be like in the olden days?

When new Christians were catechized for years before being permitted to be baptized or participate in the Eucharist, so as to minimize the risk of falling away.

Most examples I recall in the bible they were baptised the same day. I guess back then if you were willing to take a public stand and get baptised and face all the public consequences the church assumes you were for real.

 

[sword]

Our previous children's pastor baptized younger children occasionally (i.e. under 10). When he did, he would ask them some basic questions to see whether they had an adequate understanding of faith, and also also have their parents on stage and asked them whether their children came to this decision on their own.

Nothing's perfect, of course, but weeding out some kids who were being coached by their parents into doing something they didn't properly understand, is better than none.

this seems very reasonable. some effort should always me made to be sure they fully understand and have truely trusted in jesus for salvation not just repeaded a few lines.

 

[Ekklesian]

This is from someone who believes if an infant refuses to repent and believe the gospel will burn in hell for eternity for the sin Adam committed.

Correction: from one who understands that faith is a spiritual gift and exercise, and that the spirit of an infant is not an infant itself.

But you didn't answer the question.

 

[Ransom]

Most examples I recall in the bible they were baptised the same day. I guess back then if you were willing to take a public stand and get baptised and face all the public consequences the church assumes you were for real.

That was basically it. They were concerned about people falling away, and there was even a debate about whether someone who had backslidden could really repent and return to genuine faith. The upshot was that by the fourth century, it wasn't an uncommon practice to delay a Christian's baptism until he was on his deathbed. Augustine got sick as a youth and was almost baptized, until they realized he was going to pull through: "My cleansing was deferred on the assumption that, if I lived, I would be sure to soil myself; and after that solemn washing the guilt would be greater and more dangerous if I then defiled myself with sins" (Confessions I.17).

They were also concerned with false professors infiltrating the church to rat on them, and so they were extra careful not to confer the sacraments on people too soon.

I think there's a reasonable middle ground. The recurring pattern in the Bible is that new converts were baptized almost immediately, as you point out; at the same time, there's wisdom in properly instructing them and then baptizing them once you are assured they understand what they are being baptized into, mitigating the chance of them falling away from the faith, or as we often see in fundamentalist circles, being baptized multiple times because their faith was so weak they weren't sure it was genuine. Baptism is the visible initiation into the New Covenant; it doesn't do any good to baptize someone who proves they aren't in the covenant, or to cast doubt on the perseverance of the saints by suggesting they are in, then out, then in, then out, then in again...

 

[Ekklesian]

In the zeal to combat the 'sacramental' view of the rite of baptism, it seems to me that Evangelicals swung too far into an equal and opposite error. Baptism isn't the mere 'public tesimony of an inward reality.' It is the rite by which we identify with the death and burial of Jesus Christ.

Where the circumstances are adverse, it can be done only in the company of the one baptizing.

There is only one prerequisite to baptism, and that is the child-like confession of faith in Christ as the Son of God (Acts 8:37). It's as simple as that. There is a lifetime of plumbing the depths of that confession to follow, but no deeper knowledge is required.

How much do you think the Apostles understood when John baptized them?

It's not you that has to be satisfied that someone's faith is real. Look at where that error took the church in Augustine's day. It is only upon you to obey.

 

[Justice1976]

I think children can be saved at a very young age and if they are, they should be baptized.

But here's the other side of that issue and it's my testimony. When I was eight or nine years old, I walked an aisle at church at the invitation and made a "profession of faith." A few weeks later I got baptized. I did it because all of the other kids at the church were and I thought I should do it as well. Obviously, that isn't the real reason anyone should do that.

When I was fifteen, I fell under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that I was lost and needed Christ as my Savior. Something that didn't occur when I was younger. I made another profession of faith and was baptized again. That's the real one.

It's all a personal thing. I wasn't ready when I was young, but I believe others are. Those in church ministries should be EXTRA diligent to ensure that youngsters are thinking for themselves and understand what they are doing.

 

[abcaines]

When I was fifteen, I fell under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that I was lost and needed Christ as my Savior. Something that didn't occur when I was younger. I made another profession of faith and was baptized again. That's the real one.

BOOM! You've nailed it! Nobody and I mean NOBODY experiences a genuine conversion without a work of the Holy Spirit.

My testimony is not unlike yours, only, I believe my first profession of faith is the one when I truly converted. I can look back on it and recognize the Holy Spirit's work in opening my eyes to the gospel message. Even though my life didn't exhibit immediate outward change, inwardly, there was conviction and an openness to the Word that had not been present before. My first baptism was based on that profession. However, once I began receiving sound biblical teaching, the joy and outward changes began to take place. I questioned my first profession and decided that it would be good to be baptized again, "just in case". As I became more familiar with the work of the Holy Spirit, I realized I was indeed a believer from the earlier profession.

Either way, a work was done in my heart that only the Holy Spirit can accomplish in both instances.