What
follows is an edited list of the questions that we received by e-mails and
excerpts of the scriptural answers:
Why
do have so little room for tolerating the way other people want to
worship?
I think you misinterpret
our motives. I believe in
religious freedom. What we
are discussing here is what the scriptures say.
If you want to worship an idol made of stone, I believe you have a
right to do so, at least in America.
What I object to is being told that because I don’t believe that
your worship of that idol is fruitful and because I don’t believe that
worshiping that idol will get you to heaven that I am some how the bad
guy. Why should anyone that
believes that all religions are okay have a problem with a religion that
does not believe all religions are okay?
That sounds hypocritical to me.
I believe 2 Timothy 3:16-17. I
put it at the top of the website. I
believe that God gave us the scripture for our perfecting.
With the scriptures we have everything we need to know on how to
live and worship right (righteously). So don’t get mad at me if I
give you a scripture that tells you that you are not saved.
We did it so you can make things right.
I did it because I cannot stand the idea of someone coming up to me
on the Day of Judgment and saying, “You knew me and we were around each
other all the time and you never told me what I needed to know!”
Now whether you agree with me or whether you decide I am wrong will
not hurt my feelings. God
told me to tell you but he said what you do with it is between you and
him.
I
feel that what I am doing is just as good as what you are doing?
I really don’t want you to tell me what you think or feel when the scriptures say different because I am not interested in humanism. Man cannot save himself or dictate to God what is acceptable worship. There are matters of opinion in the scriptures and on those I do respect your right to an opinion because I know I have mine. But saying that your feelings somehow have equal or greater weight than the Bible is contrary to the Bible, the Word of God.
What I don't get is why you have to get saved
again if you are already saved? Is
Christ’s blood not adequate enough the first time? Correct
me if I am wrong, but doesn't the church of Christ believe this way?
Read
Roman 6:4; Ephesians 4:5; Colossians 2:12 and 1 Peter 3:21. Read them in context with as much of the surrounding verses to
understand the context and meaning. I
am not making things up. The
Bible clearly gives baptism a role in the process of being saved. But if you do it for the wrong reason all you have done is gotten
wet. Yes, Christ blood is
adequate, that is what Romans 3:25 means when it says propitiation, it
means adequate. Baptism is
the process of symbolically participating in the death, burial and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ
only died once and we only participate in that death once and then the
judgment.
I
believe that Baptism is necessary to join the Church.
First,
why would being saved and joining the Church be two different things? Why
would baptism be a mechanism for just joining the Church when it is a
symbol of his death and burial? Since
our salvation is linked to Christ’s dying on the cross, being buried and
being victorious over death it makes a whole lot more sense that the
symbolism is associated with our salvation than our membership. Read the first chapter of Colossians and especially around verse
22. I see no separation from
being saved and membership. I
have never understood the resistance to baptism as if it is somehow this
terrible thing instead to the placing of ourselves into the place of our
beloved savior in an attempt to participate in what happened to him.
Even
if I believed that baptism was part of salvation why do you feel that you
can fall out of being saved? Isn’t
Christ’s blood enough to keep us saved?
Consider Luke 15:11-32; Luke 15:32; Hebrews 3:12; Hebrews 10:26-27; 1 Timothy 1:18-19; 1 Timothy 4:1-3 and 2 Timothy 4:7. Now, does the Bible not teach that you can fall from faith and that it will lead to your destruction? It clearly does, so don’t ask why I feel this way and understand that the Bible says it is so. Go back and read Colossians 1:22 & 23 and you will see that he will present us “if” we continue in the faith. Being saved is a life-changing event that says we will no longer live in sin but in righteousness. After that we have grace.
If
I am only baptized once and I sin, how do I get back?
No one is perfect and we all sin so there must be a way back when
we fall.
Read
Acts 8:13,22; Revelation 2:1,5,16,21-26; 2 Peter 2:20-22 and 1 Corinthians
5:1,4-5 2:6-11. Am I wrong?
Does not the scriptures call for one baptism? Does it not say you
can fall from faith? And does it not say you can return to the
faithful by repentance?
The
Bible says that faith saves, it says that repentance saves and it says
that Baptism saves so how can you say that the Bible does not contradict
itself? They cannot all be
right.
When
Noah was saved from the flood, what saved him? He believed in God, did that save him?
He obeyed God and built the Ark, did that save him? He got in the Ark before it was closed up, did that save him?
The answer to each is yes because had he not done any of these
things he would not have been saved. (1 Peter 3) So, does faith save us?
Yes! Does repentance save us? Yes! Does confession of our faith save us?
Yes! Does baptism save
us? You bet it does. There is no contradiction here. You just have to search for the truth, all the truth.
All
you ever talk about is baptism, isn’t there more to being a Christian
than that?
1
Corinthians 15:32 says that if there is no resurrection we should eat,
drink and party for when we die there is nothing. Baptism is about
the death, burial and resurrection. We talk about baptism because it is the foundation that a new
Christian is built on, not baptism alone, but the completion of faith
through baptism. Once the foundation is built true life begins.
There is a freedom in Christ that is just part of what leads to an
abundant life. Through giving
your life to Christ you gain a peace that passes understanding by man.
But that house cannot be built without a foundation so deal with
baptism first.