Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Baptism and Membership at Bethlehem

Over at the Ref 21 Blog I've put up two posts attempting to summarize the long 85-page document on baptism:

  1. A Bunyanesque Proposal on Baptism
  2. The Relationship Between Baptism and Membership (Proposed at Bethlehem Baptist Church)

The reason I called the proposal Bunyanesque is because it reflects some of the convictions of the great Puritan preacher and writer, John Bunyan. Here are a couple of Bunyan quotes on this:

  • “What greater contempt can be thrown upon the saints than for their brethren to cast them off, or to debar them from church-communion?”
  • “I speak not this, because I would teach men to break the least of the commandments of God; but to persuade my brethren of the baptized way, not to hold too much thereupon, not to make it an essential of the gospel of Christ, nor yet of communion of saints.” Then later he adds, “God also doth thus with respect to his worship in the church, he commands all and every whit of his will to be done, but beareth with our coming short in this and that, and another duty.”