Baptism Pt. 3

How should we be baptized?

As we've been saying in these posts (here & here), this is a topic that gets a lot of Christians ticked off. Churches have argued about baptism for years and this third question is the one that usually ticks them off the most. How should it be done?

If you were to ask folks from different church backgrounds, you'd get all kinds of answers. Some say you should be dunked...others say sprinkling will suffice...some churches teach that you should be dunked 3 times - one for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - still others say you should be baptized in Jesus' name only.

Just so you know, here's what we believe and practice at NHC: we believe the Biblical method is immersion. We're going to dunk you! Why? Not because that's what our mommas taught us...not because of some denominational mandate...not because of some church tradition. We do it that way because that's what we find in the Bible.

• The word baptize comes from the Greek word "baptizo" which means - to dip, to dunk, to immerse, to dip under. It was a common word in Biblical times and the people of New Testament days would never have thought of "baptizo-ing" someone by sprinkling them. In fact, the practice of sprinkling didn't occur until about 1300 years after the beginning of the church!

• Another reason we believe in immersion is because that's what Jesus did. Matthew 3:16 says that after Jesus was baptized he "came up out of the water." To come up out of something you have to go down into it. Jesus' example was immersion.

• The New Testament church practiced baptism by immersion. Here's an example: Acts 8:38,39.  And here's the real kicker - there's not a single example of anyone in the New Testament being sprinkled, spritzed or squirted or anything other than being dunked.

When it comes to baptism we believe the how question is settled.

So let's wrap this little discussion up with one final question - what are you going to do? This coming weekend you can take care of the baptism thing once and for all. If you need to follow Jesus in baptism you can email Rob at rob@newhorizonchurch.tv. He'll get  you hooked up and ready to go!