Has anyone noticed how many Christians these days are not baptized? We so often focus on how many Christians have been baptized more than once or how many were baptized as unbelieving infants. But I believe we may be seeing a new epidemic, the unbaptized believer?
Is there really such a thing, you ask. Well, I am afraid so.
Churches have become either ignorant of this biblical doctrine or just plain sloppy in its practice, and as a result, there are many Christians who have never been baptized. They either were not taught its importance, much less necessity, or they missed the scheduled baptism date and never got around to re-scheduling… for years!
I fault the churches.
What in the world is going on? Has there been some over-correction from the “baptize anything that says I love Jesus” days? Or is this another terrible unforeseen effect of the church growth movement? Or have some denominations just gotten that far off biblically?
I have a few suspicions. But first let me hear from you.
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Jason Robertson is a husband and a father and a pastor. He is dedicated to leading and equipping his the Church with God’s word and biblical theology for life ministry, using a combination of pastoral, church planting and evangelism experience. He holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is experienced in church planting, evangelism, missions, and the training of pastors and Bible teachers.
Jason has been preaching the gospel since 1985, serving the first ten years of ministry as a Southern Baptist itinerant evangelist out of Milldale Baptist Church in Zachary, LA which ordained him in 1993. He has preached in hundreds of churches in over 30 States and 4 countries. He planted churches in Siberia, Russia in the summers of 1993 and 1994. He founded Murrieta Valley Church in California, which he planted in cooperation with the SBC NAMB in 2001. He also teaches ministry students at California Baptist University.
You can hear his sermons and read his manuscripts on sermonaudio.com. Just follow the link to "sermons" at the top of this page.
I can’t understand why a church would receive into membership someone who has not been baptized. It quite simply boggles my mind. I suspect some in church leadership don’t want to make it uncomfortable for people. Perhaps these leaders should find another line of work.
Jason:
Just to start your day completely shocked, I agree with you 100%. There is no justification for a believer to not be baptized (now if you want to discuss “types” of baptism, we may disagree
Stan:
It seems to me baptism declines with the decline in membership interest. When I became a believer, both were fundamentally important to me. It seems that both are decreasing in importance.
When you separate baptism from church membership, this is what you get, a low view of baptism.
Have we forgotten that untold numbers of people died because of their view of baptism? They rejected baptismal regeneration and infant baptism, and it cost them dearly.
dac,
When I became a believer, both were fundamentally important to me. It seems that both are decreasing in importance.
True. I wouldn’t have thought of not being baptized upon believing. The pastor said “be baptized” and I did. It was that simple.
Requiring baptism is divisive. Why set up yet another obstacle to someone becoming a member?
Brian I assume you are joking. At least I hope you are. If you don’t require baptism in believers, then why even bother with church membership?
…and people wonder why many in our congregations have a hard time understanding the long-held Baptist conviction regarding regenerate church membership! Thanks for the clarity of this post and the subsequent one on Baptism First. As a fellow Reformed thinking Southern Baptist, I appreciate what you guys have done here.
Sola Gratia,
Scott
Scott Hill, Brian was joking. He has a long running series on the importance of baptism on his blog.
Hey brother Jason, just wondering, do you guys require for a person to be re-baptized if they were baptized at an earlier age (by immersion upon a profession of faith) but later thought that their profession wasn’t sincere and they weren’t really regenerate?
In Christ,
Brady
Brady,
For us, believers baptism by immersion is the normal requirement for all members of our church.
I understand that, Jason…but how would you handle a situation where there is someone in your church who tends to doubt their salvation often? Would they need to be baptized every time they thought they really were not born again? How would you deal with this pastorally?
In Christ,
Brady
Brady,
Really, I am not trying to be difficult but I don’t understand this question you have asked: Would they need to be baptized every time they thought they really were not born again?
Our normal practice is to baptize believers. After baptism we teach them all things concerning Christ and His kingdom. I don’t know of many Christians who don’t struggle with the validity of their salvation at some point. You seem to be asking if we would baptize them again so they could have assurance. Indeed, we would not! We only baptize believers, and they only once according to Scripture.
There is never a reason a believer needs to be baptized more than once. Such goes against all the purpose and nature of baptism.
Grace and peace.