Sep 10 2008
Can I Baptize My Kids?
Last night Stephanie told me about a conversation she had earlier in the day about baptism. The discussion centered around the fact that a mutual friend at a nearby church was going to be the one to baptize his daughter-as opposed to their pastor (he is a layman in the church). Apparently there are many who do not think that this is appropriate. While the current church I am attending has as a policy that only the pastors baptize the congregants, the church I grew up in (Mount Calvary) allowed fathers the choice to baptize their children. In fact, my dad baptized my youngest sister. So I grew up never thinking twice about a laymen in the church baptizing another believer (at MCBC it was always father-children).
My question is-am I missing something? What Scriptural argument can be brought against this kind of baptism? My initial thoughts is that there are no Scriptural passages that teach that only pastors-elders are to baptize, and there are even no examples of this kind to set a precedent for the church today. In fact, it seems that there is often the opposite example. Philip was a deacon, but certainly not a pastor-elder, yet he baptized (spontaneously!) the Ethiopian eunuch. Paul said to some of his converts that he did not baptize them. Apparently Apollos baptized people. It is possible that at Jesus’ ascencion into heaven he commanded a crowd of nearly 500 people to baptize in His name. On a secondary level church history affords examples of non-pastoral baptisms.
So aside from comfort with the status quo and perhaps practicality, what argument could be given for non-pastoral baptisms in the context of the local church? Can I (one day in the greatly distant future) baptize my kids?
One response so far
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I assure you that you will be able to baptize your daughters long before I will.
I don’t want to sabotage your post, just explore your ideas a little further. If baptism no longer falls beneath the categorical “pastor-elder” ministries and we stand by a literal application of the great commission to the entire 500-head crowd, you could open another cultural can o’ worms to which many will militantly react.
Christians would have fewer problems with women witnessing (to be culturally considerate, let’s stick to family) to their daughters than they would with women baptizing the daughters they convert (I’m not even going to touch the whole non-family convert possibility). Let’s not be uber-critical; I acknowledge (even if I don’t always understand) a certain level of Scriptural barriers on women in the context of Church ministry. Yet I wonder how much our understanding of the spiritual life of the Body is shaped by culturally (or historically?) normative interpretations of Scriptural commissions/commands. I don’t have a problem with this type of tradition as long as it is acknowledged to be just that: tradition, not Scripture.
I discussed this with a classmate once who pointed up the lack of Scriptural precedent for women baptizing. Yet that left him arguing from an (a) absence of evidence/precedent (yikes!) and within a (b) ancient cultural context. Would it be Scripturally inappropriate for a woman to baptize, say, her daughter today? Or is it more an issue of what is culturally appropriate?
Meanwhile, I tell myself: (a) women are not to participate in the baptism of “our” converts because of a logical extension of the “women-be-silent” principle or (b) because we don’t see any Scriptural precedent (from a text recording life in an ancient culture). Sticky.
Am I missing something?