Proclaimer Blog
“Secondary” is so unhelpful…
Interesting back and forth between Paul Levy (always mischievous, often thoughtful) and John Stevens (never mischievous, often thoughtful) on baptism and church practice. I just want to step one pace backwards though because I get to hear about a lot (well, a fair few, anyway) of ministers who don't know what they think about baptism. In fairness, I get this from wives rather than the ministers – the conversation goes something like this "Can you recommend anything on baptism, my Bobby doesn't know what he thinks" – this is Bobby who is 6 or 7 years into ministry!
I hope you're not Bobby! Baptism is, I believe, a secondary issue insomuch as Christians can disagree on it and still be friends – in fact, be more than friends (I once made Paul a cup of coffee from my coffee maker) – they can work together and – as Paul and John have been exploring – possibly even be in church together. But secondary, as I never tire of saying, does not mean unimportant. And ministers of churches should certainly know what they believe about this issue. It is scandalous that they don't given that it is a defining issue of the church. Now, I don't mean that every minister has to have every i dotted and every t crossed. And perhaps at any given point, a minister might be on a trajectory to changing his opinion on something. But it should never be something that is relegated to the level of "unimportant."
Here are two books I've found helpful. Both are well written and argued but both come to different conclusions. If you're in the "don't know" camp – these are worth your time. First, Greg Strawbidge's The Case for Covenantal Baptism includes contributions from Bryan Chappell and Richard Pratt. It was recommended to me some time ago and I commend it for a coherent and well argued case for infant baptism. For believers' baptism, I commend Tom Schreiner's book Believers' Baptism with contributions from Andreas Kostenberger and Mark Dever, amongst others.
Helpfully, both are about the same length and technical standard – so you will be comparing like with like. A good £20 invested (which will buy you both volumes).
And speaking of John and Paul – when are they getting back together….? The songs that would flow…..