Why I’m Baptist

00:00:00.000 | (music)

00:00:04.000 | AJ from New Hampshire writes in with today's question.

00:00:07.000 | "Hello Pastor John. While the disunity of the church in terms of its denominations is,

00:00:13.000 | in my mind, one of the most tragic and devastating developments in church history,

00:00:17.000 | the fact is that a plethora of denominations now exists in the world in general,

00:00:22.000 | and in the U.S. in particular, and each has its own strengths and each has its own weaknesses.

00:00:28.000 | In light of this reality, would you please share how and why you decided to become a Baptist?"

00:00:34.000 | Well, before I say a word about why I'm a Baptist,

00:00:38.000 | let me go ahead and respond to a little bit of what he said about the divisions in the church,

00:00:43.000 | because that is painful and it is real, and we all need to have a way to think about it,

00:00:48.000 | and they do relate to each other.

00:00:50.000 | Divisions, some behavioral, some doctrinal, have been there in the church from the beginning.

00:00:59.000 | Paul addresses this most explicitly, it seems, in 1 Corinthians.

00:01:05.000 | He says, "I hear that there are divisions among you, and I believe it in part,

00:01:12.000 | for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized."

00:01:19.000 | That's 1 Corinthians 11, 18.

00:01:22.000 | And what we hear in that sentence, it seems to me, is—and in the whole Old Testament,

00:01:29.000 | I mean New Testament for that matter—is that disagreements and their resulting divisions

00:01:35.000 | are lamentable and inevitable in this world, owing, as best as I can see, to sin, finiteness,

00:01:45.000 | cultural diversity, personality differences, and so on.

00:01:50.000 | You can hear the lament in 1 Corinthians 1, 10, where he says,

00:01:56.000 | "I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree,

00:02:01.000 | and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind

00:02:07.000 | and with the same judgment."

00:02:12.000 | And you hear the inevitability of it in the text that I already mentioned, namely 1 Corinthians 11, 19.

00:02:19.000 | "There must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized."

00:02:26.000 | So it seems to me that all of us who are Christians need to decide how we will do our part

00:02:34.000 | to minimize the lamentable divisions and not be paralyzed or utopian in our view of the inevitability

00:02:46.000 | of divisions until Jesus comes back.

00:02:50.000 | It seems to me that top-down efforts at global unity inevitably lay claim to powers that belong only to Jesus.

00:03:00.000 | And I think you can see that in the Roman Catholic Church.

00:03:05.000 | When I look for guidance in the New Testament about how to minimize lamentable divisions,

00:03:13.000 | what I find is not an emphasis on institutional structures claiming to give a unified public front

00:03:21.000 | to hundreds of subgroups like macro-ecumenical organizations.

00:03:27.000 | Rather, what I find is a repeated effort to overcome pride and selfishness and vain glory

00:03:37.000 | and to work for a common mindset of doing good to others even when you are at odds with each other for some reason.

00:03:47.000 | And the best example I know of this is found in Philippians 2, 2 through 4.

00:03:53.000 | And watch now how Paul moves from a call to one-mindedness to a call for humility and service.

00:04:04.000 | Here's the way it goes.

00:04:06.000 | "Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind."

00:04:18.000 | And now here's how he fleshes it out. Next verse.

00:04:21.000 | "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

00:04:31.000 | Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

00:04:38.000 | We can't control unity of belief, but we can give ourselves to serve each other in love.

00:04:48.000 | You can't force unity of belief because beliefs are not mere actions of the will, but deep delights of the heart.

00:05:00.000 | So the only way ultimately to pursue unity of belief is to speak the truth in love.

00:05:07.000 | Unity not based on truth is just not biblical unity.

00:05:14.000 | And speaking that truth must happen in love if we hope to make any progress in unity.

00:05:23.000 | So what I think all that means for each of us is that we search the scriptures, try to discern what we see to be true,

00:05:34.000 | and then we give ourselves to the communities of faith that share that truth.

00:05:39.000 | And we seek in love and service to maintain the unity of those communities in lowliness and humility and kindness and meekness and gentleness and forbearance and forgiveness.

00:05:51.000 | And we do our best to love those in other communities so that the world will see our love, not just our disagreements.

00:06:03.000 | Now, the reason I'm a Baptist is first very simply because I grew up in a Baptist home.

00:06:10.000 | Let's just be honest.

00:06:12.000 | But then with every stage of my education, first Wheaton, then Fuller Seminary, then the University of Munich in Germany,

00:06:21.000 | where I was the only Baptist that I knew of in the entire theological faculty there at the University of Munich.

00:06:28.000 | At every stage, the challenges to my Baptist commitments became more and more intense.

00:06:37.000 | So I had to test my inherited convictions by scriptures over and over again during those 10 years, especially of higher education.

00:06:49.000 | And to this day, I have not been able to be persuaded that baptizing infants is warranted by the New Testament.

00:07:01.000 | That's the main reason that I'm a Baptist.

00:07:03.000 | I don't believe in infant baptism.

00:07:07.000 | Now, this is probably not the place to go into any exegetical defense of that, but I'm willing to if we want to do it in another podcast.

00:07:16.000 | The point here should probably simply be that for me to be a gospel-believing, Bible-guided Christian is foremost.

00:07:30.000 | Second in priority is to embrace the gospel-embodying, gospel-protecting, Bible-rooted, joy-sustaining, God-glorifying doctrines of grace.

00:07:43.000 | And only third, I would say, are my Baptist convictions, and that enables me then to have a good bit of fellowship outside my own denominational connections.

00:07:58.000 | And I hope that through my writings and speaking, the truth of Scripture is being promulgated in the world in such a way that more and more people are brought closer and closer to the central truths and therefore to each other.

00:08:17.000 | Excellent priority as well.

00:08:19.000 | I, for one, am glad that you're a Baptist and a Reformed Baptist at that, and a pioneer for so many of us who have followed you along this path.

00:08:26.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:08:28.000 | And we'll keep infant baptism, that question, for another time.

00:08:31.000 | If you have a question, you can email it in to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:08:36.000 | You can also find our audio feeds and our episode archive all through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:08:44.000 | And you can send us an email from that homepage as well.

00:08:47.000 | Friday, we're going to talk about revival.

00:08:50.000 | What is revival?

00:08:52.000 | How does it start?

00:08:53.000 | What does it look like today?

00:08:55.000 | And how similar is it to personal revival?

00:08:59.000 | Looking forward to all of those questions.

00:09:01.000 | I'm your host, Tony Renke.

00:09:02.000 | We'll see you on Friday.

00:09:03.000 | [End of Audio]

00:09:04.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Why I’m Baptist

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