Critical Issues Commentary | Infant Baptism and the Institutional Church Part 1 @CICministry | Uploaded September 2020 | Updated October 2024, 1 day ago.
The passage we cover concerns Luke’s one-verse report about Lydia and the baptism of her household. This passage is the main proof text used to justify the practice of infant baptism. Infant baptism is used to promote the idea that the church primarily exists to perpetuate itself through the descendants of believers and processes to keep them in the church. Since so much is at stake concerning the meaning of Acts 16:15, we examine each verse in the Book of Acts that uses the verb “baptize” in various forms. Since Luke’s meaning is the Holy Spirit’s meaning, we must know what Luke meant in narrating teaching about and incidents of baptism. As we address each case of baptism in Acts, we find that it is always believers who are baptized. There are many such incidents. There is never an explicit teaching or example of baptizing an infant or any other household member who had not personally turned to Christ. The evidence is clear, and we explain each passage in context.