June 06, 2013
Leading By Example
My friend David is a PK (preacher’s kid) who in now in his 70’s. One Sunday
during the invitation when he was nine years-old his friend sitting next to him
went forward. David, who wasn’t going to be left behind, followed his friend up
the aisle to the altar where he too made the confession of faith. The following
week his dad was satisfied with David’s understanding of accepting Christ and
he proceeded to be baptized. A life-long believer, David was recently selected
to serve as an elder in his current church. However, before officially taking
on the position as elder David surprised the congregation by going forward to
be re-baptized. “It was just something
that I needed to do. It’s always been in the back of my mind that my motivation
for going forward the first time was because I was following my friend.” I
have to smile when I think that David is once again following his Friend.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----There was a time when I considered being (re-)baptized in the Presbyterian church I now attend. It wasn’t that I reflected upon some insufficiency about my baptism when I was fifteen. It was an ambition to participate a bit more completely in the brothers and sisters I enjoy there. I am glad the occasion did not arise when I had felt the most sure. As current history shapes all the pieces of the Tribulation puzzle, I continue to think that these are the times when each person’s loyalty strengthens to one side or the other of the line God’s Word draws in the sand. I will certainly never pronounce which side of that line is another professing Christian, but I must recognize unscriptural practices and think honestly about them when I see them, or loose the understanding I‘ve found during a lifetime of searching in the Lord. My baptism at fifteen then must be sufficient, for I can not be sprinkled into some of the things these people do.
-----I can understand David’s felt need to be re-baptized. But I can’t completely agree with it. Although there is the possibility that he may have been one of those who would say on That Day, “But Lord, Lord…” it seems to me if he were now found to be elder material, then he has been living all along in new life given him by the Lord; Jesus has known him. What exactly can your friend be meaning by again making the statement that is baptism? Could he possibly be meaning he never died with Christ and was never raised with Him again into newness of life? And that being merely because he followed his friend into the baptismal waters? I doubt this.
-----I know people commonly seek to be re-baptized. I know they mean it to be a rededication to the Lord and such. I know they mean it to be an exclamation of what they meant the first time. And I hear people talking about former times in their lives when they “really weren’t saved” although they had confessed their sins and been baptized. There was a time when I was tempted to think the same way. But even though I recognize the times in my past when I was not as deliberate in living the new life as I was before or as I am now, I don’t devalue the Lord’s grace by claiming I was not then saved. I was just not as grown, but I was every bit as alive.
-----You’re friend and the Lord know what he means, and I’m quite sure they’re both smiling big about it. Most people won’t even think about what it means. They’ll just think, “How wonderful!” And I won’t be able to get its math to work out. So I’ll push the problem aside and proclaim, “Wonderful!” with everyone else, because so little of our math even approximates the correct answers anyway.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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