Baptism and obedience

Thank you to those who have weighed in on my pole regarding why you get/got baptized. Now I am wondering about something. For those of you who say that obedience is all or a part of the reason and yet still hold that baptism is not needed for salvation how do you square that with the following verse:

John 3:36
"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not OBEY the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."

Of course I believe there is much more than just obedience involved in getting baptized. But let's just keep it to that for now.

"The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord".

Blessings

 

It's a Protestant translation. In fact I just went through 10 translations (all but 1 Protestant) and 4 translate it believe or a form thereof, 5 obey or a form thereof and one have faith. Further, I don't think there is a whole lot of difference and suspect that if I were a Greek expert I would find it to be true. Are you saying that Jesus came and told us what to do, but made some of it optional. No, I think believing in him means believing in him for who he was (our savior) and also following his teachings and the things he commanded us to do.
In Christ,

I mean after all, even the winds of the sea and the unclean spirit obey him so why should we not have to.

Matthew 8:27
The men were amazed, and said, "What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?"



Mark 1:27
They were all amazed, so that they debated among themselves, saying, "What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him."


After all, if we had any faith (believed) at all would we not do better than the mulberry tree?

Luke 17:6
And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and be planted in the sea'; and it would obey you.

If we really believe will we not do what he says and let him direct our lives (i.e. obey).
True faith is a faith of action and if we act on our faith in obedience to him and what he tells us to do our house will stand.

Matthew 7:25-26
"And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been FOUNDED ON THE ROCK" Everyone who hears these words of Mine and DOES NOT ACT on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
"The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell--and great was its fall."


Blessings

[ May 09, 2003, 12:20 PM: Message edited by: thessalonian ]

 

Dear singer,

Do you own any property or are you a commune-ist

Acts 2:44
And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common;

Just leave your keys to your car on the dash. I'll be by in a bit.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Homebound:

"Well theres your problem, your using whatever bible agrees with you. "

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I don't care which of them are used and think that each translation is likely equivalent. I further think that in looking at all three it is likely that we come up with a better understanding of what the original language said, since there is not a one to one correspondence of words in english to words in Greek or Hebrew. Further I just picked the one at the top of the Protestant list of Bibles so it was more of a random thing. So, no I am not picking whatever Bible agrees with me. If I had placed some bias on which Bible I quoted it would have been a Catholic translation. You are quite mistaken. I will look at your post later if time allows.

Blessings though.

 

"all you have to do is believe"

This kind of reminds me of the phrase "I believe in a woman's right to choose". Choose what I ask?

 

Bless you Singer.

 

Thanks for the info. I won't dispute it. However, I will state that even if beyond a shadow of a doudt the word here was specifically and unequivably believe, that would not rule out obedience. Obedience and belief are not opposites such that a dichotomy is set up between the two and without this verse the case can still easily be made for obedience being related to belief. Also that the word is translated in to believe does not mean that it does not implicitly imply obedience. In fact, I would have to say that belief neccessarily points toward obedience. For instance, if someone joins the military and believes that his commander is in charge he will march the marching drills (i.e. obey). If not he will end up peeling potatoes.

Blessings

[ May 09, 2003, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: thessalonian ]

 

"That is true, just about everyone has heard of Jesus and alot of chosen to believe His message. What about the thieve on the cross? Did he do any thing besides believe? I think not. "

Now Homebound, you are one of those types that would say to me "do not go beyond what is written" 1 Cor 4:6. Now from that perspective could you show me where in the verses about the theif on the cross he had never been baptized because I don't see it. John the Baptist's people had already been baptizing people so it is not as if it is a proven fact that he was not baptized. We know he baptized alot of people for I believe the word used is "crowds".

Luke 3:7
So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

He also apparently knew something about Jesus since he said "remember me when you come in to your kingdom". How did he know Jesus had a kingdom? I don't see it in the text at the crusifixion. John the baptist spoke of his Kingdom so perhaps this is evidence that he had heard John preach. Of course there are other possilities but I think your interprutation that he was not baptized is certainly not a slam dunk.

So if I am missing out on a verse that says he was not baptized let me know.

Also it seems to me that obedience neccessitates the ability to obey. I told my kids yesterday to clean there rooms by the time I get home today. One of them is sick so I don't think I will hold him to it. The theif on the Cross was bound up and about to die. I am quite certain that if he could have and had not been he would have been baptized.