Do Baptists go all the way back to the apostles?

[Brother Bob]

I am less worried about being the true church than being a faithful church. As the Second London Confession states, "The purest churches under heaven are subject to mixture and error ... "

rsr;
That is just a little confusing. How could you be the "true church" without being a faithful church. Did you just want to be different or what?

 

[rsr]

What I meant is that it is possible for a church to be fully compliant with the Baptist distinctives and historic Baptist doctrine and yet be unfaithful to the commands of Jesus.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

(Matthew 21:31-46, ESV)

 

[thjplgvp]

I don't know anything about the ESV but I believe that passage is found in Matthew 25.

 

[rsr]

Oops. Matthew 25 it is.

 

[Brother Bob]

I agree with all of that rsr; I guess I just misunderstood.

 

[Tom Butler]

One does not have to hold that each New Testament church succeeded from another (Baptist succession) to hold to perpetuity. I hold that somewhere, somehow, from Apostolic days through the Dark Ages until today, God has preserved his assembly in some form, known by different names or maybe no name at all. In other words, there has always existed a church which held to the doctrines taught by Christ and the apostles.

My pastor told me once, when you see tracks going into the water, and tracks coming out of the water on the other side, you can safely believe that whatever went in came out, even if you couldn't see it all the time. That's my take on perpetuity.

And yep, the Apostles are our spiritual ancestors, even if we can't always locate great-great grampaw in the lineage.

 

[Tom Butler]

Brother Bob says:

If we don't in some fashion then we sure are making a mockery out of being the true Church, IMO

Amen, Brother Bob. If Baptists aren't the closest thing to a NT church, we better bail out and find the ones that are. Political correctness inhibits us from saying other denominations are not true NT churches, but the fact is, if we are, they ain't. And if they are, we ain't.

 

[Gold Dragon]

I would have thought that at one time. However, during my three and a half years in divinity school, I had to read quite a bit of the writing of the early church fathers, the second and third century patriarchs of the Church, who not only left behind a rich treasure that tells us plenty about the early New Testament church before Constantine, but also helps in the canonization of the New Testament by their frequent quoting of passages from it, not in the "verse by verse" style that we are so accustomed to doing, but in whole sections, in context. Of course, they didn't know the "chapter and verse" arrangement that we have. I sometimes wonder if dividing up the Bible into chapters and verses that do not always align with the complete thoughts or contexts of the writing is a help or a hindrance to interpreting scripture. The early church clearly did not pick singular "thoughts" out of artificial divisions of the Bible called "verses" and formulate doctrines from them.

The early church had a much stronger sense of community than we do today. They depended on each other. They met each other's needs. They lived, for the most part, communally, sharing their resources to an extent where they depended on each other for survival. In most cases, they lived as an isolated minority in a community dominated by practicers of pagan religions, usually relegated to second class status and fearful of betrayal to the local authorities for not practicing the local favorite religion or the state approved emperor worship, which was a major problem for the church from the time of Nero. They had a much stronger sense of being each other's keeper, brothers and sisters in Christ, and the family of God. They did not sit in church in rows of pews with a song leader singing hymns and then a preacher proclaiming the word. Every member had an active role in bringing something to worship, they met in homes, they sang spiritual songs, they held love feasts, they met every day and everyone preached, and some of you aren't going to like this, but even the women did.

As far as doctrine and teaching goes, I think, as Baptists, we are pretty close, but a lot of other Christians are just as close. Correct doctrine doesn't produce righteousness that can save, only Christ has that kind of righteousness and we must put it on through his shed blood in order to be saved. If we've got that, I don't think it matters whether our practice of Christianity resembles that of the first century church. Their practice of faith was relevant to the culture in which they lived and that culture has gone forever. I think it is more important that our practice of the faith be relevant to the culture in which we live, rather than close to what the early church did.

Excellent post.

I don't think modern baptist churches are anything like the NT church. We worship openly without fear of government reprisal. We don't sell our property to help out the poor in our community. We generally don't speak in tongues.

They didn't have constitutions, church budgets or potlucks. They never argued about bible translations or calvinism vs arminianism since these issues didn't exist. They didn't have Sunday School classes or curriculum.

I do think that there is a lot we can learn from the NT church, but they were an imperfect church like every other and mimicking them is never commanded in scripture.

It is Christ we are told to mimic.

 

[Gold Dragon]

One does not have to hold that each New Testament church succeeded from another (Baptist succession) to hold to perpetuity. I hold that somewhere, somehow, from Apostolic days through the Dark Ages until today, God has preserved his assembly in some form, known by different names or maybe no name at all. In other words, there has always existed a church which held to the doctrines taught by Christ and the apostles.

I agree. Although I would include Catholic and Orthodox assemblies in that line while many baptists would not and have a much more difficult time reconciling their beliefs with historical evidence.

 

[bro_ken128]

Probably the reason that there was no mention of immersion befor that time is that before that time there was no Baptist Statement of Faith. This is my opinion. A good history of the Baptist succession is History of the Baptist by John Christian or The First Baptist by S.E. Anderson. Both are great books. The Trail of Blood is more a history of events that happened to those who opposed the Catholic church and any other religious faction or any government that they felt they could align themselves with. I would not necessarily call it a book about the history of Baptist in so much as a history of Christian dilema.

 

[rbell]

Political correctness inhibits us from saying other denominations are not true NT churches, but the fact is, if we are, they ain't. And if they are, we ain't.

I know what you're saying, and I as a baptist feel like it's the closest representation in so many ways...

...but, I don't see it as such a monolithic thing. "Living as the people of God" is a broad venue. Maybe my church is very New Testament in the area of giving, but we're falling down when it comes to prayer. Maybe we are great in sharing our faith, but we're messing up with who we ask to lead us.

Kind of like the first part of Revelation--the letters to the churches praised some of their strengths, but chastized their weaknesses.

Are we NT church as Baptists? I do feel we're as close as anyone--but there's certainly places we need to improve, and there's probably a few places that other denominations could teach us something about. (a good example--many Baptist churches could have used a lesson from some other denominations (and the book of James) in the 1960's with respect to accepting anyone from any race into our family of faith).

 

[Brother Bob]

We have had all races in our church way before the 60's and still do today. We have black preachers as well as others and we love each other the same.

 

[rbell]

We have had all races in our church way before the 60's and still do today. We have black preachers as well as others and we love each other the same.

Glad you guys are an exception to what others had going on in the 1960's. I'm sure there were many exceptions...unfortunately, not everyone had a "new testament" view of things then...

 

[Jarthur001]

I would have thought that at one time. However, during my three and a half years in divinity school, I had to read quite a bit of the writing of the early church fathers, the second and third century patriarchs of the Church, who not only left behind a rich treasure that tells us plenty about the early New Testament church before Constantine, but also helps in the canonization of the New Testament by their frequent quoting of passages from it, not in the "verse by verse" style that we are so accustomed to doing, but in whole sections, in context. Of course, they didn't know the "chapter and verse" arrangement that we have. I sometimes wonder if dividing up the Bible into chapters and verses that do not always align with the complete thoughts or contexts of the writing is a help or a hindrance to interpreting scripture. The early church clearly did not pick singular "thoughts" out of artificial divisions of the Bible called "verses" and formulate doctrines from them.

The early church had a much stronger sense of community than we do today. They depended on each other. They met each other's needs. They lived, for the most part, communally, sharing their resources to an extent where they depended on each other for survival. In most cases, they lived as an isolated minority in a community dominated by practicers of pagan religions, usually relegated to second class status and fearful of betrayal to the local authorities for not practicing the local favorite religion or the state approved emperor worship, which was a major problem for the church from the time of Nero. They had a much stronger sense of being each other's keeper, brothers and sisters in Christ, and the family of God. They did not sit in church in rows of pews with a song leader singing hymns and then a preacher proclaiming the word. Every member had an active role in bringing something to worship, they met in homes, they sang spiritual songs, they held love feasts, they met every day and everyone preached, and some of you aren't going to like this, but even the women did.

As far as doctrine and teaching goes, I think, as Baptists, we are pretty close, but a lot of other Christians are just as close. Correct doctrine doesn't produce righteousness that can save, only Christ has that kind of righteousness and we must put it on through his shed blood in order to be saved. If we've got that, I don't think it matters whether our practice of Christianity resembles that of the first century church. Their practice of faith was relevant to the culture in which they lived and that culture has gone forever. I think it is more important that our practice of the faith be relevant to the culture in which we live, rather than close to what the early church did.

Amen brother...

This is what I have found to be true also. I have read many early church fathers, and many more history books from all sides that I can find. From the second to the forth century of the Church, I could not find one group that got the doctrine of Baptisim right. NOT One!! I believe the Baptist faith teaches the right doctrine or I would not be Baptist. But no one can link the Baptist to the 1st Century. This is not to say there was not a true church. There was and always has been a true church, but you will not find it in a single group, passing on the truths from one to the other. Sorry..it did not happen.

 

[Brother Bob]

We cut off our nose to smite our face. Again, if we don't go all the way back to the Apostles in some form we are deceiving the people and ourselves.

The Pope couldn't find a better friend than those that say we don't go all the way back to the Apostles in some form.

I will hang to this until I die. Notice it does not say "the". Too many "unknowns" in the Bible for me not to hang on to this. The rest can do as they want.


Luk 7:20When the men were come unto him, they said, John Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?

 

[Jarthur001]

We cut off our nose to smite our face. Again, if we don't go all the way back to the Apostles in some form we are deceiving the people and ourselves.

The Pope couldn't find a better friend than those that say we don't go all the way back to the Apostles in some form.

I will hang to this until I die. Notice it does not say "the". Too many "unknowns" in the Bible for me not to hang on to this. The rest can do as they want.


Luk 7:20When the men were come unto him, they said, John Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?

One can only go with blind faith on this view above. I do not have a problem with that, if you choose to do so. But I have found no history record to support your view.

It should be noted that I never said there was not a true church. I also never said that the only church was the RCC.

I only stated I have not found record of the FULL Baptist faith going back to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th century. If you have proof, I would welcome all that you have. It was my semi-goal 15 years ago to prove this fact, that Baptist can be traced back to the 1st church, but after 5 years of study, I could not find it.

I do however feel that the Baptist faith is as close to the NT church that I know of other then the sharing of all things.

 

[Brother Bob]

I do however feel that the Baptist faith is as close to the NT church that I know of other then the sharing of all things.

Bingo! The faith James, the faith.

 

[USMC71]

Brother Bob says:

Amen, Brother Bob. If Baptists aren't the closest thing to a NT church, we better bail out and find the ones that are. Political correctness inhibits us from saying other denominations are not true NT churches, but the fact is, if we are, they ain't. And if they are, we ain't.

If Baptists are not from the first Apostles, than us Baptists are part of a man made oraganization, not different than the Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, Prebyterians, Anglicans, etc... We are false.

Well, let me re-word it. If Baptists do not come from Christ and the system of Doctrine He and His Apostles taught, we be false.
We are not just the closest, but we are it. Each doctrine we believe today, is the same as taught 2,000 years ago. What does that make us?

 

[Tom Butler]

USMC671, I like the way you think.

That's the reason Baptists aren't protestants. We were here before they were.

 

[Brother Bob]

Well I like the way you thing too USMC571. I know one thing if I didn't believe our church went all the way to Christ then I would be hunting for it. :jesus: What is my "Proof"? The Scriptures.