Baptist to the core!
"IF I WEREN'T A BAPTIST,I'D BE ASHAMED!"
Years ago I heard a Baptist preacher say that someone asked him the question, "What would you be if you weren't a Baptist?"
He simply replied, "I'd be ashamed."
The Flyswatter is Baptist to the core, Baptist to the bone marrow. If we weren't Baptist, we'd be ashamed.
One of the characteristics of Baptists is that we don't believe we are the "one and onlys" who are saved or going to Heaven. We are often accused of that idea, but the truth is, we believe that every person who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour is a child of God and is one of that great multitude which no man can number which loudly proclaims, "Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb" (Revelation 7:9).
If you don't believe that, you should be ashamed. Perhaps more than anything else, the term "Baptist" specifies one who believes that salvation is by grace through faith "from start to finish." We are not ashamed of that belief.
Those today who are dropping the term "Baptist" from their church's identity are in effect making other Baptists wonder, "What do they believe? Do they believe in salvation by grace through faith, or do they teach some other way of salvation?"
Also, the term "Baptist" should leave no doubt in people's minds about Baptism. One who is true to Baptist teaching has no quarter for infant baptism and any so-called "mode" of baptism other than immersion. A Baptist does not condition salvation upon immersion, but he is not going to consider one baptized who was merely sprinkled or had water poured on his head.
Some of the problems which have developed among Baptists were due to some brethren's "playing footsies" with the Pedobaptists (baby baptizers). That's where the Southern Baptist seminaries got the "Modernism" and "Neo-orthodoxy" that plagued those institutions in the latter half of the 1900s. That's where the Baptists in the Flounders movement got the "born again before faith" heterodoxy. That is how a number of errors found lodging with some Baptists -- via the Pedobaptists.
The Baptist preacher was right-on -- "If I weren't a Baptist, I'd be ashamed."
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posted by Bob L. Ross @ 5:46 PM
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