Dr Paul Allen

I’m a baptist but you don’t need to capitalize the b for me. First and foremost, I’m a Christian, identifying primarily with Christ, and only secondarily with my dear Baptist brothers and sisters. We baptists sometimes encounter a tension created by our baptistic convictions: How do we, as baptists, orient to those whose baptismal belief and practice differ from ours? In particular, how do we relate to paedobaptist individuals and churches? Paedobaptism (from the Greek root paedo for “child”) is the practice of baptizing the children of believers in infancy, in anticipation of their profession of faith in Christ. Rather than baptizing after someone professes faith, as credobaptists do (credo for “faith”), paedobaptists regard baptism as the New Testament counterpart to Old Testament circumcision. Therefore, they administer the visible, public sign of the covenant to the children of Christians. Now, we baptists believe that paedobaptists err in their baptismal theology and practice. We ...

Batman’s just an ordinary person, a regular guy roaming the streets of Gotham in a batsuit bringing justice to criminals. He doesn’t have special Kryptonian DNA like Superman. He was never injected with a super soldier serum like Captain America. But when the Dark Knight sees the bat symbol light up the sky, he suits up and gets to work guarding the city of Gotham. He’s an ordinary man with an extraordinary task. What does any of this have to do with your role as a church member? Well, quite a bit. Church members have been commissioned by God to guard the gospel. That task may seem like something that should be entrusted to spiritual superheroes. But God in his wisdom has put that responsibility on every Christian as a member of a local church. Let’s see this in the Bible. GUARDING GOD’S DWELLING The story of redemption actually begins with God commissioning Adam to “guard” the Garden of Eden, the dwelling place of God (Gen 2:15). As creation’s priest-king, Adam had the responsibility...