The Bristow’s dot COM

I watched a video the other day by a guy named Rob Bell called, ‘Dust’. This video taught me something that I had never heard before. Not to brag, but usually this is not the case. I often hear things that get me thinking about something differently, but rarely is something completely knew placed in front of me. This video answered a question I have had for a while, one that I have never heard a satisfactory answer about. That question was: “Why did Jesus disciples drop everything and follow him when Jesus said ‘Come, follow me.’” I have always thought, that there must be more to this story. Maybe the gospel writers left out some important instructions between Jesus and these men. The most common teaching I have heard to answer this question has been that they just knew that Jesus was special, but I honestly have never bought that simple explanation. They knew one thing about Jesus at this point, that He was a Rabbi. Until I watched this video by Rob Bell I didn’t understand how powerful that simple fact truly is in understanding Jesus disciples. So I recommend getting your hands on ‘Dust’ if possible or check out the sermon video at the bottom of this blog post where Rob Bell explains Discipleship at a Church. (this is an excellent video but is a bit longer than the ‘Dust’ video)

Here is a teaser of the ‘Dust’ video. (Only about a minute and a half of the 14 minute video)

Discipleship Video
I found this video online, it isn’t the Dust video, but it is Rob Bell explaining a lot of the information presented in the full ‘Dust’ video. I highly recommend watching this video to understand what it means to be a disciple in the context that Jesus disciples understood it.

I believe God can save someone prior to Baptism, yet I also believe that Baptism is not a “work” but a part of our faith. And here is why: Faith is an active word, not a passive word. Christ asks us to take action, not simply to know that he exists and that he died for us, but to have faith in Him. It is faith in Christ, not knowledge of Christ that God saves us through. But if faith is an action then what are some of those actions? One clear action asked of us is Baptism. Repentance, Confession, and Obedience are additional actions. And these actions are a part of our Faith, not a work to get us into heaven. And there are scriptures that clearly place faith, repentance, confession, obedience and baptism as a part of how we are saved. Yet the big question always seems to involve whether or not someone is saved if they have not been Baptized. Acts clears this up for us:

We have examples of Jewish and Gentile believers receiving the Holy Spirit, a mark or seal of their salvation, in the book of Acts prior to being Baptized. (Pentecost and Cornelius’s Household) I believe God can and still does this today, this was not something God only did 2,000 years ago. I am unable to declare that He does not continue to do what he has done in the scriptures. Yet in Acts we do see that when someone comes to faith, regardless of if they are saved prior to Baptism or after, they are to be Baptized.

I believe if someone claims to have saving faith and has not been baptized and has no evidence of the Holy Spirit in their life then they are likely not saved, since God does not appear to have marked them with His seal (The Holy Spirit). Yet I am not God, so I can never be 100% certain regarding if someone is filled with the Holy Spirit. Only God truly knows this, but we can make an overall accurate assessment of someone by looking for the fruit of the spirit in their lives. Now if this person clearly knows about Baptism and is not being Baptized then I would believe that their faith is not an active faith but merely knowledge. And it is not knowledge that saves us but through our faith in Christ. So for someone who has not clearly received the Holy Spirit prior to Baptism, I would say they are not saved, and for their faith to be real they need to be Baptized and take action on their knowledge so they will have saving faith in their Baptism. For someone who has received the Holy Spirit before Baptism ( and I am making no declaration that this is normal, but that it can and does still happen), they should still be Baptized, not for their salvation but for their process in following the Lord and in our process of following the Lord since Jesus asked us to Baptize. This person would then also have clear certainty about their position with God about being saved or unsaved after Baptism. There would be no difference among them from another Baptized believer, because both were Baptized into Christ and both have certainty about their salvation through Faith. There becomes no issue of who was saved before, after or during Baptism. Essentially this is something only God truly knows. The argument over the matter becomes technical for the most part and does not have any real impact on real world scenarios except for the following.

If someone truly comes to faith in Christ prior to their death but they are unable to be Baptized (due to hospitalization, or some bizarre accident), then will God be faithful to his promise: For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. — John 3:16 Because I believe in all of God’s promises I say that in this scenario the individual will be saved because of their faith.

It is only by believing these things regarding Baptism that I have been able to make the scriptures be in harmony regarding teachings on faith, salvation, and baptism.

God invites all of us to be one of his children. I was at a Christian Bookstore today to pick up a “Large Print” Bible (yes I am getting old, I admit it.) and saw a CD called The Invitation. It is a CD with a message from Rick Warren about how God has invited us to be in His family and how we can accept his invitation. It also has Music throughout the message and is overall a very good presentation of the Gospel.

To listen to the message and the music you can click the following link http://theinvitation.tv/player.html.

I want to write a short entry just to clarify my belief on Baptism. I am currently involved in a very in-depth study of Baptism and Salvation and am writing my findings as they occur on this site. But I want to make some things very clear since I do not want anyone to read more into what I am saying than what I am intending to say. I believe that followers of Christ are Baptized. I believe this is an essential teaching and if someone does not teach Baptism then they are not teaching what the Lord has asked. This said I am unable to state so boldly that someone who is not Baptized or that someone not Baptized under a given method is not saved, or not a follower of Christ. My current study has revealed verses that clearly identify faith/belief as the deciding factor in a person’s salvation. And verses that appear to claim that belief plus baptism are the deciding factor in a person’s salvation. (read previous blog entry) However, I have serious questions for someone who claims to believe in Christ yet will not be Baptized. The big one is “What is preventing you from being Baptized and following Christ in this?”. If someone does not want to be Baptized they have a Lordship issue, not a theological issue. So as I am writing and studying know this: I believe in Baptism. I believe that Jesus clearly taught that we are to make disciples, baptizing them, and teach them to obey the teachings of Christ.

A concept that I have come to understand is called the Negative Inferance Fallacy. The basic idea is that making a positive statement a negative statement does not always create a true statement. I doubt this is high on anyones ‘ to understand’ list, but let me take a wack at this. (note: this may be a difficult post to follow)

First I will take two sentences:

“Whoever breathes and has a pulse is alive.”

This is a statement that is true. Now we are going to look at a negative form of this statement.

“Whoever breathes and does not have a pulse is not alive.”

This sentence may seem true at first but, take a look again. It is actually false. Because someone who is not alive can not breathe, yet this statement is about someone who is breathing and is not alive. So we know this is a false statement. Evidence that simply making a positive statement a negative does not necessarily mean that the negative statement will be equally true.

I am finding that this logic is helpful in seeing the harmony in scripture when statements at first appear to contradict. I am currently studying Baptism and Salvation and will be writing more about this study on the site in the coming weeks, but what I have been finding are verses that at first appear to contradict. I was struggling to see the harmony of agreement in these scriptures. But that was because I was assuming that all negative statements of a verse are also true, I was by default not just looking at the actual statement found in scripture. The verse I will be looking at is Mark 16:16a. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…” now I could assume that all of the opposite derivatives of this verse are as true as the verse itself.

Here are two possible derivatives of this verse:

Whoever does not believe and is not baptized will not be saved

Whoever believes and is not baptized will not be saved

I could view this verse in a way that these two negative derivatives of the verse above are as equally true as the original that is found in scripture.

Now I want to take a look at a verse in John, John 3:36.

John 3:36 - Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.

This verse does not mention baptism for eternal life. So how can John 3:36 and Mark 16:16 both be true? Where is the harmony here? How can these verses be in agreement? Have we found a contradiction in scripture?

If we look at the actual statements found in scripture we will see that they are both true, but only if we do not recognize that all negative derivatives of the verses are also true. Let me try to explain.

John 3:36 says that belief = eternal life (salvation). Mark 16:16 says belief + baptism = salvation. If first look at John 3:36 we can see that Mark 16:16 is also true because of the following. If belief = salvation then certainly belief + baptism also equals salvation. The verses are in harmony.

The only thing that brings these verses out of harmony is if we take the following negative derivative of Mark 16:16 and consider it to be true.

Whoever believes and is not baptized will not be saved - this is the negative derivative of Mark 16:16 that is not in harmony with John 3:36. Because it is not possible for John 3:36 to be in agreement with Mark 16:16 if this negative derivative is true. If belief + no baptism = no salvation then belief =salvation is missing a core component to make the statement true, so it is not possible to consider John 3:36 true if our negative derivative of Mark 16:16 above is also true. But if we do not validate the negative derivative that is not found in scripture we find that John 3:36 and Mark 16:16 are in agreement. So we see that it is not the scriptures that are in disagreement, but the problem is in our tendency to recognize the negative derivatives of a statement to be equally true, not just the statement found in scripture. It is my hope that understanding this principle will help me as I dig into more scripture and continue to take a wholistic approach to God’s word. I am convinced that God wants us to see the union and harmony in His word, and not get stuck on apparent contradictions, so I am dedicated to seeing harmony and union in His word.