The 5-step Restoration Movement has inadvertently created a doctrine which reduces global outreach. Somewhere along the way baptism became such an arguable matter in communities that our people picked up the drift that the main thing about life is to be baptized so one can go to heaven.
The least in the church know this doctrine. You have to be baptized to go to heaven.
The result, however, has been detrimental in that it has put much of the Church of Christ over the years on hold. Baptized. Heaven. Baptized. Heaven.
What about the life in between?
For too many it seems the goal has been to avoid anything which might disrupt the admission into heaven. This is a grand error which has been swallowed hook, line, and sinker.
We are to be buried in Jesus to walk a new life; a life of shining, of interacting, and of maturing.
The church has come to a virtual stand-still in too many regions because it prides itself in its teaching on baptism when, in reality, it may have slowed down the evangelism process by missing the abundant life in the Spirit which was immediately and perpetually to follow.
4 comments:
According to Jesus, first "go" and second "make disciples".
Pushin the love button.
Just a thought...maybe baptism is viewed as the only saving factor, much in the same light as infant baptism, only in adults. We have heard "Once saved, always saved. I believe that we are children once and how we develope as adults depends on many factors including food, work, training. Your friends in baseball understand this. They are not major league at birth.
Charlie Ward.. Wenatchee WA
Jesus said, make disciples, baptize, and teach them to live it out (paraphrase)
To me: Baptism is the entrance into the kingdom - Spirit living is the process of daily living - Heaven is the mercy gift from God.
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