I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church and was always led to feel that John the Baptist launched the Baptist Church. Nicely, it made perception: John was a “Baptist” we ended up “Baptists.” So John must have started the Baptist Church, correct? Indeed, optimistic considering at its best. Notion is, as they say, reality. Occasionally our perception and Truth are in opposition. And, occasionally, we discover out the tough way.
Reading through the Bible in its entirety, fairly than pulling out a hassle-free verse here and there, generates the Creator’s supposed effect – illumination of Real truth.
At the age of 21 I started to read through the Bible. Not the typical casual perusal through a few Psalms or Proverbs, but a deliberate, systematic review of the 66 textbooks that make up the Bible. Looking through the Bible brought on me to evaluate the items we Baptists thought and practiced.
Soon after a watchful examine, I recognized that there had been a host of techniques that we Baptists advocated that failed to align with the Bible. But 1 Baptist doctrine stood out over all other people – that John the Baptist established the Baptist Church.
Did John the Baptist start off the Baptist Church? Do you want to discover it for your self, or would you like to me share what I found? If you happen to be looking through this sentence, I can assume that you want me to share what I found. Alright, listed here is expertise from the Phrase of God. I hope you will validate it for by yourself.
We locate King Herod, in the 14th chapter of the gospel of Matthew, shelling out his birthday at his winter palace. He’d been able to seize and imprison John at his palace. Why did Herod want John in shackles? Simply because John had explained that Herod should not be sleeping with his sister-in-regulation, Herodias as a result, John was incarcerated for his incendiary assertion. Truly, Herod needed to execute John, but feared the reaction of the crowds due to the fact the populous thought John to be a prophet of God.
Then, in the course of the celebration of Herod’s birthday, Herodias’ daughter enticed Herod by dancing erotically prior to him. Evidently Herod was mesmerized by her seductive skills and promised to give her anything she desired. She’d already been coached by her mother on what to ask for. “Give me John the Baptist’s head on a platter!” demanded Herodias’ daughter. Herod was now between a rock and the proverbial hard-spot. He didn’t want to incite the crowds, but he also experienced to demonstrate that he was a male of his word. In the end he chose to make sure you Herodias’ daughter. Herod had John decapitated.
Why is this historical account of John’s dying crucial? Simply because it uncovers the answer to the issue, “Did John the Baptist start off the Baptist Church?” How does it uncover the answer? John’s loss of life at the hand of Herod was ahead of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ produced the 1st prophecy that any church would be built. Jesus mentioned that He would construct a church – not John. Jesus said that it would be His church – not John’s. John the Baptist founded no church. His name “John the Baptist” was merely a descriptive expression of his mission and steps. John was a baptizer of men unto the baptism of repentance.
In the sixteenth chapter of the gospel of Matthew we uncover Jesus questioning His disciples. “Who are the crowds declaring that I am?” His disciples responded, “Some are stating that you are John the Baptist. Some are declaring that you are a prophet, such as Elias or Jeremiah.” But Jesus wished to know what His very own disciples imagined. “But who do you believe I am?” Jesus questioned. Peter responded and said, “You are the Christ (the Messiah Savior), the Son of the living God!” Jesus exclaimed that Peter was blessed simply because his information was provided by God and not by flesh. Then Jesus can make an extraordinary prophecy to Peter and to the rest of His disciples, “You are Peter, and upon this rock (the rock of perception that Jesus was the Son of God, or what we would call the confession of religion in Christ) I will develop my church.”
It was Jesus, not John, who said that He would build a church. We uncover that the Lord’s prophecy arrived accurate in the last element of Functions chapter 2. That section of Scripture reveals that all who ended up saved were added to the Lord’s church by God. God adds the saved to the Lord’s church. There was no earthly council, no associations, and no conventions that voted on prospective church member candidates.
Moreover, Christ’s church was a “blood-purchased” institution, as said in the twenty eighth chapter of the guide of Functions. It was to be an vital, divine, blood-purchased establishment that the saved of God would be included to by God.
Consider this reality: John didn’t prophecy that he would create any church. John did not give his blood for a church. John was just the fore-runner for the Christ.
Background information that the Baptist Church was founded by a guy named John Smyth, an Anglican priest ordained by the Church of England in 1594. Smyth grew to become a “Separatist,” and fashioned the 1st “Baptist” church in Holland somewhere among 1607 and 1609 – some 1570 years after Christ proven His church. Smyth “re-baptized” himself by pouring drinking water over his head. Then he baptized (poured) his followers. 1609 is the unofficial commencing of the Baptist Church.
Prior to his dying, Smyth abandoned his Baptist sights and started making an attempt to proselytize his followers into the teachings Menno Simons, and the Mennonite Church.
Present day Baptist Church customers are a group of excellent, honest, ethical, and zealous folks. Nonetheless, they belong to a male-manufactured organization. They belong to a church that wasn’t acquired with Christ’s blood, hood-winked in believing that John the Baptist started their business. How is churches in Raleigh ? Baptist people have not taken the time to examine their very own heritage. They have not taken the time to diligently review the Scriptures of God. They “presume” that what they have been instructed is the truth.
Why would so several great individuals align them selves with an firm that was evidently started by a man, as an alternative of merely obeying the directions of Peter located in the next chapter of Acts and becoming additional to the church of Jesus Christ by God Himself? The response is as basic as the nose on your encounter. They just never know. They are ignorant of these biblical and historic facts.
Every Baptist require to know that Jesus Christ started His church and gave His blood for it. Paul informed the church at Ephesus that Christ beloved the church and gave Himself for it. Paul also said that Christ is the Head of His church, and the Savior of His entire body, the church.
So we boil it down to this: do you want to be a member of the church that Jesus Christ recognized, or do you want to be a member of a church founded by John Smyth? My choice is Jesus. Give me the chance to obey the instructions for salvation found in Functions 2, and God will incorporate me to the church of Christ, Functions two.
If you have the non secular wish to be a “Christian ONLY,” and a willingness to locate the 1, accurate, New Testomony church of the Bible, Michael issues you to read through the e-book Muscle and a Shovel. It is not only a tale that will seize you immediately and not let go, but it will obstacle your current beliefs over and above your imagination.