Pondering Passages and Asking Questions

Pondering the following passages:

Acts 9:17-19
So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”   And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; ¹⁹ and taking food, he was strengthened.

Acts 2:37-41
³⁷ Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” ³⁸ And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” ⁴⁰ And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” ⁴¹ So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

Acts 10:44-48
 ⁴⁴ While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. ⁴⁵ And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. ⁴⁶ For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, ⁴⁷ “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” ⁴⁸ And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.

Acts 8:35-38
³⁵ Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. ³⁶ And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”^{[e] 38} And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

There was never a delay between a profession of faith and baptism.  Question:  Why do we delay baptising someone until there is "evidence" of their conversion?  Do we think that we have the ability to stamp "saved" on their foreheads?  I know all the arguments, and yet I cannot find warrant in scripture to support any of the arguments for delaying baptism.

Now let us look at how seriously Paul took baptism.  Did he have a lapse of memory?

1 Corinthians 1:14-17
¹⁴ I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵ so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. ¹⁶ (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) ¹⁷ For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Here is what I think has happened over the years.

In the early church, one could loose their family, their livelihood; and, even their life for professing Christ as their Lord and Savior.  Therefore, questioning the legitimacy of someones conversion (when they were willing to risk everything to follow Christ), was not something the early church had to deal with.  Therefore, anyone making a profession of faith was baptized and considered a "member" of the church.

Making a profession of faith in the United States of America in the twenty first century, is more like signing up for a membership at a Health Club.  With all the false profession's, faithful men of God want to see evidence before they baptize anyone or allow them to partake of the Lord's Supper  or view them as actual members of the Church.  It makes sense.  However, just because it makes sense; does not mean it's biblical.  We can find many ways to justify unbiblical practices that sound honorable like "I'm trying to protect people from eating and drinking condemnation upon themselves".

I submit to you that, as honorable as that sounds, it is not our job and it is not biblical.  We are responsible for preaching the gospel truthfully; teaching professing Christians what the Bible says about partaking of the Lord's supper and baptism and then trusting God.  It is not our responsibility to try to determine who is "qualified" and who is not.  When we think that we can do that; we will admit those who are not and deny those who are.  Not one of us is an infallible "fruit inspector" and fruit comes after baptism and as a result of partaking in all of the means of grace that the Lord has given His Church, including the Lord's Supper.

I believe that many of us are guilty of attempting to do what our Lord specifically prohibited us from doing  in Matthew 13.  Christ knows that we cannot know the wheat from the tares with any certainty and therefore specifically instructs us to not even attempt such things, as in so doing, we will harm the wheat in the process.

 ²⁶ So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. ²⁷ And the servants^[d] of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ ²⁸ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. ³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” .