• Dennis E Johnson’s letter to his daughter on why he changed his mind (pdf)
• Douglas Wilson’s book: To A Thousand Generations
• RC Sproul’s Series on The Sacraments (Talks 5-7 in particular)

The following, together with links, is the best argument against infant baptism that we encountered:

• Why I am a Credobaptist by Stephen Wellum (a credobaptist is someone who only baptises professing believers and is therefore against baptising infants).

Why It Matters

Our views on baptism should not be a cause of division in the church. This is why my own church allows for elders to hold different views concerning who should be baptised. If an elder disagrees with the practice of infant baptism, he may not insist on rebaptising those who were baptised previously as infants. On the other hand, if he is in favour of baptising infants, he may not require that believing parents baptise their children.

While we should not be divisive over who should be baptised, it is still an important issue for the following reasons:

• Baptism is commanded, so we should understand what it essentially is and to whom it should be administered.
• It affects the way we read the bible. Infant baptism tends to emphasise the continuity between the old and new testaments, whereas “believers-only” baptism emphasises the discontinuity. This in turn affects our understanding of a number of things, including the ten commandments, end times and even the mission of the church.
• It affects the way we raise our children. Infant baptism encourages us to view our children as disciples, just as the Jews did in circumcising their children. On the other hand, “believers-only” baptists are inclined towards seeing their children as unbelievers who first need to be converted.

Pierre

The Content:
Education, then, is not essentially about reading, writing and arithmetic, although it usually includes these.  Neither is it about learning to change a plug, or learning how to find out how to change a plug – but it does include these too.  Rather, education is concerned with answering three overarching questions:  Who is God?  What is he doing in the world? How are we to respond to him?  We can answer these questions only by God’s gracious revelation – through his word and through observing his world in the light of his word.

The Context:
Education is not limited to something that happens for 8 hours a day between ages 4 and 18.  It is a constant, lifelong process.  Whatever we do and wherever we are, we are either learning to love God, or not to love him.  Education happens as we walk down the road, read the newspaper, sit in the classroom or sit in the pub (hence the all-of-life approach to the education of adults and children we see described in Deuteronomy 6).

The Need and Method:
This is not a popular assertion, but we all start off life as immature and ignorant.  We are not naturally obedient and self-disciplined, so we need hands-on training.  We are not born wise, and our natural bias is away from the knowledge of God and his purposes.  We can’t figure these things out on our own, so we need deliberate instruction.  Both training and instruction need to be prominent in our approach to education then.  We engage in these things dilligently, recognising our complete dependence on the Holy Spirit to produce in us and our children a love for the God of truth, goodness and beauty.

The Agents:
In Deuteronomy and Ephesians 6v1-4, parents are the God-appointed educators of their children.  This means that all Christian parents are actually home educators.  That’s not to say that we can’t outsource some of our children’s education.  In fact, all of us do.  For instance, when a homeschooled child reads a book not written by his/her parents, then education is being outsourced.  Having said that, we are still responsible as parents for the parts of education that we outsource.  The issue then is not whether to home-educate or to outsource.  Rather, parents need to decide how much to outsource, what to outsource, to whom and at what age.  There is much freedom in making these sometimes tricky decisions.  What is wise will differ from family to family, but that’s not to say that we should never question each other’s decisions concerning this.

Pierre Queripel

It is common to make the distinction between adopting and having children ‘of your own’ but I think that the sooner we do away with this false distinction, the better. For one thing, when we talk like this, we alienate children who’ve been adopted.  What we’re saying is that children we adopt are not really ours after all.

I’m told that amongst African cultures it is generally believed that the ancestors don’t recognise adopted children as legitimate. Often, these children are not treated as true members of the family. Also, amongst westerners, there is the assumption that adoption should be a last resort if you cannot have children by “of your own”. Now please do not misunderstand me; having children by birth is a wonderful thing, and of course there is nothing wrong with wanting this. But listen to what someone once told us: “I could never love something, that’s not my own”. She clearly thinks that her own genes are basically different from other people’s genes. She believes that her genes are more valuable than others. That view is not compatible with Christianity. It is Darwinism at its worst.

Let me say that when we adopt a child, he or she will become our real child, just as Bethany is. We will be the real parents. A child that we adopt will be equally loved and he or she will be entitled to an equal inheritance. Our own legal system goes along with this. We will be getting a piece of paper from Pretoria saying that this child we have adopted can now be regarded as our “birth child”. In the eyes of the law, then, adoption overrides biology.

The Bible takes the same view of adoption. Did you know that Jesus was adopted? His father, Joseph, was not a blood relative. Remember that Jesus was born of a virgin. Matthew, in ch1 of his gospel, makes the crucial point that Jesus is a descendant of David. But the way he does this is surprising. He does this by showing that Joseph is descended from David, thereby including Jesus in David’s family tree. Matthew did not think it necessary to point out that Mary too was descended from David. In the eyes of the Bible, adoption overrides biology.

This should come as a great relief to children adopted into a Christian home. It should also come as a great relief to all Christians, since we have been adopted by God. When God adopts us, we do not become his “adopted” children, we become his real children. We are not second class citizens in God’s family. On the contrary, God loves us just as he loves Jesus. What’s more, adoption is not God’s plan B. Ephesians chapter 1 says that God planned to adopt a people before the creation of the world. Adoption is at the heart of what God is doing in the world.

If you are a Christian, God has adopted you. May I then encourage you to consider showing that same love to one of the million-or-so orphans in this country. Adoption alone is not the solution to the orphan crisis, but it is certainly a vital part of it.  Adoption is not the best option for everyone.  There are numerous ways in which we can show love to those in need, but do consider adopting orphans as one of those ways.

Pierre Queripel

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Talita Ann Queripel was adopted on 19 March 2010 – age 6 months.