Good Morning and welcome a new week of Daily Scripture Word!

This first question for this week kicks of with...

• Do you have to be baptised to join the church? If you’ve been baptised as a believer before in a different Church or denomination, is that ok or do you judge whether the baptism is ‘valid’? How would you do that?

ANSWER: In order to become a Member of the Garden City Baptist Church, Biblical Baptism is a definite requirement. In order to be clear on what I mean by “Biblical Baptism”, I am talking about full-immersion Baptism, performed by an authorised Person.

First, I want to remind all our readers of what Baptism actually is. Baptism is a Scriptural command for each and every believer and is on of their very first steps of obedience to Christ, following His Own example. See Matthew 3:13 and 28:19

Baptism is a public profession of one’s decision to follow Christ, and this is why we only ever find Adults getting baptised in The Bible. Babies and little children can hardly decide to follow Christ and forsake sin if they know nothing of these things.

Furthermore, Baptism is not required for Salvation (Romans 10:11-13, Acts 2:21), nor does it automatically make you a member of a particular Church since Baptism identifies you with Christ, not some local gathering of Christians. Baptism got connected to a particular Church’s Membership when Rome began teaching that it was necessary for Salvation, and the only way for a person to be saved was to be “a part of the Bride”, i.e. The Church. Very quickly people began to join the Church via Baptism, and the age got younger and younger until we infants of just a few hours old were being “Baptised into The Church” for Salvation. Here at GCBC we do not confuse Salvation with Baptism, nor local Church Membership with Baptism, but continue to teach all three as separate steps in a believers growth, something you can clearly see occurring (though very quickly!) in Acts 2:41.

We do find, as just mentioned, that throughout the New Testament people receiving Christ as their Saviour got baptised pretty much right away. It was not as though a persons Salvation relied on some “completion ceremony” to ‘seal-the-deal’, but more that the people getting saved in the beginning were Jews who already knew The Scriptures. Today it is not unusual for there to be gap between a persons Salvation, their Baptism, and even joining their local Church as a Member, simply because they do not know The Scriptures and need to be taught these things.

Secondly, here at GCBC we have a 4-Step process for receiving folks into Membership, and in short order that process is:

• Proper Profession: A clear profession of Salvation—not relying on anything other than the blood of Christ. Their Salvation is to have no connection to Baptism, Speaking in Tongues, or even a special day (i.e. Sabbath).
• Proper Understanding: A clear understanding that Scriptural Baptism is nothing more than an outward symbol of our Salvation and desire to identify with Christ.

Having provided the above, if a Member applicant was not baptised at GCBC, we would seek the following clarifications:

• Proper Authority: The candidate must be able to testify that they were baptised by a Church-authorised person (Pastor, Deacon, Layman, but never a Lady) and within the auspices of a Church service, not a personal baptism at home, or by a friend in a creek, etc.
• Proper Mode: The candidate must be able to testify that they were baptised by Full Immersion; Publicly; In obedience to Christs’ command, not to join a Church.