Having just finished Mark Dever's, "Nine Marks of a Healthy Church," I thought I would spend a little of time perusing his ministry's website. What I found on his blog took me by surprise. Evidently, John Piper and Wayne Grudem have been having an exchange about whether paedobaptists can partake in membership in their churches given that they have never been "truly" baptized as an act of faith. (To brush up on this dialog, go here.) Seeing that I am a paedobaptist with many baptist friends, I proceeded to eagerly read Dr. Dever's comments. The following two comments caught me by surprise:"Jesus clearly commanded baptism and to disobey this command is sin [whether intentional or not]. To continue in such an unbaptized state is unrepentant sin [whether intentional or not]. Thus, no careful paedo-baptist will follow John P's apparent "generosity" about membership. That is, they will never knowingly admit someone to the Lord's Table that they understand to be unbaptized."
"Much more we could say here, but, reader, please keep in mind that this is written by one who loves John Piper, appreciates his ministry (see earlier blog post) and who is planning to have an Anglican Dean and a Presbyterian former Moderator of the General Assembly in his Baptist pulpit in the next four months."
Much more could be said about my disagreement with Dr. Dever's stance, but I have one burning question for him: Why would you let an "unrepentant" sinner preach in "your" pulpit???
Am I the only one confused by this? Why wouldn't someone guard their pulpit with the same convictions that they guard the Lord's table?
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2 comments:
I read the Piper/Grudem exchange with interest. I liked Lig Duncan's courteous and brief explanation of the paedobaptist position; I think it was on the Ref21 blog, or maybe it was linked by Between Two Worlds.
I profit from Dever; he's my favorite conference panel moderator and the 9marks interviews are usually outstanding.
Regarding your question about allowing a paedobaptist as a guest preacher, it does show how Baptist theology can lead to some strange applications, but I'm grateful for their cooperation in gospel ministry nonetheless.
Thanks for the mention of Dr. Duncan's explanation, Tim. I will definitely have a look at it.
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