Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Baptism
David Heddle has picked up on some interesting ideas regarding Baptism. Aftrer reading the comments I was compelled to add my two cents on the practive of the Lord's Supper and Baptism.
Where are we required to use alcoholic wine and unleavened bread to perform the Lord's supper? In my mind Jesus took the common elements in front of him and applied a symbolic representation to them. To put this in today's terms he may well have used the left over pizza crust and the bottom of a bottle of coke after a meal was finished.
We are instructed to follow in like manner; that doesnt mean we need to get dressed in the clothes of the period, sit they way they were sitting or say exactly the same thing, but as the Pauline epistles are full of "have the same mind as Christ".
I think the same can apply to baptism. It is not so much the act as the intention. Hypothetically, could an astronaut in free fall brought to salvation be baptised symbolically where no body of water is available?
Where are we required to use alcoholic wine and unleavened bread to perform the Lord's supper? In my mind Jesus took the common elements in front of him and applied a symbolic representation to them. To put this in today's terms he may well have used the left over pizza crust and the bottom of a bottle of coke after a meal was finished.
We are instructed to follow in like manner; that doesnt mean we need to get dressed in the clothes of the period, sit they way they were sitting or say exactly the same thing, but as the Pauline epistles are full of "have the same mind as Christ".
I think the same can apply to baptism. It is not so much the act as the intention. Hypothetically, could an astronaut in free fall brought to salvation be baptised symbolically where no body of water is available?
