The NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - Can I Baptize Someone Without Being A Pastor？

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.

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00:00:21.400 Could you discuss the ordinance of baptism, more specifically,

00:00:24.960 the church giving authority for pastors or deacons to perform the baptism?

00:00:29.000 can any Christian baptize a confessing believer? Great question. This is another one that we got

00:00:34.200 ahead of time. So I'm prepared. I've got my 1689 confession here. This is one of the distinctions

00:00:39.840 between the Westminster. There's not much, but there are distinctions between the Westminster

00:00:45.540 confession of faith and the second London Baptist 1689 confession of faith.

00:00:52.060 This would be one of them. All right. So I'm reading from paragraph 11. Paragraph 11. This

00:00:57.500 is chapter 26 of the church, chapter 26 of the 1689 confession of the church. Paragraph 11

00:01:05.120 says this, although it be incumbent on the bishops or pastors of the churches to be instant in

00:01:13.800 preaching the word, meaning that they would be the ones who are ordinarily and frequently

00:01:18.740 fulfilling that duty in the church, preaching the word on the Lord's day by way of their office,

00:01:24.920 Yet the work of preaching the word is not so peculiarly confined to them, not so peculiar to them, that others also gifted and fitted by the Holy Spirit for this ministry and approved and called by the church may and ought to perform it.

00:01:45.460 So this is not addressing baptism, but I want you to see a principle here.

00:01:49.200 This is a principle within Baptist polity, Reformed Baptist polity, church governance,

00:01:56.360 the way that the church is set up.

00:01:58.180 What that is saying right there is that ordinarily elders would preach the word on the Lord's

00:02:02.920 day.

00:02:04.020 But a man who is biblically qualified and yet is not holding the office, not ordained

00:02:12.600 yet as a minister of the word, not holding the office of an elder, it is still permissible, 0.97

00:02:17.600 right? It's not necessarily ordinary, but it is permissible for him to preach the word.

00:02:21.260 So, in a Reformed Baptist local church context, you could have a member of your church,

00:02:29.020 a male member of your church who is spiritually mature and sound in doctrine, but not yet an

00:02:36.440 elder, for whatever reason, fill the pulpit on a Sunday and preach the word, all right? That's

00:02:42.720 something that's unique to Reformed Baptist polity. So now the question is, well, what about

00:02:47.420 baptism? So skipping forward a little bit here, this is now, let me see.

00:02:51.760 I had it. Let me find it. Looking at baptism. Yeah, here we go. Baptism. This is chapter 28

00:03:07.420 in the 1689 confession of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

00:03:14.340 It gets specific just speaking about just of baptism, chapter 29, and of the Lord's Supper,

00:03:20.980 chapter 30. But we're looking at chapter 28, because this addresses the who, who can administer

00:03:27.140 these sacraments. Chapter 28 of baptism and the Lord's Supper, paragraph two. There's only two

00:03:32.440 paragraphs here. This is the second one. It says, these holy appointments are to be administered

00:03:37.180 by those only who are qualified and thereunto called according to the commission of Christ.

00:03:45.360 What does that mean?

00:03:47.120 These holy appointments, the sacraments or the ordinances of baptism in the Lord's Supper,

00:03:52.160 when we have two sacraments, baptism in the Lord's Supper, these are to be administered,

00:03:56.920 who can baptize, who can administer the Lord's Supper? 0.76

00:03:59.760 By those only who are qualified and thereunto called.

00:04:04.780 Qualified and called.

00:04:06.420 According to what?

00:04:07.540 According to the commission of Christ.

00:04:09.960 not according to being an ordained officer of the church an elder or a deacon but according to the

00:04:17.400 commission of christ and the scripture reference that is cited here there's a couple but one of

00:04:22.760 them is matthew 28 verse 19 which is the great commission right go and make disciples of all

00:04:29.460 nations baptizing them in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit and teaching them to

00:04:35.520 obey all commands, right? All of Christ's commands. Now, Jesus prefaces this commission that he gives

00:04:43.300 to the church by saying that I have all authority in heaven and on earth. So Christ is king and from

00:04:50.120 his kingly authority, that authority is not just a heavenly, ethereal, spiritual authority. He is

00:04:56.600 seated physically in heaven at the right hand of his father. That's where Jesus is in the flesh.

00:05:01.880 He is forever the God-man incarnate in the flesh.

00:05:04.660 That's where he is in heaven, but his rule is in heaven and on earth.

00:05:07.840 He has authority on earth, even while he is seated in heaven at the right hand of his

00:05:12.540 father.

00:05:12.980 And with that authority, not just spiritual heavenly authority, but physical, tangible,

00:05:18.300 earthly authority, he commissions the saints, not just elders, not just deacons, not just

00:05:23.280 his apostles, but all of his disciples.

00:05:26.160 is he commissions the church, which is made up of Christians, believers, to do four things,

00:05:32.640 which I would argue is really one commandment. But go, make disciples, baptize them into the

00:05:38.380 name of the triune God, and teach. Teach them to obey Christ's commandments. So it's go,

00:05:43.660 it's disciple, it's baptize, and it's teach. Teach them to obey all my commandments. I would argue

00:05:49.060 it's really one commandment with just an exposition of three different aspects of the commandment.

00:05:53.860 the one commitment I think is make disciples. Make disciples. How do you do it? Well, you go

00:05:58.840 to places and people who have not yet been discipled. And that doesn't always mean oversee

00:06:03.740 missions, but even in your neighborhood, going to those who are not yet disciples of Jesus. So

00:06:08.860 make disciples is the command. Three aspects of that, go, baptize, teach. Go, baptize, teach.

00:06:16.820 um so who's called to do this the saints christians and and what is it that they're

00:06:24.600 called to do make disciples and and how do you make disciples well there are three aspects you

00:06:29.500 go you baptize and you teach meaning that all christians have been commissioned by christ who

00:06:37.300 has authority in heaven and on earth and therefore he is granting us that authority in his great

00:06:43.440 commission. He is commissioning us with authority, his authority to make disciples. And how do you

00:06:49.800 make them? You go, you baptize, you teach, which means Christians have authority to baptize. 0.95

00:06:55.740 Some of you may have heard me talk about this before on John Harris's channel,

00:07:00.260 Conversations That Matter. He's had me come on and talk about church planting within a

00:07:04.400 1689 Reformed Baptist covenantal framework. One of the things that I would say is, you know,

00:07:11.140 Titus, in the first chapter that Paul writes to Titus, he says, this is why I left you in Crete

00:07:15.800 to put what remains into order, appointing elders in all the churches. He doesn't say

00:07:21.700 appoint elders so that they can plant churches. He says appointing elders in all these pre-existing

00:07:29.500 churches. That's the implication. And I think it's a clear implication. So, essentially what

00:07:34.400 the apostle Paul is saying is, Titus, there are churches that already exist. They've already been

00:07:39.520 planted. They already exist, but they need to be organized. There are times, and especially in the

00:07:47.500 first century with the apostolic missionary journeys of the apostle Paul, especially among

00:07:52.280 the Gentiles, where Paul would go on a journey, a missionary journey. He would preach the gospel

00:07:56.680 and the gospel coupled by the power of the spirit under the sovereignty of God would make converts,

00:08:02.100 right? Make Christians. And then he would go to another place, leaving behind in that particular

00:08:06.420 village or city or area Christians. And then what do those Christians do? Well, they're immediately 0.86

00:08:13.460 required by God, duty-bound, to church together, to ecclesia, to gather together on the Lord's Day,

00:08:19.840 the first day of the week, for preaching and for the Lord's Supper and for baptism and for

00:08:26.360 singing, addressing one another with spiritual songs and hymns and psalms. And so, they are

00:08:33.500 gathering together as the church. They're having church. They are a church. They're a group of

00:08:37.920 Christians in a particular local area, covenanted to Christ and to each other, to carrying out his

00:08:44.440 great commission together in a covenant community in a local area. It's a church without elders. 0.90

00:08:51.440 And that's kind of a novel idea, I think, for a lot of people. But I think biblically,

00:08:54.840 that does exist. Now, that doesn't mean it's ideal. That doesn't mean that's what we should

00:08:58.720 shoot for. And it also doesn't mean that it's ordinary, but it is permissible and possible.

00:09:04.620 It is permissible and possible. What is? It is permissible and possible that a church exists

00:09:10.520 without elders for a time. That a church exists without elders for a time. And I think that's why

00:09:18.120 I personally believe that that's one reason why I'm a Baptist. It's not just mode of baptism,

00:09:23.960 sprinkling versus immersion or pouring versus immersion, and in terms of our view of the

00:09:29.720 covenants, in terms of infant baptism versus a believer's baptism, the paedo-credo. It's not just

00:09:35.360 that. A lot of people don't know this about me, but I'm actually more persuaded. I am a Baptist

00:09:42.540 in terms of baptism, but I'm actually more strongly persuaded by Baptist polity than I am

00:09:50.400 by Baptist baptism. I think the Presbyterians, God bless them, most of my partners in ministry

00:09:57.500 are Presbyterian. But I think they're wrong, and I think there are some big problems and negative 0.96

00:10:03.860 effects of them being wrong in the area of church polity. I think that at a certain level,

00:10:10.080 there's a subtle, it's not major, but I think there's a subtle denial of the priesthood of

00:10:15.140 all believers. I think that there's a subtle demeaning and minimization of the authority

00:10:21.480 and responsibility, corresponding responsibility that God has given not just to officers in the

00:10:27.020 church, elders and deacons, but to members of the church, the saints themselves, the work of

00:10:32.500 ministry, Ephesians 4, that belongs to the saints. I think that that work of ministry that Paul talks

00:10:39.180 about in Ephesians 4, that's not just given to the officers of the church, but to the church

00:10:43.140 itself, the congregation, is the Great Commission to build up one another in love by discipling one

00:10:49.920 another. And what is it to disciple? What is included in discipleship? Going, baptizing,

00:10:56.820 and teaching. So, Christians can teach, whether they're an elder or not. And the Baptist

00:11:03.880 Confession, the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, explicitly says that.

00:11:09.120 in the Westminster world, in the Presbyterian world, that cannot occur. In fact, even ruling

00:11:15.100 elders, ruling elders, because they have a bifurcation, right? So we have elders, deacons,

00:11:19.240 and members within Presbyterian. Now there's a spectrum here, but most Presbyterians divide

00:11:25.160 the eldership at least once, if not twice. They have two, what I'm saying is two types of elders,

00:11:31.160 different types of elders, or three. They would have ruling elders, and then they would have

00:11:36.320 ministers, right? Those are teaching elders. And in some cases, they would have a pastor

00:11:41.300 and then a teacher and then a ruling elder. And in that case, the pastor obviously is teaching

00:11:51.000 and preaching the word on the Lord's day, but they might have someone else who can teach but

00:11:55.360 can't administer the sacraments, right? So, he's like a seminary professor who's been ordained as

00:12:00.300 a teaching elder, an academic kind of theological elder in the church, but he's not the pastor. So,

00:12:08.660 he's not administering baptism in the Lord's Supper, but he can fill the pulpit. And then

00:12:13.120 the ruling elders over here, they can't fill the pulpit. They can't teach on the Lord's day.

00:12:19.100 And so, my point is, in Presbyterian Westminster thought, only an elder can teach, and even all

00:12:27.960 the elders can't teach. And that same principle applies to the ministering of the sacraments

00:12:34.900 when it comes to baptism and the Lord's Supper. Whereas within Baptist polity and understanding 0.96

00:12:40.920 of the sacraments and understanding of officers of the church and ordination, and I think

00:12:46.020 ultimately this all roots in an understanding of Christ's great commission in Matthew 28,

00:12:51.080 this is the work of ministry given to the saints. So, you could plant a church, to answer your

00:12:55.740 question, Brandon, you could plant a church and be earnestly praying that the Lord would either

00:12:59.700 raise up one of the men who are already there to become a pastor or that the Lord would send a

00:13:05.240 pastor. But in the meantime, if there aren't any faithful churches around where you live,

00:13:09.520 you could have a few faithful families that we want to do church because it's biblical. We have

00:13:13.900 to, we can't just not go to church and on the Lord's day, gather in someone's home and the men

00:13:18.920 do their best taking turns to preach the word and those men also baptizing and administering the

00:13:25.200 Lord's Supper, all the while recognizing that this is not ideal and it's also not permanent,

00:13:30.580 but it is possible and permissible under the word of God because the great commission includes

00:13:35.480 baptizing and teaching in our quest to make disciples. And we've all been called as Christians

00:13:40.440 to make disciples. And so you could do this for a temporary moment of time as you pray that the

00:13:45.460 Lord would provide elders for you. In that sense, that is just one example of why Baptist polity

00:13:52.180 is better than Presbyterian polity. 0.82

00:13:54.920 Not just different, but I believe better.

00:13:57.320 It more greatly affirms the priesthood of all believers

00:14:00.460 giving dignity to the Christian and not just the minister.

00:14:04.220 Thanks so much for listening.

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The NXR Podcast - June 25, 2022

QUESTIONS - Can I Baptize Someone Without Being A Pastor？

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