You must baptize them in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit.
"The organisation is imperfect, but it doesn't affect my relationship with Jehovah"
by Alive! 160 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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SimonSays
BJ, in all seriousness, this is why Young witnesses come to this forum to gather what they consider to be the truth (TTATT) by opposing people that believe they have understood scripture and it didn’t meet their expectation through erred teachings. Perhaps by someone who was flawed, but that doesn’t mean the inspired word of God is. If you’re truly an elder, the premise of questioning bible truth constitutes doubt of what you are teaching.
Given that premature, then how can you honestly believe or expect Jehovah’s Holy Spirit to guide you to teach others. There is no double standard in the WTS as claimed here. That is precisely the reason of baptism, that you have fully understood scripture and are willing to dedicate yourself to God.
The presumption here by some ex-witnesses that have become atheist or evolutionist confirms that notion; they never understood scripture and never took their baptism seriously if indeed they ever were. This is why some witnesses have gone through rebaptism, perhaps because they were to young, they were not rely baptized by other faiths, or they just didn’t understand the value of baptism.
It is one thing to appreciate your own understanding of scripture, but is another to criticize God’s Holy Spirit. Perhaps you need to meditate on that.
Example:
For instance, in 1996, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, in a convention conducted in Denver, Colorado, debated the matter of re-baptism. A position paper, issued by the conference, declared that Methodists who were baptized as infants should never be baptized again. The document explicitly stated: “Whether a baptized infant grows up to be a professing Christian or not, that baptism stands valid.”
This position is flawed in many particulars, having no scriptural support whatsoever.
New Testament Precedent
While on his third missionary campaign, the apostle Paul came to the city of Ephesus. There, he encountered twelve men who formerly had been baptized (with the type of baptism administered by John the Baptizer). One might be inclined to conclude, therefore, that the apostle would have accepted these men as they were, and merely organized them into a church.
Such was not the case, however. After questioning them as to the nature of their earlier baptism, and determining that their pre-baptism instruction on the previous occasion had been lacking in essential particulars, Paul immersed these men into Christ (see Acts 19:1-5).
This case clearly demonstrates that in order for one’s baptism to be valid, accurate teaching must precede the rite. Otherwise it is but a meaningless exercise, and not based on faith (Romans 10:17).
True Baptism — A One-time Act
Genuine baptism is needed only one time in a person’s life. Once a person has been baptized, according to the full complement of scriptural instructions, he or she never has the need to repeat this “new birth” process (cf. John 3:3-5).
After a person has entered the family of Christ through baptism (1 Corinthians 12:13; cf. Galatians 3:26-27), he or she is a part of the church, the household of God (1 Timothy 3:15; cf. Ephesians 2:19-22). The new Christian thus has access to all of the spiritual benefits of the “in Christ” relationship (Ephesians 1:3). As a son or daughter of God, within that sacred environment, the Christian petitions the heavenly Father for his or her personal needs by means of prayer (see Acts 8:22,24; cf. James 5:16), including forgiveness for sins as a child who will err (cf. 1 John 1:8; 2:1).
Baptismal Qualifications
Unfortunately, there are many sects in today’s world of “Christendom” that practice a “form of baptism,” but one that is contaminated by the accompaniment of a variety of doctrinal errors that invalidate the process. It is the case, therefore, that many who have been administered what was called “baptism,” need to submit to the ordinance again — this time with a more accurate understanding that precedes the event.
Here are some situations in which “re-baptism” would be warranted.
Infants
If one was “baptized” as an infant, thus was lacking personal faith (Mark 16:16; Acts 11:21), he should repudiate the meaningless earlier rite, in which he had no decision-making power (even though his parents were sincere in subjecting him to the procedure). He, in genuine faith, should submit to the command in the proper way. Infants have neither the need nor the ability to respond to the gospel of Christ.
Baptism without immersion
If one was “baptized” in some fashion other than by immersion (which actually expresses a contradictory concept, since “baptize” means “immerse”), then he should yield to the proper form. True baptism pictures the burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The sinner is buried in, and raised from, water (cf. Romans 6:3-4; Colossians 2:12), just as the Lord was buried, and then raised from the dead.
True baptism validates one’s faith in the death and resurrection events. Being sprinkled with water, or having water poured upon the head, is no baptism at all, and such substitutes are without sanction in the New Testament. They are post-apostolic innovations.
Baptism without repentance
If one was “baptized” without this act having been accompanied by genuine repentance, such a procedure similarly was ineffectual. I once heard about a man who emerged from the baptismal pool, turned to his wife, and said: “I hope you’re satisfied!” No “baptism” which lacks the proper motive (and other prerequisites) can have validity in the divine scheme of things.
Baptism without faith
If one is “baptized” without a sound faith basis, his ritual would be of no avail. One might feel, for instance, that Jesus was a good man (perhaps even a “perfect man” — as the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” allege), but deny that Christ is the Son of God (i.e., deity), and yet, for various other reasons, desire baptism. No baptism, grounded upon such a spurious “faith” could be accounted as genuine.
Baptism without purpose
If one has yielded to baptism for some purpose other than that which is supplied by inspired teaching, he, in reality, has not obeyed the Lord. Baptism is never defined as “an outward sign of an inward grace”; it is not a mere representation of redemption for those already received.
The purpose of the act is “for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38), to have sins “washed away” (Acts 22:16), to put the candidate “into Christ” (Romans 6:3-4; Galatians 3:26-27), or into his “body” (1 Corinthians 12:13), at which point he is “saved” (Mark 16:16; 1 Peter 3:21). The common resistance to the biblical proposition, namely that baptism is preliminary to salvation, constitutes a bold rejection of the plain testimony of Scripture. One cannot be immersed “for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38), if he believes his sins have been remitted already.
A person’s soul is too valuable, the plan is too simple, and the remedy too easy to access, for a person to “gamble,” hoping that a former “baptism” will be alright — in spite of the deficiencies associated therewith. If there is any question in one’s mind regarding a previous “baptism,” he should be safe and do it right.
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Fernando
RoyalFlushPhil: "Fernando do you know how many of us here believe in God and are trying to search for answers we never got through the Watchtower".
I suspect quite a few RoyalFlushPhil.
I'm certainly one, and enjoying the journey too, whilst facing the usual challenges all humans have to deal with.
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OUTLAW
At the same time, it could also be said that baptism per the Watchtower Society's two questions as asked since 1985 constitutes a perversion that edges on idolatry, but doesn't entirely reach the fulness of idolatry.....Brother Jeramy
The Ability to be a Good Magician or WBT$ Con Artist..
Depends on Your Ability to Mis-Direct..
You Suck At It..
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.....................................THIS IS WATCHTOWER IDOLATRY..
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SimonSays
To the original poster. Sorry your thread got hijacked. Perhaps this will give an answer to the question you posted, that you did everything that you were supposed to do, but never got anything in return. I don’t know at what point your belief system changed, but God knows and understands the needs of his people, and by that I mean true worshippers. It is not a give and take scenario by which you could demand something in return other than through pure of heart and prayer.
Example:
Romans 3:10-12New International Version (NIV)
10 As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away;
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.The Second Law: God Doesn't Need Us but We Desperately Need Him
Last Sunday we started a new sermon series called The Seven Laws of the Spiritual Life. In this series we are discovering the basic principles of the Christian life that meet us where we are and take us all the way to heaven. The First Law teaches us a fundamental truth: He’s God and we’re not. All spiritual reality must begin at this point. Until we have settled the issue of whose God and who’s not, we’re still in spiritual kindergarten. And as long as we fight against God’s right to be God, our lives will be miserable and we will be angry and deeply frustrated. But when we finally come to the place where we can rip the Big G off our sweatshirt, then we’re ready to move on.
That brings us to the Second Law, which builds directly on the First Law.
Law 1: He’s God and we’re Not
Law 2: God Doesn’t Need Us But We Desperately Need HimAs it is stated, this law tells us something about God and something about us. To say that God doesn’t need us means that he is totally and truly sovereign over the universe. He’s the boss, the ruler, and the Lord of all things. That means he alone has true freedom. Go to any Bible college or seminary and you will hear learned (and sometimes heated) debates about “free will.” But when we use that term, we almost always refer to human free will. Years ago I used to expend a lot of energy in those debates. And I was always on the side of those arguing for human free will. As I look back, that seems odd to me now since the term “free will” appears nowhere in the Bible. Here’s the truth of the matter. Only one person in the universe has free will. Find that person and you’ve found God. Our “free will” is drastically limited, his is not. He can do whatever he wants to do whenever he wants to do it, which is the proper definition of free will. It’s true that we humans have important moral choices to make and it is also true that God will hold us 100% accountable for those choices. But any “free will” we have is strictly derivative. The “freedom” we have to obey (or to rebel) is freedom that God has given to us.
The Second Law also tells us something about God’s transcendence, which the Bible indicates to us when it tells us that God is high and lifted up. Transcendence means that God created the universe and is separate from it. The universe is not an extension of God or a necessary part of God. He existed in and of himself long before the universe was created. This law also points us to God’s holiness. This is a hard attribute to define because it is basic to whom God is. As one writer put it, holiness is what makes God God. It’s the “goodness” of God that separates him from his creation. It involves purity and separation from sin but goes beyond that. We might say it this way: If God were not holy, he would not be God at all. Finally, this law impresses upon us the truth of God’s immensity. All power and all wisdom and all majesty reside in him alone. He inhabits all things and his presence fills every part of the universe. There is nowhere you can go where he is not already there.
No One … Not Even One
Not only does this law tell us something about God, it also tells us something about who we are. To say that we desperately need God reveals our inherent weakness. We are sinners by birth, by nature and by choice. The true condition of the human race is revealed in these penetrating words of Romans 3:10-12, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away; they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Even a casual reader is struck with the universal emphasis of these words: “no one … not even one … no one … no one … all … no one … not even one.” It’s hard to miss the point. The whole human race has rebelled against God. As a result, when God looks down from heaven he can’t find a single righteous person. Not even one. He can’t even find anyone who truly seeks him. Sin has so warped the human heart that no one does anything truly good in his sight. We are all “worthless” in his sight. That last part is a pretty tough bottom line. How can you square the word “worthless” with the fact that “God so loved the world?” Why would anyone love a “worthless” person? The answer goes to the very heart of the Second Law. God loves us in spite of our sin and not because of some supposed worth he found in us. To put it in crass terms, he found nothing worth saving in us but he saved us anyway because that’s the kind of God he is. That thought is both humbling and thrilling. None of us deserved God’s grace. If we deserved it, it wouldn’t be grace at all. Any “worth” we have to God is worth that he gives to us. We have value because he values us, not because of anything in us.
The Second Law exposes our phony independence, our casual arrogance, our sinful pride, and our obsessive need to be in control. It tells us that we aren’t in control and we weren’t ever in control, not even when we thought we were.
We can find this concept in numerous places in the Bible:
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).
“The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know” (I Corinthians 8:2).
“Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God” (II Corinthians 3:4-5).
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kaik
Baptism itself has pagan origin and was associated with river god in Middle East. Judaism does not teach baptism. Mikvah has no relationship to baptism as it was used regularly by the community like in Yom Kippur and cleansing of pots used in synagogues.
Orthodox church often engaged in the rebirth / reaffirmation baptism of adults, which often turned into mass event. In 1989 mass baptism was nationalistic manifestation of Serbian people in Kosovo, which precluded Balkan wars.
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kaik
"but God knows and understands the needs of his people, and by that I mean true worshippers" Since every religion claims to be the true worshiper, and if they are Jews, they can disregard whatever you have cities from NT Romans book as Jews do not accept it as a holy writing.
"The Second Law also tells us something about God’s transcendence" This is nowhere in the Bible, but the rest of the post is borrowed directly from Catholic church written by its main philosopher, St. Augustine and the rest is borrowed from Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theological.
Since SimonSays is incapable to think it on its own, the sermon is copied word by word from here:
so it will be good to give credit to the author. Besides his sermons are typical along the line of evangelical babbling.
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SimonSays
While I do not understand why the link didn’t appear, you took a big leap in judging my abilities. I can only surmise that you are some type of book writer. Only authors find a deep devotion to have to defend their position. Then it makes me wonder your true intent in forums such as this one. To pose questions to gather feedback? If you write fiction, I suppose irrational behavior does work best for you.
This would also explain the time you take to research a mistake to pat yourself in the back even though it was through a mistaken premise. That just shows how petty and pitiful your motive is.
One thing for sure, you keep true to your avatar. Perhaps one day he will teach you how to rule the world, but in the meantime, I’ll enjoy the song. I have debated intellectually or harshly with Cardinals, Bishops, Fathers, Priest. I give everyone the opportunity to impress me. I don’t get that sense from you just as the lack of knowledge you knew about Knorr behind the iron curtain, a topic you swore an allegiance to and it fell flat.
Perhaps instead of just focusing in the bible, treat life as a whole, a complexity that merits deep study to fully understand. Then you might get the correct approach that people have to go through to make any logical sense of these parolee’s times.
Example:
Have you ever considered?
1. There is always a price to pay
“Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves”
Friedrich Nietzsche“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
George Bernard Shaw2. Build your self-esteem.
“Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the high road to pride, self-esteem and personal satisfaction.”
Brian Tracy“The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”
Joan Didion3. Give yourself the permission to live the life you want.
“When we have begun to take charge of our lives, to own ourselves, there is no longer any need to ask permission of someone.”
George O’Neil4. Understand the limits of your responsibility.
“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”
Epictetus5. Don’t forget to take responsibility in everyday life too.
“I long to accomplishh a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”
Helen Keller“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
Abraham LincolnThose are choices that confront us in a powerful way every day. So when you know these basic important reasons. It becomes a lot easier to stick with taking responsibility and not rationalize to yourself that you didn’t really have to responsibility in various situations. For instance spiritual food.
Without the extra energy and the presence it becomes more difficult to take action and to not create extra resistance and negativity within you.
Then you are confronted by another spectrum of life. Regression. Regression psychotherapies are based on the notion that if you discover the cause of your troubles you will be cured. The negative causes such as parents, abuse, and satanic rituals, past lives, possession (brainwashing) etc. That theory is then to regress people back to these incidents of having to relive them.
So without too much glitter, what then does scripture teach?
Hebrew 5:11-13
Warning against drifting away.
11Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.
Hebrews 6:1
Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
Warning against Regression
6 Therefore, leaving the elementary message about the Messiah, let us go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, faith in God,
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
5:11-14 Dull hearers make the preaching of the gospel difficult, and even those who have some faith may be dull hearers, and slow to believe. Much is looked for from those to whom much is given. To be unskillful full, denotes want of experience in the things of the gospel. Christian experience is a spiritual sense, taste, or relish of the goodness, sweetness, and excellence of the truths of the gospel. And no tongue can express the satisfaction which the soul receives, from a sense of Divine goodness, grace, and love to it in Christ.“Watch yourself how you act and what you teach. Stay true to what is right. If you do, you and those who hear you will be saved from the punishment of sin.”
-1 Timothy 4:16And for you atheist:
“Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will – his personal responsibility.”
Albert Einstein“It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it.”
Sophocles“A sign of wisdom and maturity is when you come to terms with the realization that your decisions cause your rewards and consequences. You are responsible for your life, and your ultimate success depends on the choices you make.”
Denis WaitleyWell this is one person’s opinion. I don’t play demigod like some book author’s using you as pawns to get a sense of your thoughts since they can’t seem to generate their own.
You people have the last word. Research it recompile someone else’s thoughts and words to make them your own for your next book, and come back with an interesting anecdote. Remember the only person that needs to accept your thoughts are you. Everyone else, as I commonly state, RESEARCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Alive!
Simonsays,
i have been a little tired past few days - sorry if I am being lazy, but may I ask, are you an active JW as in an active member within the JW org and congregations....?
And if not, have you been a witness?
I just noticed you are following a set of sermons which are not JW related....am curious, not being antagonistic!
Wondered where you stand now.
