Well the debate came, and just like that, it went. Thankfully it went well, for me anyway. Garret Boyer did a commendable job considering that he has not really had any experience in public speaking or debate. However, that said, his argument was pretty simple and ammounted to the usual Church of Christ argument.
The verses that were used as his main argument were:
Acts 2:38 (shocking I know)
1 Peter 3:20-21 (even more shocking, I know)
Surprisingly he made a rather large argument based upon Acts 8:26-40 this is the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. Mr. Boyer's major point was that Philip was concerned with being baptized immediately after hearing the gospel, and that God did not take Philip away from there until after he had baptized the Eunuch. This supposedly is a narrative example of baptismal regeneration.
Well, there are some serious problems with that interpretation, and he used a similar argument for the Philippian jailer in Acts 16:25-34 and basically argues that because we see baptism occur after almost every passage in Acts where people accept the gospel that this points to the need for baptism to finish the process of salvation.
Of course it could simply mean that in the apostolic era there wasn't any confusion about the importance of baptism as an expression of the salvation one had through faith in Christ, and everyone who believed in Christ was eager to follow Him in obedience to baptism.
Anyway, I'm going to do a series of posts dealing with the issues surrounding this debate, debunking passages that are often pointed to by baptismal regeneration proponents such as the Church of Christ.
The debate was recorded, if you'd like an audio CD you can contact me via email, jacob@reformationapologetics.com. Just give me your address and I'll send it your way. All I'm asking for $5 to cover the cost of the CD's and shipping. If you live outside the US we'll discuss the difference in shipping.
I'll work on making it available for download in Mp3 format as well.
Serving Christ,
Jacob
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment