Bible Debate

Tami Moore

Prof. Dr. Wesley Handy

Course and Section: RLGN 335-B08

Writing Style: Turbian

The Baptism Debate

Introduction

While growing up a daughter of a preacher, I was always charge with filling up the baptism pool with water on every third Sunday. Many times while filling up the pool I would often wonder , “ does it take all this for a baptism why not just sprinkle a few drops over their head and as do you believe Jesus die and rose again for your sins, then they are baptize”. But as I got older and more involved with the ministry, I found out that the submerging into the water represented something and there was a need for them to be dipped, my father stated” it was a sign that God was cleaning all the sin off and giving us a newness in Him that’s called “Salvation”. In a lot churches many of us was taught Baptism was a transaction that takes place when we are being cleansed laying down the old man (sin) and putting on the new man (Sins washed away). Through Baptism we’ve learned this how we disconnect with the devil and connect with Christ. Baptism is look at as the washing away of all our sinful ways and we are made clean, new and free (salvation). It is identification with Jesus' death, burial & resurrection, but as we learn more about it through research and studies we will see that this plays apart, but there is so much more to baptism. This research paper is going to enlighten us and give us a better understanding to what’s the purpose and what are the merits of baptism?

Purpose and Merits of Baptism

What is Baptism?

In order to explain the purpose of something we must first start by understanding what it is? The English word baptism is derived indirectly through Latin from the neuter Greek concept noun baptisma (Greek βάπτισμα, "washing-ism"). Baptism is considered to be a form of rebirth (renewing)—"by water and the Spirit"[Jn 3:5]—the nakedness of baptism (the second birth) paralleled the condition of one's original birth Nettles...