Why Do We Baptize Infants?

by Bryan Chapell

Publisher:

P&R

, 2006

Overview

In this booklet, Bryan Chapell pastorally explains the scriptural foundation for infant baptism. He notes, “to do this I will first present the biblical support for infant baptism as I have presented it in new members’ and church officer training classes over the past 25 years. Then I will conclude by offering words of explanation that I have often used as a pastor during the administration of the ordinance. My goals are to help explain why we should baptize the infants of believing parents and also to help pastors better to know how to administer the sacrament in ways that are meaningful and helpful for their churches. Thus, I plan to present this material in terms that are accessible to laypersons and to leave technical discussions to able scholars in other books.

Contents

Top Highlights

“These words remind us that salvation comes through faith, and also that the rite of circumcision that once signified the benefits of Abraham’s covenant has been replaced by baptism.” (Page 14)

“The answer is that we baptize because God makes covenantal promises to believers and to their children” (Page 24)

“What is foreign to our thought today is the biblical principle of representative headship” (Page 18)

“the biblical perspective is that the head of the household represents the family to God and commits them to his worship” (Page 9)

“baptism involves a ceremonial cleansing in which the amount of liquid may vary according to the nature of the occasion” (Page 21)

Product Details

• Title: Why Do We Baptize Infants?
• Author: Bryan Chapell
• Series: Basics of the Reformed Faith
• Publisher: P&R
• Print Publication Date: 2006
• Logos Release Date: 2014
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Infant baptism; Baptism › Reformed Church; Reformed Church › Doctrines
• ISBNs: 9781596380585, 1596380586
• Resource ID: LLS:WHYDWBPTZNFNTS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-12-20T00:33:22Z

About Bryan Chapell

Dr. Bryan Chapell is the senior pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, Illinois and president emeritus at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, where he has served in leadership capacities since 1985. Dr. Chapell is an internationally renowned preacher, teacher, and speaker, and the author of many books, including Christ-Centered Worship, Each for the Other, Holiness by Grace, Praying Backwards, The Hardest Sermons You’ll Ever Have to Preach, and Christ-Centered Preaching, a preaching textbook now in multiple editions and many languages that has established him as one of the nation’s foremost teachers of homiletics. He and his wife, Kathy, have four children.