The Catholic Practice of Baptism is Unscriptural

What to do if you are a Catholic

notice 3 things in the photo - we’re not talking about sprinkling, or babies, and the one that will do the baptism is not a priest - it could be anybody

First, we need to define baptism.

The word in the Greek means to be submerged or immersed. If you speak that word today in a Greek country they will understand it to be dunked, submerged, dipped under completely.

Here are the meanings of “baptizo” from reliable lexicons, as used in the original Koine (common) Greek at the time of Christ, in the first century A.D

“To make a thing dipped or dyed. To immerse for a religious purpose” (A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament, E.W. Bullinger).

“immersion, submersion” (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Grimm-Thayer, p. 94).

The book of Acts has several examples of baptism. John ‘the baptist’ baptized followers in the Jordan River.

The Ethiopian in Acts chapter 8 heard the gospel and in the context it’s fairly obvious that he believed and was repentant (more on that later). As soon as he saw water, he asked to be baptized.

“³⁵ Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. ³⁶ As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?”  ³⁸ And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.”

This passage makes it clear that the primary meaning of baptism is to be immersed in water. Both of them went down into the water. I mention this because some Christians mix up the command to ‘be baptized’ with being baptized with the Holy Spirit.)

Why did the Catholic Church start saying it was ok to just ‘sprinkle’?

The Catholic Church officially changed the form of baptism from immersion to sprinkling at the Council of Ravena in 1311 AD.

The reason we are stuck in continued arguments about what constitutes “baptism” with the denominational world is that the translators from the original Greek texts were afraid of offending the king. By the time the Bible was translated into the English in the 14th and 16th centuries A.D., too many powerful people, such as King James, had already been sprinkled under the practice of the Church of England as learned and approved from the Roman Catholic Church.

Baptism is for believers who are ready to repent and commit their life to following Jesus

Sprinkling babies is not biblical baptism. Baptism is for those who are old enough to understand what it means to believe in Jesus and to repent of sin. ‘Repent’ means to turn away from sin. We will still fall short, but our heart is changed – we sincerely want to do what’s right and stop doing wrong.

Mark 16:16 – “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…”  A baby is innocent and hasn’t sinned and can’t believe yet. Infant baptism is not at all scriptural. It’s a complete misunderstanding of what baptism is all about.

Acts 2:38 – “Peter said to them, “Repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

A baby has no sins to be forgiven - how could a baby repent?

Baptism does not have to be done by a priest. In fact, in the history of the early church, as in the book of Acts, written by Luke, who was meticulous as a historian, there were apostles and prophets and elders, but there were no priests. That system was changed when the church under the New Covenant began on the Day of Pentecost.

were you only sprinkled as a baby? what to do:

What to do –find a bible-believing church. If you truly believe that Jesus is the Christ and that he was raised from the dead, and if you repent of your sins, ask someone to baptize you, as Jesus commanded in Matthew 28:19 “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (as promised in Acts 2:38) And you will be filled with joy, having your sins forgiven - set free from guilt - a whole new life!

If you’re still on the fence, I went into a lot more detail in “A Thorough Study of Baptism”