Holy Baptism: An Anthology
we've published a new book...
I think you’ll like this one.
Pastor Packer and I have assembled a bunch of great stuff from our Lutheran fathers on the doctrine of baptism.
You can download the PDF for free here.
If you’d like to purchase a hardcopy, they are available from Lulu for $7.99 each. Find them here.
This would be a great book to study on your own or in a group.
Enjoy! God be praised for His great gift of Holy Baptism!
Christ is risen! PrBW
Hi Bryan, I am looking forward to seeing you in Oz.
Having read part way through this Anthology, I have a question you can ponder before you get here. (and before I finish reading...) The LCA (or at least, my recent ministers) currently use a baptismal rite where parents and sponsors confess the faith "on behalf of" the infant. That never sat well with me. And in reading your Anthology, I am yet to come across the requirement for infants to confess first, as though recognizing it would be a style of early pietism (?) ("confess with your mouth") or the chronological interpretations of scripture (repent {first} and believe). The requirement to confess, within our rite, seems to diminish the nature of grace in baptism, the gifts of both repentance and faith, the faith that is given which, within your Anthology, is claimed to not be fully understood, within an infant.
Any claim that the confession of faith is made to state what the child will be taught, is not overt within our rite, therefore to the casual and careful observer it seems disingenuous.
Am I missing an aspect of "embracing the paradoxes of Scripture", or something else?
A reply via my email is fine.
I don’t understand why Lutherans, when writing commentary, don’t go back to the early church fathers versus starting at Luther. It makes us seem disconnected from the early church.