House Church Talk - Baptisms

[Vanessa DiDomenico]

Note that those of us who are Quakers do NOT believe in the need for a
water baptism, which is the baptism of john, but we want ONLY the basptism
of Christ, which John himself said was of fire and holy spirit, NOT of
water. Water baptism was a renewed jewish ritual, a preparation for what
was coming. if one is only in preparation, well fine, let them have water!
It has been so for over 350 years.

I remember when I met the Lord, before I ever knew of Quakers, I could
never understand why HE would require something as ridiculous as being
submerged in water. Soon, someone showed me hebrews 6:1 and the verses
following it, where Paul says to abandon all those rudiments, and go on to
perfection, and lists water baptism among the rudiments. THAT is why we
Quakers do NOT use water, and we also marry in the Bible way: the woman
enters the man's room, and they are married! This, BTW, is accepted by US
law since over 2 centuries ago as a LEGALLY acceptable marriage. Enough
Quakers gave up their lives for this. And Puritans, Baptists, in Boston,
killed them also for not using water! That is a real Christian, huh, one
that will kill another because he didn't use water for baptism? ROFL

It wasn't until I met Quakers over the net a couple of years ago, and they
came here, and then went to Iraq, and now we work together as I report to
our lobby in Congress of Bush's lies about our president here in venezuela
(and NEVER trust what you hear on CNN about venezuela... I have caught
over 5 lies already, and I am working with some reporters on media bias on
this). Now THOSE are REAL Christians, the church of Philadelphia which is
mentioned in Apocalypse as the one 'with little force (there are few
Quakers) but who really obey the Lord'. It is the ONLY church in
revelations which does NOT also receive criticism! I believe it refers to
us, because I believe that rev was written for TODAY, not only for those
churches which existed then. And think of human rights: ALL first set up
by William Penn in Philadelphia! My son, who studies in a US overseas
school here, and i were studying US history last night for a test, and he
is amazed at how much Quakers did... its like the US would be NOTHING
today if it weren't for Quakers... all was done by them, slaves freed, the
Industrial revolution started (that is what we studied last night), etc.

In our home, Quaker Meetings are soon starting, for they have sent us some
$$ to paint andf fix up the place... even sent us money last year to eat
and buy my medications! Other churches just ask for money, these send it
to us! Yes, we do spend all our time on preaching and street work, but
this is not an organized thing, it is a home church... only that we live
in a large warehouse, soon to be a community center too. And the president
which Bush calls a dictator here (because he won't let the thives and
terrorists now living in the US continue stealing), is providing the poor
with doctors from Cuba... 23,000 have come to work with the poorest of the
poor... like the poor lady giving tithes, compared to the rich man who
gave much more but for him it was nothing. What Cuba is doing for
Venezuela is worth 1 million times more than what the US does for the
whole world in charity! And those congressmen silently erased what our
lobby had manged to put into the law... the right for Americans to travel
to Cuba. And our president spent 2 hours preaching Jesus to Fidel, too!

Sorry for the political statements, but this is what my life is today...
and how is it related to water baptism? That people dont't THINK anymore,
neither of God nor of us humans, with reason, we just accept traditions as
the law.

Vanessa from venezuela

--- Bruce Woodford <bwood4d at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Ross,
> 
> The baptism which we have been discussing is the new covenant baptism
> that 
> is done by men. I am well aware that there are a number of different 
> baptisms of people and objects in a variety of fluids in the old
> covenant 
> scriptures (John's baptism included.) But after the new covenant was
> brought 
> in by the shedding of the blood of Christ at Calvary, the only baptism
> of 
> which I am aware of which men were the baptizers is the baptism of
> believers 
> in water.