some additional thoughts on baptism.
I go to a church called The Hamilton Dream Center. Two weeks ago 4 people were baptized in water --three by the pastor and one by the youth pastor. The traditional trinity formula was used by both the senior pastor and the youth pastor. The previous week one of the men of the church spoke briefly on water baptism. In his brief talk he quoted
Acts 2:38 and mentioned that in his opinion, when a person came up out of the water they should come up speaking with tongues.
I thought about the story in
Acts 8 where Philip (only person called an evangelist in the Bible) witnessed to the Ethiopian Eunuch.The Bible says he began at the Scripture in Isaiah where the eunuch was reading and "preached Jesus." As they came to a body of water the eunuch requested baptism and asked if there was any reason why he could not be baptized. Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." The eunuch responded, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." According to some of the older Greek manuscripts and according to quotes by some early church leaders there is a variant reading of
Acts 8:38-39 which reads as follows:
"And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord fell upon the eunuch, and the angel of the Lord snatched Philip away, that the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing."