Hey Pastor John,
I was just reading in the NT where Paul continued to baptize people after the holy ghost came, before and after they had received the holy ghost. He also circumcised Timothy, even though he knew it meant nothing, and knew that the real circumcision was of the heart. I was just wondering what the correct thing to do is in circumstances like these. I believe that his intentions were to not make someone stumble, especially if these were rituals that these people had been ingrained with. I also don’t want someone to think those things are necessary for salvation or that God’s spirit isn’t enough. This just kind of confused me because I can understand a few different point of views. Just wondering.
Thanks, Terri
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Hi Terry.
It’s good to see that you have read your Bible, and really paid attention to it! Isn’t it amazing what questions pop up when we do that?
Your question was “I was just wondering what the correct thing to do is in circumstances like these.” The answer is, “circumstances like these” do not exists any longer; so, we don’t have to worry about what we will do when you are in them.
Paul was living in a time when the Jews were still required by God to keep the law of Moses and all of its ceremonies. If you pay close attention, you will note that Paul never baptized any Gentile with water, only Jews. And even then, he regretted baptizing with John’s baptism with water the few Jews whom he did baptize, in Corinth especially, “for”, he said, “Christ sent me not to baptize” (1Cor. 1:17). It was also for the sake of the Jews living in the area of Timothy’s hometown that Paul circumcised Timothy (Acts 16:3), whose mother was a Jew. According to Jewish tradition, if the mother is a Jew, the child is a Jew, and Paul wanted to present no stumbling block to the Jews when he went to their synagogues and preached the gospel to them.
That time and those circumstances, however, are no more. The Jews who were alive at the time of John the Baptist have long since died, and the authority over the Jews which John’s message and baptism carried died along with them. Even before his death, Paul had begun shaking his garments at the Jews (Acts 18:6), symbolically signifying that he (and God) were coming to the end of any special regard for the Jews and that if they were going to be saved, they would have to submit to the gospel Paul preached to the Gentiles, and leave the law behind. The book of Acts ends with this angry warning from Paul to the Jews, whose minds were now blinded by God to the gospel (Acts 28:18): “Be it known, therefore, unto you, that the salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles, and that they will hear it!” The Jews who walked away from Paul that day did not know that they were walking away from eternal life and into the arms of Death himself, who was waiting with open arms for them – holding on to the ceremonies of the law which God had now all but finished using for their good.
That is why those circumstances no longer exist for us, Terri; God has finished with the law of Moses. Paul was alive during a special time, when the law of Moses was still in effect for some people, the Jews, while the gospel for the Gentiles had begun to be preached. That is why you see Paul preaching one thing (no ceremonies – to the Gentiles), and occasionally doing another (practicing ceremonies for the sake of the Jews).
Let me know if you still have questions.
Pastor John