Inclusio unius, exclusio alterius

OK, I'll jump in. If God specified gopher wood then that precludes using non gopher wood.

 

I agree. God specificly commanded it.

With the original sinario of baptisem, although I believe imersion is what is intended. I have wondered what if somebody was on their death bed hooked up to tubes and such. If they wanted to be baptised would not one of the other modes serve the purpose. Beings baptisem is not what saves.

In this case I would have to say that even though imersion is what was intended other modes are not excluded for people who can not be imersed.

 

Strange fire is fire but it is still strange.

If immersion is not possible then nothing else is baptism, it is just getting wet. It is the intention of the heart that matters. If it is the intention of our heart to substitue our opinion for his directions I do not think that is acceptable.

 

I dont want to start a big thing.

BUT, if it is the intention of the heart that matters and the intention is "I want to be baptized by immersion" but this is not possable would not the intention be just the same for another mode.

Now if the person just does not want to be immersed but is able. I would say his heart is disobediante. But is the heart is will and wants to be immersed but it is impossable. Then what?

In other words if you were a pastor that was called to a house where a person was hooked up to tubes and you led them to the Lord and they truly wanted to be baptized. What would you do?

What about a prisioner, life sentence, and the institution would not allow immersion. What would you do?

Is it the mode that makes it a baptisem or the intention of the heart.

 

This is a good point. However it strkes me that every thing we do for our Lord is imperfict and not up to his standards. It seems that he wants us to try our best. Now dont get me wrong I believe in imersion but sometimes I like to think about the little detales of things and what ifs. It seems to me that beings the point of baptisem is obediance of the heart, if truly the best a person could do was an imperfict mode of baptisem the Lord would be happy for the attempt at obediance.

Please explain what happens in an invalid baptisem? What do you mean by valid?

One more question why would the Lord be happier with no baptisem then he would be with an imperfict mode of baptisem where the person truly tried to be obedient?

 

Very interesting poll, rlvaughn.

If God's way does not preclude all other ways, than Jesus died in vain, did He not? There is only one way of salvation, one Lord, one faith, one baptism!

 

One of the fundamental laws of all thought are the basic laws of logic. They are fundamental to all thought, because if you try to disagree with them, you end up affirming them. They are therefore non-deniable, and apply to every statement that anyone has ever made.

One of the first three laws of all thought is one that is dealt with here with this question. If one thing is true, then the contradiction of that cannot also be true at the same time and in the same sense.

So if God said use gopher wood, then non-gopher wood is unacceptable. However, the statement "honor your father and mother, and your days will be long upon the land" says nothing about other things that will cause your days to be long. It also says nothing about what will happen if you don't honor your father....God could still be gracious and give long days for some other reason.

 

Interesting you would use this analogy. I remember a story a pastor told me about a man who was in ICU hooked up to tubes, ivs and such. He was dieing and asked to be baptized. His family called this pastor and asked if he could do anything. This pastor took a sheet and imersed the man under the sheet then removed the sheet. The symbology of being buried in Christ and raised was there. And the attitude of the heart was there also. The only thing missing was H2O. If the persons heart was right then he did not need to be baptized to be saved, but he wanted to be as obedient as possable. It seems to me that that is something.

I have kids and sometimes they are not able to do what I ask them to do, but I am always happy when they make a full effort to do what I ask and come up a little short. On the other hand, it furstrates me when they just wine "I cant do it dad" and dont even try.

Exactly, But it seems to me that if the heart is in the right place you would want to obey the best you can even if it is not perfict. It seems the other option would lead to things like; if I can not be perfict then I will not even try to not sin.

Interesting, but like you said the will of the heart is sufficent. And going to this extream was not nessesary. I guess he could have made it rain also. You make good points, I will think about them.

It probably comes down to, and I think we both agree, If your heart is in the right place then all of our imperfict actions will be forgiven they are all as dirty rags anyway. We also agree the if you have the oppertunity and ability to be baptized properly and you do not then you are willfully disobediant.