Originally Posted by Semper Fidelis

It doesn't change the fact that I still hold you in high esteem but I find your reasoning to be something that would not hit me like a ton of bricks. It falls flat on me.

I'm not sure how you move from a historical narrative that is focused on the number baptized that day to a didactic principle that baptism is for adult believers. You obviously have to conclude much more than that thin piece of Scriptural evidence because neither the setting nor the verse provide enough information to demand children were present (after all Peter repeatedly refers to the crowd as "men and brethren"). Also, a Covenant principle would consistently only "count" men just as in the Old Testament (exactly how many women and children were there in the desert?). If you're uncomfortable with that as being "explained away" and unsatisfactory then so be it but I don't know how you're going to satisfactorily build an injunction that baptism is for professors on the basis of texts that can be interpreted both ways and then conveniently give no answer where household baptisms are spoken of and just "explain that away" in the same way you assume others have explained away this single verse in your estimation.

I'm not trying to beat you up over this but my convictions on the Covenant are built from an underlying super-structure that takes many more things into account including the progression of Covenantal development. I simply don't see Acts 2:41 as something that would knock down that whole edifice and find the historical narratives to be, at best, vague to establish a principle either way. For every verse where you might want to definitively create a "this must speak of adults only" you'll have the same wrestling process with those that we believe militate in the opposite way. You've obviously built some sort of super-structure beside this single verse or it would not have hit you like a ton of bricks.

I do hope that you'll find a Confessional position on the matter and not try to strike some position that rests between Confessions but settles on none.

Blessings!

Rich