As good exegetes and expositors of Holy Scripture, ought we intepret Paul's proclamation of baptizing Crispus and Gaius as noting two individuals, or as Paul meaning their households, in light of his allusion to Stephanas a few verses later?

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
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So are you asking Credos or Paedos?

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Steve Butts - Former SBC-er
Three Forms of Unity - Bradenton CRC - Bradenton, Florida
(A conservative member in a conservative congregation)

"It is a good thing God chose me before I was born, because he surely would not have afterwards." — C.H. Spurgeon

Both. I'd like to see an exegetical position from each camp, and even critiques thereof.

I don't think its possible to state that "households" are present or not (in fact or mind) where they aren't mentioned. The silence tells us nothing. I don't think speaking of named individuals being baptized can throw any light on our expectations of who is to be, or who was, baptized (and who isn't/wasn't).

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
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When Christ fed the 5000, the text only refers to the men (i.e. there were 5000 men, and the women and children); so it is conceivable that when Paul mentions a specific person being baptized, he means not only the individual, but also their family as well.

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
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There is also nothing in the text that precludes us from assuming that these two gentlemen were bachelors.

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~James Helbert~, Wytheville, VA
Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCUS
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Why are you assuming there were many (any?) women and children in this passage? The translation "besides" women and children (Mt 14:21) is an gloss of "choris" (meaning separate, apart from), and is only telling us it was a crowd of about 5000 men, not that there was an accompanying crowd of the families. There is no reason whatever to assume that had there been significant numbers of women and children there, they would not have been included in the count. The fact that these were crowds (cf. Mt 15:38) of mainly (if not exclusively) grown males is the POINT of what is related.

So, DR, respectfully, I do not think this passage makes the point you wish it too.

Joshua,
Even if the scripture does not say it, Isn't it true that someone would have to "prove" that households were not baptized? The idea of individual election to salvation should not be considered.

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Anthony D'Arienzo
Sunday School Teacher
Hope Reformed Baptist Church:
Medford, N.Y.

"And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children." Matthew 14:21. So there were women and children there but they were not included in the count of the 5000. Moreover, considering that the disciples got the food of a child - "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?" (John 6:9) - would indicated that women and children were present.

Answering on your own grounds, the Matthew passage fails to provide what is necessary to the interpretation you drew for the 1 Cor 1 passage: namely, that NO mention of family (women and children) occurs, yet we should be able to infer their presence--because in the gospel passage is explicit MENTION of them (if you subscribe to the interpretation you are insisting upon). Your application to 1 Cor 1 then requires inference piled on inference, not a safe course for strict exegesis.

Furthermore:
1) My point was (and is) that the figures provided indicate that the crowd was calculated by numbering the men, and therefore whomever else was there would have been negligible.

2) No. "Beside" does not mean there must have been women and children there. Saying so will not make it so. The language can just as easily (and faithful to the meaning of the term) mean that they were "apart from" or "without" women and children. I suppose there may well have been a few there, but the very fact that they are NOT counted indicates that whatever their presence amounted to, it was negligible to the crowd size. Let us not reduce the actual FIGURE given to an obscure detail.

3) To rephrase the issue (borrowing from Richard Bacon), Would there be any reason for there to be large, migrating crowds of mainly male travelers at any time during the year in Palestine? Why yes, there would be: whenever there were the three feast days in Jerusalem, and all the males were required to attend.

4) Therefore, the fact that there was a "boy" (male) in the crowd has little bearing on the interpretation as I judge it, since the number given is "general", and the boy is "male". He could just as easily have been a child of 12 or younger traveling with the men, or even if he was 13 or more, he was still a "boy" relatively speaking; and in any case may be rounded into the number of men.

To conclude, I cannot see how it is a reasonable course of exegesis to bring an a priori to 1 Cor 1 and infer household baptisms for Crispus and Gaius, and BY Paul (that is Paul's point, after all--'this is what I myself did'). I would say especially since a household is mentioned just afterward! Are not distinctions in Scripture just as vital as associations? Of course they are.

I see your point about the distinction in 1 Cor. 1, but continue to disagree as to the feeding of the 5000.