Baby dedication

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JesusIsLord

Puritan Board Freshman
Good day gents. I have heard pastors quote mark 10 :13-16 as a proof scripture for baby "dedications" but I don't know how to reconcile this with a paedobaptist understanding. So my question is, how does a paedobaptist deal with Mark 10?
 
A paedobaptist might cite Mk.10:13-16 as corroboration that paedobaptism is proper.

When I preached on Mk.10 (some time ago now) I may have preached vv1-16 in toto. I remember clearly the title of a message, "Husbands, Wives, and Children in the Kingdom." Seems to me, the implication of Jesus' teaching at this place in his journey to Jerusalem (and the cross) is that marriage/family is one, natural, stabilizing element of human life that will not change in his Kingdom.

There will be husbands and wives (he tightens up already strict divorce regulation), and the natural fruit of such union, "for of such is the Kingdom of heaven;" that is, they comprise its membership. Lk.18:15 is most explicit, speaking of these little ones as "brephe," infants. I call it "corroboration" of infant-baptism, because the theology of I-B is taught from passages having to do with baptism, and signs of the covenant. But what should be done for those who are identified as belonging to the Kingdom? Receive the mark of ownership.

Anyway, that's how one paedobatist might handle Mk.10.

[perhaps it would not be out of line to point out further, that in the following portion, Jesus turns away someone--a rich and potentially glam-convert to his movement--who is not fit for the kingdom; and this shocks the disciples who as of this moment are still looking for the chance to be styled as lords of the Kingdom]
 
Shishko is helpful:

4. Baptist views cannot account for the language used of children in the New Testament. While it is true that Jesus did not baptize little children, what did he mean when he took little children and said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 19:13-15; Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17)? If, as our Baptist friends say, Jesus was simply speaking of childlike faith, he could have (would have?) used an adult with childlike faith as an object lesson, but he did not. On a Baptist model, how are children regarded as part of the kingdom of heaven (the visible representation of which is the church)?

Children of at least one believing parent are regarded as "holy"—separated unto God (1 Cor. 7:14). How are they regarded as such on a Baptist model? It is an evasion to say that this means the children of at least one believing parent are "legitimate." Paul would not have used a term connected with covenantal holiness if he wanted to say this. (Besides, children are "legitimate" whenever they are born in the context of the marital union.)

On a Baptist model, how is it that children are included among "the saints" in Ephesians 6:1-3 and Colossians 3:20 (cf. Eph. 1:1; Col. 1:2)? Paul gives specific instructions to husbands, wives, children, and servants because these were the basic constituents of a household in the first century. How can our Baptist friends instruct the children of their believing adults to "obey your parents in the Lord" (Eph. 6:1)? "In the Lord" does not mean that children should only obey "Christian" parents. Rather, it indicates that children should obey their parents in the context of their covenantal connection to Jesus Christ—which is signified and sealed in baptism. On a "household baptism" model, all of this makes sense. Baptist responses in any of the standard treatments are lame, at best.

https://www.opc.org/nh.html?article_id=545
 
A beautiful passage by Charles Hodge:

The conduct of our Lord in relation to children, in its bearing on this subject must not be overlooked. So far from excluding them from the Church in whose bosom they had always been cherished, He called them the lambs of his flock, took them into his arms, and blessed them, and said, of such is the kingdom of heaven. If members of his kingdom in heaven, why should they be excluded from his kingdom on earth? Whenever a father or mother seeks admission to the Christian Church, their heart prompts them to say: Here Lord am I and the children whom thou hast given me. And his gracious answer has always been: Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not.
 
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