Dekybo
Puritan Board Freshman
I am performing my first baptism this Sunday for a young girl. I was speaking with her father beforehand and he told me that he would like for her to be baptized in the name of Jesus alone. I had never heard of such a request and just assumed that Christians were baptized in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19-20). He stated that he was previously a part of the Apostolic church and that they baptized in the name of Jesus alone citing Acts 2:38 as their scriptural support. I tried to reason with him that each member of the trinity plays a vital role in the symbolic washing, but he seemed to have a hard time accepting that. I believe his reasoning was two-fold. First he believed that it was important to speak the actual name of Jesus, not simply his title as The Son. Secondly, he believes that because the scripture in Acts occurred later that it somehow changed the command of Christ earlier in Matthew. As a pastor I would normally seek out wise council within my congregation, but we have no elder, and only one deacon who I'm not sure that I could trust to be of help. I should say that I serve a southern baptist church and align with their beliefs on baptism thus far. Any advice is appreciated.