Christian doctrine has never been determined by one or two proof texts. It’s always a matter not only of considering everything Scripture teaches on a subject, but then also using reason to collate and systematize all of that teaching. The classic example would be the doctrine of the Trinity. There’s no one passage explicitly teaching that there is one God who exists eternally in three distinct persons. Instead, that’s been formulated taking into account the full scope of what the Bible teaches about God and working with it.
I submit that a failure to realize this is behind much opposition to infant baptism. The easy thing to argue is that the Bible nowhere commands it or gives an explicit example of it; therefore it ought not to be done. Easy, but also simplistic. With the same theological reasoning, Jehovah’s Witnesses reject the Trinity.
Behind the question of infant baptism, there are two other key questions needing to be answered. Once those questions are answered, it should be apparent that infant baptism, while not explicitly biblically commanded, makes biblical sense and is according to God’s will. Both of these questions relate to covenant theology. Read more»
Wes Bredenhof | “A Concise Case for Infant Baptism” | August 24, 2026
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