by Tad Lindley
This one was not even on my radar until I saw a random post about baptism on Facebook. The post was something about somebody baptizing using the word “we” instead of the word “I”. It left me scratching my head. Then I noticed that the post had a huge number of comments. That seemed even odder. I dug into it and read a bunch of the comments and I still did not understand what the big deal was. At that point all I could understand is that a priest had gotten exposed for using the pronoun “we” instead of the pronoun “I” when baptizing people. Some of the commenters were really fired up about it. I was thinking, “As long as the guy was baptizing in Jesus’ name, it probably doesn’t matter whether he said “I” or “we”. So I tried to get to the bottom of it.
Is this even real?
Without reading too many news articles, I was able to determine that, yes, a priest in Phoenix, Thomas J. Olmsted, had for about 20 years been baptizing people with what was apparently the wrong pronoun. Certain people were so upset about this, that the bishop of Phoenix, brought the issue up to the Catholic Pope in Italy. As a result, Pastor Olmsted was fired and is currently working to contact those who he incorrectly baptized over the last two decades so that they might get rebaptized correctly.
What did correct baptism look like?
We are I am now living nearly two thousand years after the cross. Every branch of Christianity has its own, sometimes very different, teachings and traditions on baptism. Some church groups sprinkle and yet refer to it as baptism, others dunk infants in olive oil, others pour water from a pitcher. Some religious organizations teach that baptism is necessary for salvation, and others discount it as merely a ceremony indicating the person’s allegiance to the specific brand of religion that is on the church sign. Who is right? Or does it even matter?
Let’s start with baptism
Please understand that I never had the privilege to attend any of Pastor Olmsted’s baptisms, so I am not here to judge whether he was in the right or in the wrong, only to explore what the Bible teaches. Baptism is an English word that comes from a Greek word, Βαπτίζω, which is pronounced bap-teed-zo. Βαπτίζω means to immerse an object in liquid. So when we read the English word baptize or the Yugtun base angllurte- it always and only means to be put under liquid, and based on reading the Bible, the liquid they used was water (check out John 3:23 and Acts 8:36). Βαπτίζω never means to be sprinkled or to have water poured on you. The original New Testament was written in Greek. The words sprinkle (ραντίζουμε) and pour (ρίχνω) are completely different from Βαπτίζω. So if we are following the Bible, baptism is always done by immersing a person in water, never by sprinkling or by pouring.
What pronouns did they use?
We I don’t know for sure whether John the Baptist said, “I now baptize you in the repentance of your sins,” or if he said, “We now baptize you in the repentance of your sins.” The second one doesn’t sound right to me though. And likewise we don’t know whether Peter and the other disciples said, “I baptize you in the name of the Lord Jesus,” or “We baptize you in the name of Jesus.”
Not saved by the pronoun
One thing we do know is that we are not saved by the pronoun. We are saved by the name and that name is Jesus. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12) And we know that baptism is essential for salvation, not because of what religion Brand X says, but because of what Jesus himself said: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned. (Mark 16:16)
Should people get rebaptized?
At this point you might be very concerned. Perhaps you yourself were even baptized by Thomas Olmsted. Are you lost, because he used the wrong pronoun? According to the Bible, the pronoun has nothing to do with salvation. It has a lot to do with correct grammar, but nothing to do with your eternity. As long as you were fully immersed in water in the name of Jesus (see Matthew 28:19, Acts 2:38, 8:16, 10:48, 19:5, 22:16, Galatians 3:27, and Romans 6:1-4) you do not need to be rebaptized, your baptism matched that of the believers in the New Testament. Think back to your baptism, if you remember being baptized (put under water or perhaps olive oil in rare cases), and the one that baptized you got the name right, keep serving God. If not, then please study those Bible verses above and do what you need to do to obey the word of God.
Reverend Tad Lindley is a minister at the United Pentecostal Church in Bethel, Alaska.
