Topic
Sacraments
2 sermons · All topics
Testimony, confession, and baptism: Hans
A believer presents his public testimony before the congregation prior to baptism by immersion, tracing his journey from Eastern mysticism and Stoic philosophy to saving faith in Jesus Christ. His conversion crystallised through reading Scripture — beginning with Proverbs and ending with a sermon on Matthew 24:15 — when the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 became for him a vivid demonstration of divine justice and mercy held together. The 1689 London Baptist Confession's teaching on baptism frames the ordinance as a public pictorial representation of the believer's union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.
Ask FGBC #65: Are Reformed Baptists Really Just Anabaptists?
The question of whether Reformed Baptists share roots with the Anabaptists is answered historically and from primary sources: the Particular Baptists arose from English Reformation Congregationalism, not from Anabaptist streams. Scholars such as Matthew Bingham and Jim Renahan have demonstrated from extant 17th-century writings that no traceable literary connection exists between the two movements. The discussion clarifies that surface similarities—believers' membership, rejection of Roman Catholic ecclesiology—do not constitute a common origin, and that the Anabaptists themselves were not a monolithic group. Listeners are encouraged to engage careful historical scholarship rather than repeating unchallenged secondary or tertiary claims.