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"Where does the Bible say anyone was baptized by sprinking or pouring?"

Many of your preachers have been preaching and practicing such for a long time. Did you ever see your preacher pour a little water, or sprinkle a few drops of water, on the head of a person and call it baptism? Did you ever hear him say, while doing this, "I baptize you: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost?"

I feel sure that many of you have seen and heard just such things. But did you ever go to your preacher and ask him where the Bible says such practice was ever followed by inspired men?

Well, I am requesting you today to ask your preacher for the text in the Bible that gives such information. If your preacher has been baptizing people by sprinkling and pouring, he will know right where such authority can be found in the Bible, if it is in the Bible at all, and surely he will not object to your asking about it. He is your preacher, is he not?

And you are helping to pay him to serve you in this way. So don't feel any hesitancy about it at all. If you are paying him to teach you, you have the right to ask this of him, whether he likes it or not.

If he refers you to the statement in Isa. 52:15 which says, "So shall he sprinkle many nations," and tells you this is a prophecy of baptism by sprinkling, call his attention to the fact that the marginal reading of the American Revised Version reads, "So shall he startle many nations."

Thus the word from which "sprinkle" comes is shown to mean startle. And the rest of the verse shows this to be true, for it says: "The kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see: and that which they had not heard shall they consider."

But what could there be in sprinkling a few drops of water on a person's head that would cause kings to be startled, or to shut their mouths in astonishment?
Or if he refers you to Ezek. 36:25 which says, "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you," ask him if he is sure this refers to baptism. Call his attention to the statement of the entire verse. It reads: "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall' be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you."
Ask him if he is willing to say that baptism will cleanse a man from all his filthiness and from all his idolatry. If he is unwilling to say this, he cannot hold to this passage for baptism. He will likely tell you that you have to be cleansed from all your filthiness and idolatry before you can be baptized.

So according to his own contention, this passage cannot refer to baptism. And while he is squirming in an effort to find where any one was ever baptized by sprinkling, you might direct his attention to the statement of Paul in Rom.6:4. He says: "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."

While he is checking the words "buried" and "raised" as they are used here in connection with baptism, you might turn to Co1. 2:12 and find this statement: "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead."

In both these passages Paul says men are buried and raised in baptism. Ask your preacher why Paul specifies a burial and a resurrection if sprinkling and pouring will do just as well. If he tells you that any of the three - sprinkling, pouring or a burial -will be all right, then ask him why Paul said in Eph. 4:5 that there is "one baptism."
If sprinkling, pouring and immersion are all Scriptural forms of baptism, we have three baptisms. But Paul said there is one. And since Paul said there is one baptism, ask your preacher which is the right one.

Insist that he tell you if the one baptism is the one mentioned by Paul in Rom. 6:4, where he says it is by a burial and a resurrection, or if it is by sprinkling or pouring which are never mentioned in the Bible as baptism. And while you are talking with your preacher, ask him where the Bible says that unmixed water was ever sprinkled on any person in any age of the world for any purpose beneath the sun. If there is such a text, he will surely know where to find it, so ask him for it.

If you have any question or comments or would like to have bible correspondence course absolutely free.