Terry Pruitt's Blog

When I claim to be a moderate, may I never do so as an act of cowardice where I refuse to take a risk.  I desire to be open minded like a true liberal.  When I claim to be a moderate, may I never do so as an act of cowardice where I refuse to take a stand on the truth.  I desire to be respectful of the wisdom of the past like a true conservative. When I claim to be a moderate,  I never want avoid the hard, painful intellectual rigor of grappling with the truth. I desire to read, listen, and study broadly like a true liberal.  When I claim to be a moderate, I never want to consider myself better than others by the false thought that I have somehow risen above the debate to a higher plane. I desire to bring the self awareness that I indeed have a world-view that I implicitly believe when weighing all others like a true conservative.  When I claim to be a moderate, may I never do so as an act of distancing myself from my sisters and brothers in the fait...

The idea for "baptism for the dead" from 1 Corinthians 15:29 is probably a lot simpler than we make it out to be. First we should recognize that there was a variety of reasons someone would perform a ceremonial washing besides Christian baptism. Hebrews tells us that there were a lot of ceremonies in the Old Testament that used washings. It says, "According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation." (Heb 9:9b-10 ESV) We often just think of Christian baptism as the only washing, but there were other washings as well. That brings us to the second fact for consideration. If someone was to touch a body in the process of caring for a person, or burial of a person, a washing was required afterwards. Numbers 11 tells us, "Whoever touches the dead body of any person...