Years ago in New Orleans, while it was still unlawful for Catholics to eat meat on Friday, there lived a lone, solitary Jew in the midst of a Catholic neighborhood. Each Friday he would fire up his outdoor grill and proceed to permeate the neighborhood with the aroma of the grilling steaks. Thus, in defense of their sanity, the neighbors began a campaign to convert the Jew to the Catholic religion.
After several months of fervently witnessing to the Jew their efforts were rewarded. The Jew joined the Catholic church. The father, dipped a rose in water and sprinkled the Jew with the words, "You were born a Jew, you were raised a Jew, but now you are a Catholic."
The community breathed a collective sigh of relief. That is until the next Friday. As they prepared to eat their fish, there drifted through the neighborhood the aroma of steaks being grilled. They converged on the Jew-Catholic and immediately asked, "Don't you know you can't eat beef on Friday?"
He responded, "What beef? Then with a flair he dipped his brush into the barbecue sauce and said, "You were born as beef, you were raised as beef, but now you are fish."
I fear that something like that happens regularly in the church world. By adjusting key words here and changing intent there, we come up with the same type of logic. I am thinking especially of the simple concept of baptism. No seriously thinking person will try to convince anyone that the use of the word baptidzo (best I can do on an English keyboard) meant anything else than dip, plunge or submerge in a liquid. Oh, I know, pouring is such a beautiful symbol of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and sprinkling is such a beautiful simple service that can be performed anywhere, but what about the fact that baptism is supposed to portray the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Make no mistake about it, when interpreting the scripture, "Let God be true and every man a liar."
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