Did the Church Change Baptism? What the Greek Word Really Means

questing to Jesus, but we just got back from a reformation tour of Germany and Switzerland. And we're going to ask and answer questions about Catholicism, why infant baptism, why the Lord's Supper or communion, and why that Catholic Church puts the pope and tradition above the Bible. Welcome to the Forgotten Jesus podcast, where you'll learn about the real Jesus from the Bible. I'm your host, Pastor Adam French. I'm here with Pastor Robbie Gallady and his wife, Candy Gallady. Pastor, or Pastor Robbie is the pastor of Long Hollow Church. I said pastor four times in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and the founder of Replicate Ministries. Both of you are avid Bible communicators. Co-founders of Replicate Ministries. Co-founders of Replicate Ministries. Co-founders. Oh, yes. Andy was just as a part of him. Well, you just came back for a trip where she was helping, or maybe not as much. I did for an opportunity to teach, Vivian, but she, you're such a good teacher. You are. That's what she said. You are. That's why she didn't want to teach. And I'm like, I was working on this project. Literally, I will give it to Vivian the whole time. We were on the bus. So we went to Germany, took our church to Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein, and Switzerland. And somebody was asking in our D-group, we just said, listen, that may have been, I relived the group, what we learned and stuff. I would say that's probably one of the best trips. I'll tell it is, you're probably one of the best trips we've ever been on. Because you're at the epicenter of Protestantism with Martin Luther. We went to the church where Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses. I got to preach in the actual church. Martin Luther preached in more than any other church in the world. Behind. Are people? Are everybody? No, our people. Some other people were there, but our people, I walked up the little stairs. I was on like the second level, looking down. Come on. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we're going to implement that at Long Hollow Star next week. Oh, gosh. I'm going to put a second. That'd be a little too dangerous. You'd be like, Robbie. Robbie's balcony. Robbie's balcony. Yeah. He would fall, so that would be it. Spurgeon had something like that, kind of. I was like, a little bit about it. He'd eat it. Yeah. Martin D. James Kennedy. D. James Kennedy. Remember him? He used to preach from that raised part. That's why people can't get up there, Ted. See, big germ is like in there. Jeremy loves it. But security guy's like, yeah, let's do that. Come Sunday, Robbie's in the baptister. We drained it. We drained it. New public. Then we saw Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We went to the place. We went to the actual room where they

planned together to conspire to take out Hitler. Because remember, Dietrich went undercover and then got arrested, went to the place we went to. I called him this morning. He has the, that's the cheap grace quote. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Man, it was awesome. And then we went to concentration camp. An actual concentration camp. Do it. What was that? I can never remember the name. Buke and Wallen. That's all the pictures. Yeah. What was that? What that felt like walking in there? Dude. Was it overwhelming? Very. Bro. Very. Listen, it's hard to, we even said, you can describe it to people in kids and books. So they told us when we got there. This one, this is one of the smaller concentration camp and in respect to how many deaths happened there. Only 80,000 people died at this one. Only 80,000, they said. They said it like that. Well, they just, in the video, it was like a quarter of a million were stationed here at one point, but only 80,000, you know, they killed 80,000. In comparison to Flossenberg, which was down the road by train. So they brought the people, we got to go, the building where they had the people and they killed them and incinerated them. In the corner, in the ovens, still there, where they put them in and stacked them two people high. That's when it got me. You think they should, I guess, you, you know, there's two, two folks who, you want it to be there so you don't repeat history, but you know, is there a way to tear it down and honor the people that passed away? Yeah. Well, we had gone to a, not, it's not on site at this concentration camp, but we did go to like a Jewish memorial that was really neat to that, you know, we were able to kind of Berlin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was in Berlin. And so that was good. And I was just glad to be in Germany and they don't shy away from what took place. Like there, you know what I'm saying? Like we had German tour guides and so they're telling us about, right. They don't downplay it. They don't minimize it. Like they own it. Really? They say it was a horrific action. Never be done again. And I mean, there are certain things that are illegal today because of that. If you deny the Holocaust happened, you get a Holocaust, you get arrested. Yeah, really? Well, not to get political, but the guys were saying, there is a young movement arise of Nazism. Again, young Nazi, I don't want to get into it. But he says, yes, they're like 35% of the young 40% of the young people. I mean, it's I don't want to get into it because I don't know a lot about it. But it just shows

man, we people need Jesus more than ever. But anyway, sin is still alive, sin is still alive. Went to the actual prison Bonhoeffer was arrested in before he died and was shipped off. He was he was at the concentration camp that we went but he was like on the outside of it at the SS headquarters. Like that's where they kept him. And he basically stayed there in a cell and then was sent to sent to Flossburg, Flossenberg or whatever. And that's where he was killed at another concentration camp. But we got to go to the actual ruins of the headquarters where he was held, you know, all those months before he died. I think a big question, you know, maybe to listeners like when all this is going on, where is the Christian church? I know you taught for four hours on this and there's probably a lot. But just what pops your mind if someone says, Well, Robbie, what were the Christians at? Yeah, when this has taken place? What would you say or? Well, we we we had a lot of questions from people. How does evil on this at this magnitude happen? There's a lot of I don't have all the answers. I would say there I would say that there was the resistance and there was Christian Christians that were involved in the resistance. Like I actually came they were like we went to a little museum and I actually have a book on the movement of the Christian resistance during that time. I haven't gone through it. But but I would say a lot, not everybody that would have been involved in the resistance would have been a Christian. But I think that was the way a lot of Christians were able to do something. And then obviously being like undercover, basically just like Dietrich was, you know, it was it was I mean, I studied this a lot. There's probably a whole podcast we could

do on this. But you know, it was the right time at the right place after World War one, Germany was humiliated. The inflation was way high. The economy was in the tank. And communism was like the leading party in the country. And and thinking about Hitler was he was a failed artist. He was laughed at for his art. And so he just decided he wanted to make something over ourselves. He rose out of power just out of nowhere. And what's interesting about Hitler is he played he played that in his favor. Basically, don't let anybody talk down to you. We're German. We're the true breed. The Aryan race were better. It was really a maniacal in that. But here's what's crazy about this to just a sidebar. Up until the end, the Catholic Church and the Pope was sympathetic to Hitler. A lot of people don't know this. But the the guys were telling us that this is no secret. And this is history. They meaning similar. They weren't they wouldn't come out one they wouldn't come out and renounce it. Now the Pope had I mean, the Vatican had its own problems at that point, because you had most most lenient Italy and all but people were saying you need to renounce this. You need to call this out and they wouldn't. And so you know, silence actually is speaking because if you don't say anything. But anyway, at the end of the trip, our son, Rig, so at the end of the trip, maybe knows he's been with us. We take the mic around. We give it to everybody in the crowd and we say, Hey, tell me what because you heard from me all week on here for you, which is really a great, great time. And what did you take away? What did you learn from the trip? And so we're in there. We're in a Swiss restaurant that we rented out for the group. And we got a guy playing literally the Ricola Horn. You remember the big Ricola Horn that goes

way out and Swiss like an alpine you know, a big horn. Okay, that literally is playing this horn. Okay, literally, and playing all kind of different things. Is it loud or is it kind of like talking on? No, no, no, no, no, but he was our entertainment. And so we took a break from the entertainment was cool. It's cool. And so I gave them my grant. And then our son Rick says, Hey, I'd like to say something. Well, and did you all start praying? Well, yeah, I look like I look great. I came to sit behind him and I was like, this kid go one or two ways, because I know me back then. But Rig basically got up and said something our son profound. And really German I talked about it after that night. He basically said what I took away because remember we went to Bonhoeffer went to Luther went to Zurich. I mean, John Knox, all these guys who basically lived and died for the and then we went to the place where the Baptist and a Baptist movement started, which was Anna against the baptism of infants in the Catholic Church to say we need to be baptized by immersion. People don't realize this. The Anabaptist movement started after Luther and the Reformation and Calvin started and the first guy to get back to the church and say, Hey, I'm He was baptized by immersion. And the church, the Catholic church and Luther, Lutherans, they agreed on one thing. This was wrong, which is crazy. They didn't agree on anything, but they agreed. Baptism by immersion. Luther did not want to baptize by immersion. He wanted to sprinkle. And again, I talk about how sprinkling in the Catholic church is basically circumcision

in the Catholic, I mean, in the Lutheran church, is circumcision in the Catholic church. So a person has circumcised on the eighth day to basically bring them into the family God, protect them for the future. And that's what baptism by sprinkling was. When I was sprinkled as a little baby, a week old, it was to protect me from the original sin of birth, and which is funny 'cause when our guide was teaching us this, I said, so let me get this straight. Luther believed that a person had to come to faith in Christ and repentance on their own years later to be saved, and they weren't before that. But yet at the same time, he would sprinkle a baby to remove the original sin. It seems like you can't have it both ways. But anyway, but here's the thing. So we went to the place where John Mays or John Mains was, he was baptized and then next to the river, we take the tour, looking out this huge river, huge. And I said, this is John Mains, actually, they arrested him. There were three people baptized right away. They arrested him for water baptism. They tied his wrists together and basically chained him at the wrists. They wrapped his wrists. They bent him down like he was squatting, put his wrist over his knees, put a bar under his legs, through his legs. So basically it locks him down where he can't get up.

His legs are locked. And they said, you wanna be baptized by immersion? We're gonna baptize you now. And they threw him over the river and he died. So the first guy to be baptized by immersion in the Christian church, and I told the crowd, it was John Mays, and it happened right here. - Wow. - So Rick, our son says, what I'm taking back is, these people lived for their faith but were willing to die for their faith. And they were attacked and they experienced all kind of hardship and the church was after him. The kind of church and church of England. And he said, I wonder, am I living in such a way that the devil would come after me? - Would try to stop me. - Would try to stop me. - And I was like. He said because these people lived in such a way where they were on the top 10 list of Satan. Am I going back living like that? Am I a threat, he said? I couldn't believe he was saying that. Am I a threat to Satan so much that he's attacking me? He said, or do I live in such a way where he doesn't have to bother? And I was pretty from the mouth. - So that's a sermon on Sunday. - Yeah, so I think that sums it up best.

That was our trip. I know it was a long intro. - Yeah, really cool. When you go look at Candy's Instagram page, I haven't got my pictures up. There are a few pictures from the trip. All right, let's move on. - It's hard to choose which ones. You can only put 20. - I know, I know. All right, let's move on to the passage of a man who's going to be tried for his faith. Mr. Johnny, the baptizer, who knew? What a segue, what a segue. John actually baptized by sprinkling. Did you know that? - John the Baptist? - That's a joke, Candy. - Oh, I was about to say, what are you talking about? She said, John the Baptist? - John the sprinkler. - Just changed her whole life. - Yeah. By the way, I always say, if the King James version of the Bible translators translated the word baptizo, not by transliteration, instead by translation, we would have no argument today. What do I mean? When you're translating a word, you have two choices.

You can either translate the word and say, the word latreo in Greek means worship or service. So latreo doesn't even sound like worship or service. Or you can transliterate baptizo baptism. That's a transliteration. You're just making it in English. If they would have translated John the immercer or John the donker would have no problem today, I think. 'Cause there would be no question. And so I think because you have baptism, people are like, well, what's the mode? No, the word actually means baptizo. Here's the picture of it. It actually means to take a white cloth and submerge it in red dye, where the very dye penetrates all the fibers of the cloth. That's what baptism is. It doesn't mean sprinkling with water. That was the exception and with the Catholic Church then, again, or I'm not gonna the Catholic Church, but early on, I don't know if you know. - I have a question. - Oh. Here we go. - Can you get a question? - The world is back to normal. - Yes, all things are good. - Okay, so my question, and this might be totally off the subject, so you may wanna like not answer it right now, but my, okay, where does the sprinkling come from?

Because in the Jewish culture, we know that people baptize themselves. you cannot get around it. The Essings did that. So where does the sprinkling come in? That's not in the Bible. Is it? Is there anywhere in the Bible? No. Okay. So where did that is not a big argument for the Catholic Church? Because remember the Catholic Church again has three forms of authority. Pause here for a second. Where this is what the Reformation was all about. Martin Luther and him came along and said, no, there's one form of authority that trumps every other form of authority. And that is the word of God. Sola scriptura, period. You know, all the five sola, sola crestos, croissola, gratis, sola, fadeus, by faith alone in Christ alone, scriptural, all that. Okay. That's the five solas. Okay. Then you have the Catholic Church, which I was raised in, has three forms of authority in ascending order of importance, meaning the word of God they would say, yes, is the authority, the final authority of God, but there are other two, two others. So you have the word of God, which is a authority, not the final authority. You also have tradition, which is through councils, the Council of Nicaea, the Council of Carthage, the Council of Constantinople, the Council of Trent. Those are councils and they have equal authority to interpret the word. Now watch this. It gets even crazier. But there's one authority that trumps all authorities. And if you don't believe me, this is his history, go look it up. The one authority that trumps all authorities, and that is the pope. If the pope sits in Rome in a seat and speaks, it's called ex-cathidra. Ex-cathidra means the pope who is their vicar of Christ, the representative of Jesus Christ on earth. If he speaks from the seat, it is above scripture. Now here's the problem with that. And again, don't cheat the messenger. I'm just giving you the message if you disagree with me. We learned on this trip that there were two major problems. Number one is the popes would say things that they would have to come back and say, "That's not actually what it meant. This is what it should be." So here's the thing. Councils through the years correct councils. Popes through the years correct popes. I don't know if you know this, but here's one to look up. The Catholic church is backpedaled on this idea of limbo recently. Did you hear about this? This is a recent one. Look it up. Limbo, when I was growing up, do you know what limbo is? Anybody know? Purgatory. Nope. People don't know about limbo, you see? Yeah. It's not a game you play where you go under the bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. No, it's not that. It's not that. Limbo is the place where babies go who aren't baptized,

sprinkled. That's what limbo is in the Catholic church. Now that was a doctrine created later. Another thing I tell our people over there, when I preach in Luther's seminary, I mean, Luther's church, the text I preached on or the topic I preached on was on the Lord's Supper. And I talked about how the Lord's Supper, the doctrine of transubstantiation, meaning that the bread and the wine becomes the actual body, the flesh of Jesus and the internal blood of Jesus. I talked about why that can't be the case for a number of reasons, one of which was the Catholic church or the Jewish people were totally against cannibalism. Totally against cannibalism. There's no way you would eat the flesh. The second problem was Jesus says, do this in memory of me. This is my body. This is my blood. While he's sitting there, nobody can ever answer this and for me. So he's saying, this is my body pointing to the bread while he's sitting there. So my question is, which one is it? Is it him or is it? It's kind of bizarre. But but the thing is that doctrine was not created until after the one or after 10 centuries of the church. It wasn't formalized till 10 centuries later or millennia later. So it shows that they come up with these on the worship of Mary, way later, eight, nine hundred, Mary COVID, Jim Trist with Christ, 1450. I mean, all these doctors came later, but here's my point. My point is the pope would have to backpedal on ideas through the ages. Here's the second problem. I don't know if you know this. There were many times, Ben, you're going to love this, where there were multiple popes residing at the same time. Did you know this? I learned this in seminary, but it's good to have guys there say it. And one of the tour guides was Catholic. One of our tour guides was Catholic. And he and he was a historian though. So he's like, yeah. And I said, well, how do you how do you know which ones to put well? And by the way, this is how the church of England started. They couldn't agree who was right or wrong. So we're going to take our pope and go down the road and play ourself. Yeah, you don't want to be the right. So it's it's bizarre to come up with sprinkling. Okay, to answer your question. Yeah. Okay. No, here's what happened. Okay. The answer is Candy's question. This whole, this whole time we might just do a whole episode on. I guess it's rare. Catholic. What I'm saying is people ask me can a person be a believer and still be in the Roman Catholic Church? And the answer is yes, of course. But here's how I say it. Not because of the religious system you're in, in spite of the religious system you're in. Catholicism at the core is a system of works. Now the Catholic Church would not say like people would say no we don't work we believe

we're saved through faith with Christ and we you know we were a pen of our sins we put our faith in Jesus Christ and they would agree on the essential doctors. Jesus is God born of a virgin but where they would take it a step further is they would say but to preserve your faith or to keep your faith or to have peace with God or to have a communion with God you have to perform these acts or works they call sacraments. So starts with baptism at birth, communion, confirmation by the way I have I'm three for three on that one. Got them all checked off did them all right. Then confession four for four right. Then you have matrimony last rites and others but repentance you know you do penance but here's the thing. So the question is if you're Roman Catholic or you're talking to someone who's Catholic and you ask them this question it's a great question to ask them. You ask them this question. Do you know that you have peace with God? That's a good question to ask them. If you're listening you're saying I've got and by the way I'm not singing along Catholics I'd ask anybody this. Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian because even those who attend the Baptist church or long hollow or non-denominational church didn't guarantee their believers anyway and I'm born again just because you attend doesn't mean you were born again. So how do you become born again? How do you have peace with God? If you ask a Catholic normally they'll say I hope so. I think so but I have to do confession or I have to go get my sins forgiven or I have to you know whatever or you ask him this question. Do you know you're going to heaven when you die? Guess what they'll say? I hope so. I hope so. Now Jesus said or first John said this is eternal life that you may know the Son of God Jesus Christ and you can be sure and have assurance you have eternal life. So you can know that you know that you know Jesus and Jesus and you're basing it based on your his works not yours. Another question is why would God I'm giving you questions I think about Ota. Why would God let you in heaven? Here's another question to ask. You can ask this that those in the Roman Catholic church are you going to ask to anybody who's in a system of works to either keep or preserve. How do you how do you know God will let you in heaven? Candy. What would they say? That what would they say? Robert? They don't know. Well they don't know. They're hoping someone's going to pray him in. Well no but no they think they're going to purgatory. Martin Luther even said that we went to by the way where someone praise them in. We yes we went to sign bar. That's not my answer. My answer is Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sin and he's going to step in and say hey she's mine. Faith in Jesus. That's not what they say but that yes that's what Jesus said. That's the problem

though. The problem is the hierarchy that you just said where Jesus is number three in the lineup to then tradition and the pope. Jesus Christ is the one who died on the cross not the pope. Do you see what I'm saying? So the authority is backwards. Yeah. It's interesting that the other two came from the Bible but they still keep them equal. There is no they're counseling. They're counseling on the Bible. The pope is speaking on how the Bible should be. Are you ready for this? This is going to blow your mind. So we saw this again again at the end of the day. Don't take our word for it. When I stand before the Lord or you stand before the Lord I'm not going to be there to help you and you're not going to be there to help me. So you're going to and the priest or father Bob that I grew up with ain't going to be there to help any of us. You're going to have to give an account for the faith and the life you live. So just know that so you can disagree with me or you want and that's fine. But at the end of the day you're going to realize this we went and saw these places with our own eyes and in its history. The monastery that Martin Luther came out of was an Augustine monastery and the guy who kind of oversaw and protected Martin Luther was a guy named Frederick the Wise very well to do rich leader kind of like his benefactor he was protecting him. Frederick the Wise was a master collector. He collected relics. I like to collect stuff too you know but he took my collection to another level but the major difference was if you go to my office and I have a Bible Eve or a coin I'm not saying there's like some supernatural grace imbued imbued in the coin that you pray to it you get back. Relics were different. then the person would actually get something in return. If you pray to or look at or give money to to see the relics. So Frederick the Wise had the largest collection of relics around. To the tune of, you ready for this? Guess how many relics he had? This is crazy. In his collection, in Vittenberg, when Martin Luther was there. Guess how many relics he had? 19,000. Now what did he have?

You ready for this? - People come and pay money to see him. - Oh, why's this? You're gonna love this? He had the scissors that Ann St. Ann, they could say who's Mary's mom cut her hair with. They had the, oh yeah. - Well, St. Ann, I never heard this. - Never St. Ann? - No. - 'Cause I grew up in Tennessee, you know, Catholicism. - Have you heard of St. Ann? - They say St. Ann is Mary's mom. - Yeah, they say Ann is Mary's mom. It's from tradition. Okay, you're gonna, this is crazy. I'm gonna get the actual, I'm gonna get this. My granddad's antique shop, you know. - Well, no, you, bro, if you have no idea. - He told people to come in to Boston, but they were charged people to come in. - No, you ain't, you have no idea what I might show you. - $10 and you will be blessed. I look like a TV fridge. - Fredrik's? - Right? - Okay, Fredrik, no, you ready for this? It's just gonna blow people away. And this is all a document. I got a lot of this from a taxist's book on Luther.

But then I found some other stuff. You ready for this? They had the thumb of St. Ann, Mary's mom. They had a twig from the burning bush. They had straw from the manger of Jesus. They actually had milk from Mary's breast. - Stop, bro. - Bro, I'm telling ya, I'm not even gonna step up. - This is a g-rated show. - Oh, I'm dropping my jeans. - This is crazy. - It's crazy. - I'm calling it like it is, French. I'm telling ya like it is, okay? - I will. - Here's the point. They said if a person goes in there and pays the money and comes from all over the world, pays the entry fee, they are able to knock off 1 million, I mean, yeah, 1.9 million, 260 days off their time in purgatory. And if they don't need it, you ready for this? - I'll go in, I guess. - You can give it to a family member or friend. - Lookin' me passed down. - But you have to pay the high price of an indulgence. - Sounds like a bank. - Okay, yes. So here's my point. It is a man-made system.

It was a man-made system to keep you captive to the system. Meaning, and by the way, how did they build St. Peter's Basilica in Rome? They built it off the back of indulgences of people who thought they were paying for their family or friends to get out of purgatory. And here's what's crazy. When we went to the museum in Switzerland, I think it was Zurich or Geneva, I've been Geneva. - The last day. - We saw, I've got a picture on my phone, Vivian. - Oh yeah, no, it's Geneva, it's in Geneva. - An actual indulgence letter with the names on the right of the people they bought it for in purgatory, bro. Crazy, okay, all that's safe. - But you didn't answer my question. - So now, the question was, where did the sprinkling come from? - Okay, I'm getting it. - He's on the way. - I'm building it, I'm building it. - No, it's not, no, think of this. Think about this real quick, though. Everything you just said, if that happened today in America, the FBI would consider it as a cult. - Ooh, whoa. - And they'd be arrested. - Yeah, wow, I didn't think about that. - Everything you just said, if that, okay, if I said, all right, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna start my own. - Yeah.

- God's calling me to start my own religion. You know, like, if I did-- - They have incorporated in the street, baby. - I'll be arrested, I'll be arrested. - Let me say, what are you raising money for? Oh, to get you out of purgatory. - Dude, yeah, you can't. You're exploiting people. - That's right. - You meddle in now, you meddle in now. - I'm just saying. - Okay, where does sprinkling come from? Okay, here's the thing, you gotta understand. I had to lay the foundation candy to show you-- - Okay. - That the Catholic Church, again, had no problem creating doctrines to suit whatever they thought was right. No, I'm not saying everybody's corrupt and everybody's bad. I'm just saying, they got together and once you stray, take this to the bank. Once you start straying from the word of God, then who becomes superior to that? The man becomes superior to the word of man, becomes superior to the word of God. And it's what I think is right in my own eyes, i.e. judges all over again. Okay, so what happened is this. The first believers baptized by immersion. That's all they did. In fact, we know that because baptism was not something

that was invented by Jesus. Newsflash, and I wanna thank you. Jesus borrowed baptism from the culture. Jesus was a man, as we know in this podcast, who was a man from the culture, in context. The masters of, now Jesus redefined the baptism, but he borrowed the practice. The means, he changed the message. Think of it that way. The means of baptism is the same. Now this messes people up, and I wrote this in my book, The Forgotten Jesus, the book on the podcast name, and you can see it, I actually have a picture in there, of an early cave that has a picture of John and Jesus at Jesus's baptism. Now we always think when Jesus was baptized, John goes out in the water, he says, Come on Jesus and Jesus, hey Jesus, face left, I'm gonna hold your hand right hand behind his head. Hold your nose, Jesus. - Father, Son, holy spirit. - Father, how you gonna do that? When you got the Father, Son, holy spirit, right there, right? No, no, no. - Father, holy spirit. Signs, Father. Father, Spirit. - Yeah, probably, no, no, sorry. - What this picture has is John's on the bank, Jesus is in the water.

Now watch this. Back then, they baptized themselves very differently. They crossed their arms, okay? And they went under the water themselves three times, okay? They baptized themselves three times and three summation, you know, three is a number of summation and they baptized themselves, okay? Jesus, of course Jesus would have done this and people get all upset about this, but that's just the way it was. Now, the Essenes took that practice and continued it because what they did is they had mikfas where you could walk down into baptismal pools and every time they would copy the word of God, get to the name Yahweh, they wouldn't write it on the script. They would go cleanse themselves surmoli. Mikfas also were used outside of synagogues. And then when we go to Israel, Vivian will tell you, we take people to the steps of the temple in the book of Acts where Peter is believed to have preached. Listen, this Jesus whom you just killed is both Lord and God. What must we do to be saved? Acts chapter chapter two, remember that they have, what must we do to be saved? And Peter says what, repent and be baptized. Now, they didn't take, you know, they take a little bowl. James, take that bowl, go sprinkle people. No, outside of the temple to this day still, there are hundreds, hundreds of mikfas everywhere.

- They still use them? - No, but they're still there. - It's like the ruins of them. - They're everywhere outside the temple. So you probably wonder, what do you need all these mikfas? It's just a baptismal place where the Jews and the Old Testament went. Now, they were doing it out of an act, ceremonially cleansing themselves coming out before they went into the present. 'Cause to go into the temple, you had to cleanse yourself spiritually, okay? And they went in there and it was a reminder outwardly of what God was doing inwardly, just a sidebar. They cleans their hands, their head, their heart, and their feet. It's a great practice if you're listening to cleanse yourself. God cleans our repent and confess of anything. My hands were engaged then. The activities of my life. My head, any of my thought life, my mind, anything went to my head, my heart, my affections, my desires, my feet, places I went, people and associates, you see it's a great practice. So after Peter says, you need to be baptized, what do they do? They fanned out the disciples and now they baptize people on the spot, how? The way Jesus just told them, moments earlier, 10 days earlier, when he said, hey, listen,

go there for and make disciples, boys, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Okay, so that was the way they baptized. They baptized through acts like that, they had to. Another reason you baptized by immersion is because baptism by immersion preaches a message. You got to remember in the revival at Long Hollow, people would sit in the pew or in the patted seats. People would be watching online and they would say, I didn't preach it, I didn't talk about it, they watched it, remember this? They watched someone get into the tank, totally surrender their life to the person who's going to put them under, okay? Then they go under the water, which is a picture of death, think about it. I'm like lowering them in a tomb, okay? And then they come back out of the water. Yeah. - Kids, you know, that's how you always, you share the gospel with the kids ministry. You teach baptism, you say, when you step into the water, what does that make? - Ooh, across. - When you go down into the water, Jesus died. When you come back out. - So you guys are right. - So that's cool, okay, yeah. Same thing.

So you're preaching the gospel. This is what I tell people, when you sprinkle, you miss the message. - Right. - You miss an opportunity to preach the message. And you got to remember, back in Jesus' day, there weren't many ways that you could delineate between lost and saved. Anybody could profess to be a Christian, but do you actually possess Jesus personally? And the way you demonstrate that, baptism doesn't stay, but it's a demonstration outwardly, okay. So this is how everybody's baptized. We went to Thessalonica, I think it was, or Philippi in Greece, you may remember this, Vivian II. There is a Catholic church there still, like the ruins. You ready for this? On the altar, Jeremy, of the Catholic church is a baptistry by immersion. And it was dating to the third century. They took us to this church and we went. - So originally Catholic church was baptized in that ministry. - In the 200s, they were still baptizing in the Catholic church by immersion. So the million dollar question becomes why did they stop? Here's the answers. - Long ways, she's on the edge of her. - By the way, we're gonna end it here. So this is gonna be Kate and our episode on the reformation, Catholicism,

and all things biblical Christianity. Okay, but anyway, I think this is a helpful episode because a lot of people like it, this is stuff I've never heard before, but watch this. So what happens? There's a book that was found, I'm pretty certain, in the Essene community called the, it's called the Rule of, Robert, you gotta fact check this. It's a book on, basically it's an ecclesiastical or ecclesiological book on how to do church for, no, it's not by the Essenes. Anyway, it's on the tip of my tongue, but the name of the book, anyway. There's a book in the early church, first century, second century, that basically told them how to practice certain things. It was kind of like a commentary on biblical practice. It'd be like a church polity book today. How do you do church today, right? - The dedicate? - Yeah, it was the dedicate, yeah, the dedicate. That's exactly what it is, the dedicate, which is actually the rule of the 12 or something. Look up the actual meaning, I think it's called the rule of the 12 or something. Thanks, Robert. The dedicate, okay. This was a book that said, how do you do church? And what they said is, the rule is baptism by immersion.

The exception though, because you're gonna go to Africa, and you know in Africa, every place doesn't have living pools of water. In fact, some places, it never rains for weeks. So how do you baptize? If you don't have a book. So a believer wants to be born again, wants to profess their faith, there's no water. So what they said was, the exception to the rule is, if you can't baptize by immersion, sprinkle. - So it's a geographical thing. - Yeah, well, that's how it started. It started as an exception or footnote. Well, you know how people are, when you get through the years, you hand it down, it gets easier, a baptism, water, tank, today, heating the tank, towel, you know, there's a lot. - Change of clothes. - Change of clothes, in and out, yeah. It just makes it simple. - Everybody gets a lot. - It's a lot, it is a lot. But through the years, what happened is, the sprinkle exception became the rule and people forgot the immersion altogether. And they think it's like, well, it's the same thing. It's not the same thing. It is not the same thing. To sprinkle someone, and it has different means, one's a child, one's an adult.

But the point is, we miss it. And that's a danger for all of us today. The longer we get away from the truth, or the longer we stray from the truth of the word of God, the easier it is to start doing things that are easier, that are comfortable, that are exceptions, and not the rule. - But they only sprinkle babies. - No. - They sprinkle, like, if someone converts to Catholicism, they would sprinkle them as a, okay, I didn't know that. I thought it was only infant baptism. - No, no, it's normally infant baptism because people raised in the church. But think about this, a husband and wife, or a couple that's engaged goes to the priest. You're Baptist, I'm Catholic, let's say, and you wanna marry me. The priest would look at me and say you can be, you can marry Robbie in the Catholic church if Robbie is what? Robert? - Baptist? - If he's a member of the church. How do you become a member of the church? - Sprinkle. - Sprinkle. - Sprinkle. Sprinkle. - Hmm.

- I'm glad you were Protestant, hun. - Really? - I wouldn't have been able to do that. - Would you still have married me if I would have been Catholic? - I don't think the Lord would have introduced us. - Really? - Yeah, because it would have been too hard. - Did you ever date any Catholic guys just for the ask of our friend? - No, I don't think so. I don't think I did it, actually. I was looking for a Baptist brother. - Whoa. - And I got a woman. - And I got a woman. (laughing) - She'd be fully immersed. - She'd been fully immersed. - Spirit. - Baptist brother. - Yeah, Baptist brother. - You got him, all right. - That's our next T-shirt for God Jesus. Baptist brother. - Baptist brother. (laughing) - The funny thing is, we're loosely Baptist there. We're hanging on by a thread, but there you are. - Come on, come on. - We're Baptist.

- We're followers of Jesus. - That's right. - Yeah, we're not a part of a... - We don't lead with our denominational affiliation. We lead with, come on, this is incredible. What about baptism brothers? We're baptism brothers. - I like that. - I like that. - All right, I think we stopped there. And we picked the next week where we wanted to pick up today, which was John chapter 11, which is still good. But this is all good because it shows us the need for knowing the Word, living the Word, believing the Word, teaching the Word. You gotta know what you believe about it. And it being the authority in our life. - Yeah, that's right. - That's extremely important. - And people have a lot of questions. We just had a student that left Long Hollow and started attending a Catholic church. I actually saw him at Covers of the day and he was asking a lot of questions. - There's a big move today, by the way, they were asking me this on the trip. The largest move of people from Protestant churches to Catholic or Eastern Orthodox is young men. Gen Z men today. It's a big move that's happening around the world.

- Barna needs to do a whole lot more. - And one of the reasons is they, I get it, they see the abuses of Protestantism where churches are not accountable. They don't see, quote, apostolic succession. They don't see authority. They see guys out doing what they want, when they want, and they say, "I want something more grounded, more rooted." And I would say if that's you thinking, you don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water. You don't want to just get rid of everything. It's good to question what you believe, but you have to have an answer for why you believe what you believe. And I would encourage you, go study the Reformation, see why Martin Luther did not want to start a new denomination. He wanted to reform the existing one, and when they were resistant to it, he said, "You know, we can't stay." It's not that I left you, it's that now you guys have left me basically. - And men, they tend to thrive in structure. And so, you know, we see a world of chaos, and so you look at that rigidity, we would say-- - That's a good point. - That's harsh, but for a young man who's trying to, and this particular man, I know he has a struggle, that he's continued to struggle for a long time. So he looked at, "Oh, let me find something that's rigid."

- Authority figure. - "Let me find something that protects me, that box me in so I won't go here." And that's where you start to rely on yourself and the rules, but no rule is ever gonna change a heart. - Right, and someone don't have father figures that follow the word, or that absentee dads, and that father, that Eastern North, and he's kinda, yeah, he feels that voice. - Good stuff, powerful stuff. Thank you so much for tuning in with us on the "Forgotten Jesus" podcast. We would love for you to become a part of our team. The way that you can do that is hit subscribe, like, comment, share, please leave a comment. We try to respond to all those, wanna get that out to people that wanna know about the real Jesus from the Bible. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)