does the typical member of the churches of Christ believe it is Biblical to be baptized by an unbaptized elder or minister?
the reason i ask is if the church was “restored” in the 19th century, that means there were no Christians on earth before then. if that was the case, who was able to baptize the first member of the “restored” church of Christ?
**does the typical member of the churches of Christ believe it is Biblical to be baptized by an unbaptized elder or minister?****
I remember listening to Basel Barret Baxter many years ago and he always ended his TV show with the request that people go the CofC and be baptized by immersion for remission of sin.
Then he would say..”If there is not a CofC near you a friend can baptize you.”
And I used to think, what if that friend was a satanist or mormon or JW and secretly considered the person being baptized in the name of the satanist church.
After all, it would seem to me that a person doing the baptizing should be authorized to baptize, just like a person marrying a couple needs to be authorized to perform marriages.
Gee, and I thought the Creed represented things in the Bible.
“does the typical member of the churches of Christ believe it is Biblical to be baptized by an unbaptized elder or minister?”
First, there is no such thing, among typical churches of Christ, as an unbaptized elder or minister.
The larger issue of the qualification of the baptizer isn’t a big issue, although the question has come up. My answer is that the Bible clearly indicates that a candidate for baptism meet certain “qualifications,” primarily of the heart, e.g. belief, repentance, confession. But the Bible says nothing about the qualifications of the one baptizing. If the validity of one’s baptism was contingent on the qualifications of the baptizer, how could anyone know for sure.
Among churches of Christ, it is usually men who have elder/deacon/minister status that do the baptizing, but not necessarily. I baptized quite a few people long before I acquired said status. Churches of Christ eschew a clergy/laity system. A elder/deacon/minister has no more responsibility/right to baptize than anyone else.
The Church was founded by Christ and will be extant till is return, at no time was it ever not in existence on the face of the earth after its founding.
As to can an unbaptized person baptize another a simple question arises Who Baptized John ?
If 2 persons whom had never been anything religion wise read and understood the bible could not one baptize the other, it is not a the act not the person performing the act that is of import I think.