Infant Baptism and Discipleship
For the Reformed, infant baptism also sets the stage for a specific view of Christian discipleship. . .
. . . it [infant baptism-J.F.] sets Christian discipleship from birth within a covenant context.
. . . it [infant baptism-J.F.] sets Christian discipleship from birth within a covenant context. Some Reformed believers may well have a testimony of conversion as a crisis experience or at least as a dramatic process that turned their lives around at some point. But not all will. To be set within a covenant context means to understand discipleship as something connected to the ordinary means of God’s grace and the routine work of the church: hearing the Word read and preached, partaking in the sacraments, being prayed for (and praying with) the family and the congregation, and being catechized.
This is not exciting or dramatic. But the Reformed believe that it is the way God has gloriously chosen to build his church and his kingdom.
In short, it means growing as a Christian within the household of faith into which one was received as an infant. This is not exciting or dramatic. But the Reformed believe that it is the way God has gloriously chosen to build his church and his kingdom. Infant baptism is thus a vital part of both the theology and the theological practice of the church, and one for which we should give thanks to our gracious God.
Robert Kolb and Carl Trueman, Between Wittenberg and Geneva: Lutheran and Reformed Theology in Conversation, 174.
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