Valerie wrote:
I believe the Apostles baptized infants- I don't think that Christians who said the Apostles taught it,, made that up. For one thing, every single country where the Apostles took the faith, the Church in all of these countries- baptize infants, and they become a part of the Church.
We have 5 accounts of whole households being baptized (and apparently those are the only ones recorded, we can assume this was common practice) and it's strange to think that none of these households had infants or children in them- that they were a household of 'grown ups' only. What, if Mary left home at 15 being the Mother of our Lord, we have all these other households with just grown ups living in them? Highly unlikely. I think it's just as the early writers/fathers said- the Apostles taught them to. We have no record of this practice all of a sudden starting and there was no one 'pope' or council meeting, as everything in the Church where there was any controversy, was settled by councils. Yet none seems to exist about it and everywhere throughout the world the Gospel was taken, baptized infants of Christian families.
You left out the account of Lydia in Acts 16, I understand why:
14 And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.
15 And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.
So apparently all these grown ups lived together, no children, no infants- all these households that were baptized at once? This is why it is difficult to answer the question of this topic- there is no scripture guiding people outside the original church at some age of accountability- there's nothing in the new testament about that.
There is nothing at all difficult to understand about these accounts of households being baptized (btw, in case you wondered, I just used the first household example that came to my mind; the account of Lydia makes no trouble whatsoever for my position). The ease with which the authors talk about the entire household believing, and the entire household praising God, makes it quite clear that they are discussing the adult members of the household.
Valerie wrote:
Jesus made it clear:
Matthew 19:14King James Version (KJV)
14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Sure enough. In the context, you will notice that the people were bringing the children to Him for Him to bless them, not for him to baptize them.
Valerie wrote:
Acts 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
Peter's words here prove exactly my point. He said to repent and be baptized. He didn't tell them to baptize their children. The same command and promise is also to their children and everyone else. There is no mention of infants in what Peter said.
Valerie wrote:
I don't think you have to torture the Scriptures to see it, you merely have to believe the passages that support it and believe those who claimed the Apostles taught it, and also know it's been the tradition of the Church wherever the Gospel was taken for 2000 years with some exceptions of denominations after the Reformation- while some kept it- I don't think it's difficult to understand this.
You left out the part about having to ignore all the Scriptures that teach repentance as a prerequisite for baptism. You have to do that too.