If I was going to change my position, I needed to be convinced by the Scriptures that the reformed position was accurate. If I changed my position, I needed to be able to tell my wife with a clear conscience that some things that I taught her about baptism were incorrect. And what about the church? My convictions about baptism dictated the denomination in which I would minister and to which my family would belong.

If you have ever experienced a great loss, e.g., the unexpected death of a loved one, loss of employment, a broken relationship because of an argument with a spouse or close friend, you know what it is like to be at a loss for words, to have a terrible sense of uncertainty. Perhaps during such times you have broken down and wept? These experiences and emotions are quite normal. Read the Psalms and you will soon notice the wide range of emotions expressed there.

Such a sense of loss, however, is not always associated with one’s struggle with a particular doctrine. I myself had never seen it until about four years ago but apparently I was the perfect candidate.

If you were raised in a confessionally reformed tradition, you may have never had such an experience. Reformed doctrine (read: biblical doctrine) may be nature to you. But what about those of us who descend from the ranks of broader evangelicalism? Many of the doctrines that our elder brothers and sisters in the Reformed tradition take for granted are foreign to us gentiles grafted in to the Israel of God—they were to me. I spent many nights wrestling with a certain teaching until the early hours of the morning. And while I would never claim to be a latter day Jacob, I was not going to stop wrestling with God, or more specifically, this doctrine, until I was led to a proper understanding of it. So what was it? It was baptism—the doctrine that caused tears.

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