Transcript

ANNOUNCER: What is the balance between pleasing God and obeying parents, especially as a young dependent teenage person, in the area of baptism? Let’s talk about it right here on Grace in Focus. Welcome! This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society, each weekday right here. Our website is faithalone.org, and there you can find many of our articles written from a focused free grace position, information about our national conference and regional conferences, and our bookstore, where you can find Bob Wilkins’ latest book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege. faithalone.org. 

Now here are our discussion leaders for today, Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, Bob, we have a very interesting question. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you or Ken talk about this on the radio before. Our question is from Jan, and it’s kind of long, so I’m going to condense it down to what they’re really asking. But essentially the question is, I have a friend who was Muslim, but they say, found Jesus and is now a believing free grace Christian. He wants to get baptized, but his Muslim father forbids it. And so he’s asking, should he wait till he moves out to get baptized, or should he secretly get baptized against his father’s wishes? And he does clarify that he’s not in danger of being killed by his father, anything like that, but it’s clearly a big deal to his family. 

BOB: Okay, that’s a really good question. I had a person I knew, I wouldn’t quite call him a friend, he was more an acquaintance when I was at Dallas Seminary. This guy was about two or three years behind me at Dallas Seminary, so he was like first year when I was fourth year. And then when I was in the doctoral program, he was finishing up his master’s program. And he was from an Arab country. He was grew up as a Muslim, a little bit different than this young man. He came to faith after he was on his own. I believe he was either just out of college or like a senior in college, and he was living on his own and he came to faith and he told his father and he said he was going to be baptized. And his father said, if you’re baptized, your mother, me, your brothers and sisters, none of us will have anything to do with you the rest of your life. We will actually conduct a funeral for you and you will be dead to us. 

And he prayed about it and decided he had to obey God rather than men. He went ahead and was baptized and they did what the father said. They had a funeral service for him. And this was now several years later when he was a student at Dallas Seminary and he’d had no contact with his parents or siblings since. Now that was quite a price to pay. And this young man went on and had a very significant ministry after seminary, but he had to pay a high price. 

This question is a little different because this young man is still living at home, right, according to the story. So I’m assuming this young man is probably something like high school age. This Jan, man or woman doesn’t say whether this person, what their age is, right? 

SAM: Yeah, there’s no specification. Just a guy living with his parents, so…

BOB: But we have the same issue here in the United States. Let’s say that you grew up in Utah, and you were a Mormon family. And you came to faith in Christ through, let’s say, Young Life or Youth for Christ or Campus Crusade for Christ or just a friend at high school. And you were born again and you told your Latter-day Saint parents that you’re now an evangelical believer in Jesus Christ and you’re no longer a Mormon and you want to be baptized into the Christian faith. What would you do if your parents said absolutely not? Same issue. 

Let’s say that a child comes to faith and he wants to go to a particular church, let’s say that the family’s Lutheran, but you have now decided that you want to go to this Bible church and your parents say absolutely not. What do you do? My understanding of Scripture is until you’re on your own, you obey your parents unless they are commanding you to do something contrary to Scripture. So if they were to command you to steal for them or lie for them or murder for them, you wouldn’t do that.But this is a little different, don’t you think? 

SAM: It is. I have kind of a, maybe a curveball question for you on this. 

BOB: Oh, you’ve got a question on the top of the question? 

SAM: Yeah, I do. So with this specific situation, if you have, to clarify, the baptism is not going to save him from anything. The baptism is a public declaration that he is a born-again believer. He’s a Christian. So from a free grace perspective, we know that baptism doesn’t save you. It’s a public declaration. But his father, who’s a Muslim, might not know that. So if he chooses not to get baptized, he still knows that he’s a believer. He has everlasting life. But his father might think, okay, as long as he doesn’t get baptized, then he’s not, he’s still a Muslim. He’s not a Christian yet. 

So for like what you’re saying, living in the household, if that keeps his relationship strong with his father until he moves out, because once he moves out, then his father is going to assume, okay, he’s dead to me. He’s not my son anymore. Because his father’s probably thinking he needs to renounce this. He needs to become a Muslim again. And so I have until he moves out to make that decision. So for just a hypothetical while he’s still living in the house, do you think it would be good for him to not get baptized to maintain that relationship with his father? And then once he moves out, whether he gets baptized or not, if he says dad, I’m a Christian, I’m not a Muslim anymore. His dad is going to, you know, they’re going to have a funeral for him or whatever. 

BOB: Right. Yeah. I think so. And here’s why. And this is what I was alluding to. I think there’s a difference between your parents commanding you to do something that’s directly contrary to Scripture and them forbidding you from doing something that Scriptures command you to do. Now that’s a fine line. 

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BOB: If the Scriptures command us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, you know, Hebrews 10:23-25, and yet my parents say, no, you’re living in our house and you’re not going to go to a Christian church while you’re living here. Then it seems to me the young man would really have two choices. Either he would move out at age 14 or 15 or 16 or whatever it is and be on his own. Or if he does need to stay within the home, he would abide by the rules and the family unless they’re commanding him and forcing him to do something directly contrary to Scripture.

But you see what I mean about being tricky because they are forbidding him from doing something like baptism. I shouldn’t say forbidding. They’re not absolutely forbidding it. They’re just basically saying they do not want him to do it if he’s living at home. And it sounds like what they’re saying is the price of doing it would be moving out. 

Moving out when you’re 14, 15, 16 may or may not be practical. In many countries, it would be awful difficult for a person to move out at that young age. It certainly would be difficult in the United States. And I think it would be even harder in a lot of Muslim countries. 

By the way, part of the question was secret baptism. I don’t see the point in a secret baptism. You’re either baptized or you’re not. And if you’re baptized, it should be public. So I wouldn’t do a secret baptism. I’d either be baptized and then pay the price or I’d wait and be baptized when I moved out. Probably a good compromise here in this situation is the young man should be making plans to move on his own sooner rather than later. In other words, if he’s let’s say 17 and he’s a junior in their version of high school and he could get out that year, I think I would go ahead and graduate early and move out on my own at age 17. 

The real issue here though is what do you do to please God? And you raise the point. You want to have a continuing influence with your family if you can. So I get that too. And so I would think you would give it some time and you during that time you would pray about it. 

You know, in our country, rarely is a person baptized the same day they come to faith. That did happen in the New Testament, right, in Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 8 and  Acts chapter 10. They’re all examples of people baptized the same day they come to faith. But in our culture, we tend to come a week, two weeks, a month, two months after we come to faith, right? We have to set up a baptismal service. 

So I don’t think it’s so bizarre for the person in the Muslim country to say, I’m going to give it some time. I’m going to pray about it, get some counsel, talk to people, and then ultimately he needs to make a decision. In his case, it doesn’t sound like his life is in danger. 

SAM: No, I’m pretty sure this is in America or at least some Western countries. 

BOB: So how can we wrap this up here? 

SAM: I wanted to mention again that the important thing is that he’s born again and has everlasting life. And so if his father has a problem with getting dipped in water, then I think it there’s nothing wrong with waiting until you’re out of the house and on your own to let someone dip you in water. But while he’s still in the house, don’t conceal the fact that you’re a believer. 

BOB: I like that. It’s a nice way of handling being under, you’re still under the authority of your parents. But yet at the same time, you’re under the authority of God. And so you’re able to say, okay, dad, I love you and I respect you. And even though I know it’s important in the Christian faith to be baptized, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to put that off because I’m under your household and I respect you and I love you, respect your authority. And so I’m going to obey you in this. But I do want you to know that I’m a believer in Jesus Christ and I would like for you to be as well. 

SAM: Yeah, I think that is probably the best kind of evangelism you could do. I don’t know any one personally that’s Muslim that has converted. But I imagine that’s probably the hardest kind of evangelism is to Muslim parents. But I definitely think no matter what he does, as long as he is honest and holds to his faith, then he’s suffering for the Lord, probably more than any of us can really fathom. I can’t imagine having parents that aren’t Christian, let alone Muslim. So he’s definitely suffering for the faith. And so I think whatever he does, as long as he does it out of honesty and love for God and love for his parents, then I think he’ll make a good decision. 

BOB: That’s good. You know, one thing the young man could do is talk to his father about the fact that Jesus appears in the Quran. He’s called Isa and he is a prophet and he’s called a prophet. And there are untold thousands of Muslims today who claim to still be Muslims and yet followers of Jesus. Now, that’s a bad combo in my opinion because if you are a follower of Jesus, well, then you should be baptized and you should separate from Islam and become a practicing Christian. 

But having said that, it’s not totally unheard of in Muslim countries to have people have extremely high regard for the Lord Jesus Christ, even calling themselves followers of Him. So that’s a possibility that he might be able to use. 

But let’s end the show with: keep grace in focus. Amen.

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On our next episode, please join us. Does Galatians 6:6-10 teach salvation by works? We’ll see you and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.