Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
History and Religion
NT Baptism of Whole “Households” (vs. Lucas Banzoli)

NT Baptism of Whole “Households” (vs. Lucas Banzoli)

Last updated on: February 21, 2023 at 4:10 pm by Dave Armstrong

NT Baptism of Whole “Households” (vs. Lucas Banzoli) 2023-02-21T16:10:02-04:00 Dave Armstrong

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Lucas Banzoli is a very active Brazilian anti-Catholic polemicist, who holds to basically a Seventh-Day Adventist theology, whereby there is no such thing as a soul that consciously exists outside of a body, and no hell (soul sleep and annihilationism). This leads him to a Christology which is deficient and heterodox in terms of Christ’s human nature after His death.

This is my 34th refutation of articles written by Lucas Banzoli. As of yet, I haven’t received a single word in reply to any of them (or if Banzoli has replied to anything, anywhere, he certainly hasn’t informed me of it). Readers may decide for themselves why that is the case. I use RSV for the Bible passages unless otherwise indicated. Google Translate is utilized to render Lucas’ Portugese into English. His words will be in blue.

*****

I’m replying to the relevant portions of Lucas’ article, “Devemos batizar os bebês?” [Should we baptize babies?] (8-14-12). Note my title. That question is specifically what I am addressing here: did these baptisms of “households” described in the Bible include children below the age of reason; infants, newborns, etc., and is it reasonable and plausible to deny this?

They preach the baptism of infants, who have no ability to discern between good and evil in order to repent of their sins, and thus repentance does not become a necessary precedent for baptism, any more than it is a precedent necessary for salvation. . . .

As a newborn is not yet able to even know who Jesus is, much less believe in Him with all his heart, so he does not enter into the necessary condition required to be baptized. . . .

To be saved (or baptized), one does not necessarily have to be aware of what is happening. For example, say a person was born with a severe brain defect and eventually died without ever having been capable of rational thought or communication. Is that person damned simply because of being unable to believe? I think not.

Most Protestants agree with Catholics that God’s mercy must extend to those who do not yet know or understand the gospel, or else all aborted babies, children who die at a young age, or before the age of reason, and so forth would go to hell (since they either cannot know or not properly understand the gospel). Therefore, to be saved is not necessarily to understand fully either the gospel or the means of grace by which one is saved (and Catholics, Orthodox, and most Protestants include baptism as a crucial factor in this salvation).

Furthermore, St. Paul in Colossians 2:11-13 makes a connection between baptism and circumcision. Israel was the church before Christ (Acts 7:38; Rom. 9:4). Circumcision, given to boys eight days old, was the seal of the covenant God made with Abraham, which applies to us also (Gal. 3:14, 29). It was a sign of repentance and future faith (Rom. 4:11).

Infants were just as much a part of the covenant as adults (Gen. 17:7; Deut. 29:10-12; cf. Matt. 19:14). Likewise, baptism is the seal of the New Covenant in Christ. It signifies cleansing from sin, just as circumcision did (Deut. 10:16, 30:6; Jer. 4:4, 9:25; Rom. 2:28-9; Phil. 3:3).

Critics of infant baptism like to point out that the Bible never specifically commands us to baptize infants. But neither does it tell us that we should baptize only adults, or those past the age of reason who can make their own “personal commitment” to Christ. It has examples of adults being baptized, of course (Lucas cites many of those), but then it also has examples of “households” being baptized, and these (at the very least in some instances!) almost certainly had children in them who were also baptized at that time. So we see both things.

[B]aptism is never disassociated from the “believing” factor. It is necessary to believe that Christ Jesus is the Son of the living God in order to be baptized.

If we’re gonna play the game of being hyper-literal about all the relevant biblical passages (as if only one interpretation across-the-board is possible), there are several that reference baptism without mentioning repentance, too:

Romans 6:3-4 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Galatians 3:26-27 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

Titus 3:5 he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit,

John 3:5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

And in three other biblical passages, entire households are referred to as being saved:

Luke 19:9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.”

Acts 11:14 he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.

Acts 16:31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.

Therefore, Catholic claims that babies were baptized in the biblical passages that show the entire household was baptized are entirely without foundation.

Nonsense! Lucas has again made one of his many notorious, infamous “universal negative” declarations. The fact is, that baptism is not always directly associated with repentance in the Bible. I just provided five examples of that. So he can’t use a false premise in order to try to discount the presence of babies and infants in households, who were baptized along with everyone else.

First, because in absolutely none of them is there any indication that there were newborns or babies in the house.

This is implausible to the highest degree. Let’s run through the argument. First, we have the passages that refer to “households” being baptized:

Acts 16:15 . . . she was baptized, with her household, . . .

Acts 16:33 . . . he was baptized at once, with all his family.

Acts 18:8 Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with all his household; . . .

1 Corinthians 1:16 (I did baptize also the household of Steph’anas. . . .

Moreover, many biblical passages connect household and children (if indeed such a demonstration is necessary, so obvious is it: especially for that culture and time):

Genesis 18:19 No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice . . . (cf. 31:41)

Genesis 36:6 Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, . . .

Genesis 45:9-11 Make haste and go up to my father and say to him, `Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not tarry; [10] you shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, and your flocks, your herds, and all that you have; [11] and there I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come; lest you and your household, and all that you have, come to poverty.’

Genesis 47:12 And Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their dependents.

Numbers 18:11 . . . I have given them to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due; every one who is clean in your house may eat of it.

1 Chronicles 10:6 Thus Saul died; he and his three sons and all his house died together.

Matthew 19:29 And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. (cf. Mk 10:30)

1 Timothy 3:12 Let deacons be the husband of one wife, and let them manage their children and their households well;

On a Reddit AskHistorians page (“What was the average number of children a Christian family had around 0 – 100 A.D.?”), one of the historians stated: “Ancient Hebrew peasant families typically had 4-8 children, . . .”

Leo G. Perdue, in his book, Families in Ancient Israel (Westminster John Knox Press: 1997, p. 175) observed:

Family households did not consist of nuclear families in the modern understanding of a married couple and their children but rather, were multigenerational (up to four generations) and included the social arrangement of several families, related by blood and marriage, who lived in two or three houses architecturally connected. . . .

Those who belong to the family household are mentioned a number of times in the Hebrew Bible (Gen. 7:1, 7; 36:6; 45:10; cf. Gen. 46:26; Ex. 20:8-10, 17; Deut. 5:12-15, 21; Josh. 7:16-18; Judg. 6:11, 27, 30; 8:20). These texts indicate that the family household was primarily a kinship system that included lineal descent and lateral extension: grandparents, adult male children and their wives and children, unmarried children, and widowed and divorced adult daughters who may have had children.

Thus, it’s not just a matter of a nuclear family (which already may have included 4-8 children), but of extended family (involving even more children), which makes it all the more likely that children would typically be present in a biblical “household.” This was before widespread contraception. Children were a blessing, both according to the biblical texts saying so, and economically: since children provided labor on the family farm or as a worker in its trade.

But infants and newborns, as well as younger children who do not yet have the knowledge of Christ, are not eligible to be baptized because they cannot yet believe and repent of their sins. Therefore, there is no reason to think that there were babies in that house, . . . The “house” is then defined as “those able to understand, hear and believe”.

Once again, this starts from a false premise, as I have already shown. Secondly, he builds a castle of sand from the false premise and then “concludes” that a biblical “household” could not possibly contain small children. He actually redefines the very word, according to his erroneous presupposition and wishful thinking. That’s backwards so-called “reasoning.” What we need to determine is exactly what I have done: ascertain the precise meaning of a biblical “household.” If they usually contained children (which I would affirm, and add, “almost always”), then the Bible describes infant baptism. Period. End of argument. Game, set, match . . .

The biblical case for infant baptism is an argument from plausibility or antecedent probability. The deductions made lead one to conclude that a certain state of affairs is probable, more or less, but not absolutely proven. These deductive steps with regard to infant baptism are as follows:

All agree that the Bible refers to entire households being baptized.
It is reasonable to assume that most households (especially in the ancient world) would include children.
The Bible specifically places children within the parameters of those persons included in a household (if this commonsense assumption even needs to be asserted), at least eight times (see above).
Therefore, it is quite likely that baptisms of entire households would include baptisms of children, at least in some cases, if not in all.
It is quite unlikely that baptisms of entire households (granting the premise that the households can and usually do include children) would never include children.
Therefore, infants (in the greatest likelihood) were baptized.
In which case, infant baptism is sanctioned in Scripture, by apostolic example.

Plenty of Protestant Bible commentaries concur with the argument I have made (since, after all, the historic overwhelmingly majority position among Protestants is infant baptism):

Barnes’ Notes on the Bible [for Acts 16:15]:

No mention is made of their having believed, and the case is one that affords a strong presumptive proof that this was an instance of household or infant baptism. Because:

(1) Her believing is particularly mentioned.

(2) it is not intimated that they believed.

(3) it is manifestly implied that they were baptized because she believed. It was the offering of her family to the Lord. It is just such an account as would now be given of a household or family that were baptized upon the faith of the parent.

Surveying the classic Bible commentaries with regard to their remarks about Acts 16:15 is instructive:

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary states: “Here also is the first mention of a Christian household. Whether it included children, also in that case baptized, is not explicitly stated; but the presumption, as in other cases of household baptism, is that it did.”

Matthew Poole’s Commentary concludes:

And her household; when Lydia had right to baptism, by reason of her faith in Jesus Christ, all her family, whom she could undertake to bring up in the knowledge of Christ, were admitted to that ordinance also; as all the servants, and such others as were born in his house, or bought with his money, were circumcised with Abraham, Genesis 17:12,13. Now the gospel does not contract in any respect, but enlarges, the privileges of believers in all things. And if they might under the law have their children and servants admitted into a covenant with God, (which could not but rejoice religious parents and masters, who value the relation they and theirs have to God, above all earthly things), surely under the gospel none of our families are excluded, unless they willfully exclude themselves.

Expositor’s Greek Testament agrees:

[A]s in the case of Cornelius, so here, the household is received as one into the fold of Christ, cf. Acts 16:33 and Acts 18:8. We cannot say whether children or not were included, . . . but nothing against infant baptism, which rests on a much more definite foundation, can be inferred from such cases, . . .

Bengel’s Gnomen concurs: “Who can believe that in so many families there was not a single infant? and that the Jews, who were accustomed to circumcise their infants, and the Gentiles, to purify their infants by washings (lustrations), did not also present them for baptism?”

Pulpit Commentary: “This frequent mention of whole households as received into the Church seems necessarily to imply infant baptism. The exhortations to children as members of the Church in Ephesians 6:1, 2, and Colossians 3:20, lead to the same inference.”

Even critics of infant baptism deduced from the “household” passages fairly admit that it can’t be ruled out. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers comments on Acts 16:15: “the utmost that can be said is that the language of the writer does not exclude infants.”

The 1909 Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible (“Baptism”) makes a superb summary of all of these arguments and some more:

The NT contains no explicit reference to the baptism of infants or young children; but it does not follow that the Church of the 2nd cent. adopted an unauthorized innovation when it carried out the practice of infant baptism. There are good reasons for the silence of Scripture on the subject. The governing principle of St. Luke as the historian of the primitive Church is to narrate the advance of the Kingdom through the missionary preaching of the Apostles, and the conversion of adult men and women. The letters of the Apostles were similarly governed by the immediate occasion and purpose of their writing.

We have neither a complete history, nor a complete account of the organization, of the primitive Church. But of one thing we may be sure: had the acceptance of Christianity involved anything so startling to the Jewish or the Gentile mind as a distinction between the religious standing of the father of a family and his children, the historian would have recorded it, or the Apostles would have found themselves called to explain and defend it. For such a distinction would have been in direct contradiction to the most deeply rooted convictions of Jew and of Gentile alike.

From the time of Abraham onwards the Jew had felt it a solemn religious obligation to claim for his sons from their earliest infancy the same covenant relation with God as he himself stood in. There was sufficient parallelism between baptism and circumcision (cf. Colossians 2:11) for the Jewish-Christian father to expect the baptism of his children to follow his own as a matter of course. The Apostle assumes as a fact beyond dispute that the children of believers are ‘holy’ (1 Corinthians 7:14), i.e. under the covenant with God, on the ground of their father’s faith.

And among Gentile converts a somewhat different but equally authoritative principle, that of patria potestas , would have the same result. In a home organized on this principle, which prevailed throughout the Roman Empire, it would be a thing inconceivable that the children could be severed from the father in their religious rights and duties, in the standing conferred by baptism. Thus it is because, to the mind of Jew and Gentile alike, the baptism of infants and children yet unable to supply the conditions for themselves was so natural, that St. Luke records so simply that when Lydia believed, she was baptized ‘with her household’; when the Philippian jailor believed, he was baptized, and all those belonging to him. If there were children in these households, these children were baptized on the ground of the faith of their parents; if there were no children, then the principle took a still wider extension, which includes children; for it was the servants or slaves of the household who were ‘added to the Church’ by baptism on the ground of their master’s faith.

***

Practical Matters: Perhaps some of my 4,000+ free online articles (the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site) or fifty books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them.

Or you may believe my work is worthy to support for the purpose of apologetics and evangelism in general. If so, please seriously consider a much-needed financial contribution. I’m always in need of more funds: especially monthly support. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV). 1 December 2021 was my 20th anniversary as a full-time Catholic apologist, and February 2022 marked the 25th anniversary of my blog.

PayPal donations are the easiest: just send to my email address: [email protected]. You’ll see the term “Catholic Used Book Service”, which is my old side-business. To learn about the different methods of contributing, including 100% tax deduction, etc., see my page: About Catholic Apologist Dave Armstrong / Donation Information. Thanks a million from the bottom of my heart!

***

Photo credit: Photograph by Kai Stachowiak [PublicDomainPictures.Net]

***

Summary: Brazilian Protestant apologist Lucas Banzoli vainly & irrationally argues that baptism of whole “households” in the NT never in any instance included infant children.

Anti-Catholicism

Baptism and Sacramentalism

adult baptism

Baptism

Baptism of Whole "Households"

baptismal regeneration

circumcision & baptism

doctrinal development of baptism

entrance into the kingdom

Previous Post

September 24, 2022

On Whether Required Celibacy is "Biblical" (vs. Lucas Banzoli)

Next Post

October 12, 2022 Is Sola Scriptura Self-Refuting? (vs. Bruno Lima)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category & Last Things About Me Anti-Catholicism Atheism & Agnosticism Baptism and Sacramentalism Bible and Tradition Blessed Virgin Mary Books by Dave Armstrong C. S. Lewis Calvinism & General Protestantism Catholic Apologetics Catholic Apologists Catholic conversion Catholic converts Christmas Church (Ecclesiology) Church History Conversion and Converts Development of Doctrine Eastern Orthodoxy Ecumenism & Christian Unity Eucharist & Liturgy Fathers of the Church French Translations G. K. Chesterton Hell Hell & Satan Hell & Satan & Last Things Heresies & Comparative Religion Holistic Health Inquisition & Crusades & Scandals James White Jews & Judaism & Old Testament John Calvin John Henry Newman Liberal / Modernist Theology Life Issues Literary Resume Lutheranism Mariology Martin Luther Music Orthodoxy Papacy & Infallibility Personal Page Philosophy & Science Political & Ethical & Moral Issues Protestant Persecution & Intolerance Protestantism Purgatory Purgatory & Penance Romantic & Imaginative Theology Saints & Purgatory & Penance Salvation Salvation & Justification Satan & Last Things Sexuality and Gender Issues Spanish Translations Traditionalism vs. Radical Catholic Reactionaries Traducciones al español / tradução para português Trinitarianism & Christology Uncategorized Videos

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 April 2010 March 2010 December 2009 October 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 March 2009 February 2009 October 2008 September 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 October 2005 June 2005 April 2005 February 2005 July 2004 May 2004 April 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz