Immersion

We often get this idea that the word "baptizo" means to immerse. We hear that argument all the time. I don't know why that argument sticks around because the word means to wash in a ritual manner; a ritual washing, rather than to remove dirt; the word means to wash to indicate ritual purity. Mark 7:4, we see Mark discussing the baptism of couches. We know that isn't speaking about immersion there.

One of the arguments for immersion that often happens you hear people say the reason John the Baptist was baptizing down by the Jordan River is so there would be enough water for immersion. But after Peter's Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:41), there were three thousand baptized that single day in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is a unique city in the ancient world; it was connected to no major river, ocean, or waterway. It's up upon a mountain, and they had underground springs that fed the pools. You wouldn't go and immerse yourself in one of those pools; they would have thrown you out of town. You were ruining everyone's water system there, so the idea of insisting on immersion simply can't be maintained from the biblical word or biblical text.

-Pr. Will Weedon