“He and all his(including children/infants).”
Jvette, you are demanding that the details say just the opposite of what they do, that all the house was “believing,” present tense, not future, which is something that requires cognitive ability to comprehend what was preached as requiring faith, and which infants do not have. Instead, you are indeed forcing it to say what it does not, and which presumes the Holy Spirit uncharacteristically did not consider it important enough to include, despite the critical important Catholicism places upon it.
“Do you deny that the man who believes in God and accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior will bring up his children to believe also? Do you deny that it is the parents right and obligation to do this?”
That a man who believes in God and accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior will bring up his children to believe is irrelevant as to the issue that the explicit requirements for baptism were repentance and faith, the former being implicit in the latter. The parents rights and obligation is to bring them up in the ways of the Lord, which is not teaching them they were born again as infant via proxy faith.
jvette, what our friends do not seem to comprehend is hristians are commanded to keep the Apostolic tradition, which was communicated by either letter or word of mouth.
this is not an option, it is a command to the Church from the Apostle Paul.
that being the case, the Church practices infant baptism in obedience to the teaching received from the Apostles.
now the Church has a great advantage over those who reject it’s teaching - THE CHURCH WAS PRESENT TO HEAR AND OBSERVE WHAT THE APOSTLES TAUGHT AND PRACTICED. THOSE OUTSIDE OF IT WERE NOT THERE AND THEREFORE ARE LIMITED TO TAKING THE CATHOLIC SCRIPTURES AND UDERSTANDING THEM. OF COURSE WITHOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE UNSPIRITUAL MAN DOES NOT RECEIVE THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD, THEY ARE FOLLY TO HIM.
No, that’s not what I am saying.
I am saying that the parents were responsible for speaking for those in the household who could not speak for themselves.
In Scripture we see dozens of references to a man’s household, and HE is responsible for ALL the people within it.
It’s not complicated. Would a Jewish man not present his son for circumcision or present his daughter in the temple?
Of course not, if the household is a household of God.
Why is that such a stumbling block?
Jeremiah was set apart even before he was knit in his mother’s womb.
Paul says he was set apart even from his mother’s womb.
And John, while still in his mother’s womb, leapt with the coming of Mary who was carrying Jesus in her womb.
Were they of the age of consent?
And what is the age of consent? Where does Scripture say that one is old enough to profess belief in God, in Jesus?
Or do the children belong to the Kingdom of God? And if Jesus says so, why wouldn’t parents have them baptized, believing that baptism saves?
It’s really not complicated but for the refusal to accept the simple concept of a parent acting on behalf of their children. Something we are expected to do, called to do, “To train up your children in the way to go and when he is older, he shall not depart from it.”