Just the other day I was listening to a commentary on sermonaudio.com and it was good and it was challenging and I thought to myself as a pastor of a local church as this commentator was and preacher that many of us listen to on Sermon Audio was sharing his thoughts and views about baby dedications and the churches in his town in Texas, I thought to myself, I am glad I've thought through this before I listen to this commentary. So, based on listening to this short audio that was posted about a week ago, I thought let me share what we've put together at Brian Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina with regard to baby dedications. and we have a web page dedicated to this because oftentimes a new person comes to the church and maybe they've done baby dedications differently at their church in the past and or maybe they've got some misconceptions or they think it's a scriptural thing or something like that and so we want to provide some clarity for them so before we do this thing that we sometimes call a baby dedication. I always refer people to our webpage, ask them to read over that before we prepare a certificate or schedule a time for this quasi ceremony of sorts. At Berean, some parents choose to dedicate their infants or small children to the Lord at the normal conclusion of the Sunday morning preaching services. For us, that's either 8.30 or 10.45. But what does it mean to dedicate a baby to the Lord? Is this a photo op? Or is it something much more serious and important? Is this baby dedication the same as an infant baptism? Is a baby dedication a church sacrament? Does it dispense grace? Since various Christians would answer these questions differently, the purpose of this webpage is to clarify what we believe at Berea Baptist Church. In the Jewish religion, male infants are circumcised in obedience to the Mosaic Law. In the Catholic and Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, Methodist, Presbyterian, and other Reformed churches, infants are baptized into the church. However, Baptists do not baptize infants. Whether that's because of the idea of washing away original sin, or whether that's because it's an idea of showing the circumcision, or the act of the covenant, or whatever the reason, Baptists don't baptize infants. That's just the way it is. Nor do we believe that circumcision is necessary from a biblical perspective. It might be a great health thing and you as a mom and dad can work through that. Moreover, Baptists believe that only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can a child become part of the body of Christ. Some suggest that the practice of dedicating a baby to the Lord is simply a matter of praying for the infant's health and salvation. This is based on the example Matthew presents in the 19th chapter where Jesus lays hands on the small children. Now, if you personally do a Google search of baby dedication, you'll find that this is normally the scripture that's used in support of this. Or the other typical scripture is, a few suggest that Hannah's dedication to her toddler son Samuel to the Lord in 1 Samuel 1.19-28 is the basis for the modern day baby dedication ceremony. However, the difficulty with using this passage as scriptural basis for a baby dedication ceremony is that Hannah left Samuel with the high priest Eli. And we certainly are not prepared to raise your son at the church. So please do not consider, after the baby dedication ceremony, leaving your child at the church. There is no one that stays here 24 hours a day. Therefore, I write, it seems best to conclude that we are unsure of the origin or tradition of a baby dedication ceremony. We cannot say that the baby dedication ceremony is biblical unless we view what Jesus brought to Simeon in Acts Luke 2 as an act of fulfilling a Mosaic law requirement and that is represented in Leviticus 12, in which case a child's dedication would be an old covenant expectation for Jews. We at Berean are unsure if baby dedication was practiced by the early church. Probably, let's be fair, probably it wasn't. Probably it wasn't. There isn't anything in the New Testament indicating that babies of believers are to be dedicated to the Lord in a special church ceremony. Let me say that again. I can't find anything in the New Testament that indicates that we should be practicing this. Some churches conduct special baby dedication Sundays or special services where all who had a child within a specified period of time collectively dedicate themselves before the church. Berean does not hold such special services. Instead, a few minutes are used at the end of a normal time of invitation to recognize the parents of the child and, most importantly, the commitment to raise the child according to God's In reality, our ceremony should be called a parent dedication. So now let's talk about parental responsibilities. According to Psalm 127.3, children are a gift from the Lord and parents have a responsibility to rear their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, Ephesians 6.4. Moreover, Deuteronomy 6.4-7 provides even more specific guidance concerning parental responsibilities toward their children. So let's hear the word of the Lord. Verse 4, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. parents are to be the primary teachers of the fundamentals of the Christian faith beginning with the most orthodox truth that the Lord our God is one Lord who has always existed as three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that every man, woman, and child is to love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. Therefore, instead of dedicating a baby, it seems much more appropriate for each parent to dedicate themselves to both God and their child to be obedient to their God-given parental responsibilities. Doing this before the body of Christ is a sign of the parent's commitment to fulfill these responsibilities within a community of believers. So you can see at Breen what we've tried to do here is to take a ceremony that often is empty and almost useless and to turn it into something that is far more productive in so much as the parents are making a public commitment to do something. And the preacher that I grew up listening to for most of my young adult years would say over and over again, nothing begins without a commitment. And so everything begins with a commitment. Everything begins with a commitment. So let me share some parental responsibilities. These include, but are not limited to, number one, staying married, staying married. In recognition that God's plan for the biological father and mother is to rear their children in the same home is the best plan. Number two, being the spiritual leaders of their children, which includes setting the example in their relationship with Christ and the church, as well as teaching their children the gospel and the word of God. Number three, maintaining the health, safety, and welfare of their children. Number four, praying without ceasing for their child or children's salvation and their sanctification to the glory of God. Now it seems only appropriate to pause right here and say again and again and emphasize We do not believe that children who are, quote, dedicated as babies have a higher probability of being saved. We do not believe that to be true. We are not dedicating a baby to the Lord to receive grace or a special dispensation of grace. Instead, parents are reminding themselves and the congregation before God of their commitment or the covenant they are making. 5. Parental responsibilities include, but are not limited to, shepherding their child's heart toward a full relationship with God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel by God's sovereign grace. At Berean, the baby dedication is a special time at the end of a worship service in which parents recognize that their child is a gift from God and publicly affirm their commitment to fulfill God's expectations. Now, if the idea of making a covenant before God seems foreign to you, let me encourage you to read and study Nehemiah chapter number nine. In Nehemiah chapter 9 the people are confronted with the word of God. In verse 3, And they stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of the Lord their God. One fourth part of the day, and another fourth a part, they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God. And then if you continue to read the entire chapter, you close out with verse 38, and because of all this, we make a sure covenant and write it, and our princes, Levites, and priests seal it unto thee, or unto it. And then chapter number 10 is a significant list in verses one through 27 of everyone's name who signed the covenant. And so an agreement, a contract, a covenant. In essence, each parent who participates enters into a covenant with God and the body of Christ to do what they have been called to do as parents. And so this commentator that I was listening to, preacher, friend, made specific reference to the idea of, well, what about church discipline? Well, the fact of the matter is, parents are, who are part of the body of Christ, are subject to church discipline for their failure to live up to their parental responsibilities. And what this webpage does, and what this covenant does, is it reminds them that they are not to get divorced, that they are not to abandon their spiritual responsibilities, that they are to go to work and provide for the health and safety and welfare of their children. And that us, we, as a church, would be negligent, irresponsible, and disobedient to our divine responsibility to call them on the carpet for their failure to do this now obviously we would do that in love and it would be slow and we would provide all the help and grace and prayer that we could, but ultimately, as the question was raised in another audio recording about this exact idea, what about church discipline? Well, the fact of the matter is that the family, as long as they're part of that church, would be subject to church discipline for their failure to do what they've committed to do. So again, this is a covenant. As such, those who are not truly committed to doing what God expects by His grace should not present themselves before the church for a baby dedication. Although photos are often taken during this public proclamation of a commitment to the Lord, it is much, much more than a photo op. It is a solemn commitment to obey the Lord as parents. So then, what if I am not a church member? Parents who are not members of the church may request that a pastor meet with them to pray for their child's health and salvation, but the public dedication of families will be limited to those who are already in a covenant relationship with the church through membership. A baby dedication in church is a family event and loses its significance if the parents proclaiming their dedication to the Lord are not part of the family of God. Those who are not part of the Berean through covenant membership should first seek to do the Lord's will in church membership before they ask about publicly presenting themselves before the church for a quote baby dedication end quote. So those are my thoughts. Those are our thoughts at Berean Baptist Church, Fayetteville, North Carolina. If you've got different ones, send me your thoughts at pastor at bereanbaptistchurch.org. If anyone's got proof that the early church practiced baby dedications, send it to me. I'd love to see what you see in the scripture. If there's a text that I'm missing, if there's something we can do to be more biblically aligned, then share it with us. If you think that baby dedication should be completely aborted in the church, that's your decision, we would respect that. We would then ask that you respect the fact that we're trying to take maybe a ceremony that has been botched up and turn it into something that does have some substance. Certainly we don't want symbolism without substance. Our goal would be that everything that we do here has substance behind it. Thanks for listening.