I love This Video

This is a little bit of a departure for me, but watch this.

Children Taken Into Custody After Drug Busts

Children taken into custody after drug busts
I don't know how long this site leaves the stories up, but go take a look. It's a brief summary, but check if the video link still works.

Police have been cracking down on grow ops, and the common things to look out for are well known-"How to spot a grow op". So the criminals are using families to camouflage the grow op homes. This means children are being exposed to the chemicals and fumes found in grow ops, as well as having access to the drugs. They are also in danger of electrocution (Or electric shocks), as grow op homes usually have the electric meter bypassed, resulting in exposed wires. In at least one of the cases in the link above, exposed wires ran through a child's bedroom.

These are cases of child endangerment and abuse. It shows how greed will cause people to put their own children at risk.

Some may say that if marijuana was legalized these sort of things wouldn't happen. Somehow I doubt it. Those children would have been at risk in some other way. We are all sinful, and the greed that caused these parents to disregard their children's safety would pop up some other way.

May we all realize though, that as sinful humans, we would all be capable of such neglect. May we thank God that He provided His Son to deal with the sin of His people.

"Don't they baptize babies?"

(There is a point here, please bear with me. Thanks.)
A while back I posted a link to a page on baptism on mongergism.com-(This one here.) On that page there are a large number of links to articles on baptism, especially ones defending either paedo (infant/child) or credo (believers) baptism. One of my readers asked about the similarities between the Presbyterian & Roman Catholic views on paedobaptism. I've been working on that, but other things keep coming up and I am not happy with the current state of what I've written. But it is coming.

In writing it I did realize that credobaptists may read it and say, "So what?" From their perspective neither Presbyterians nor Roman Catholics have the correct view. The point of the article is not to defend paedobaptism, but to show the differences between two views on it.

This train of thought reminded me of when I first started attending a Presbyterian Church. My non-Presbyterian Christian friends often seemed amazed or concerned. I would often hear some form of the question, "Don't they baptize babies?" Often the tone of their voice was as if they were asking, "Don't they eat babies?" or some other atrocity. They were often amazed that although, yes, Presbyterians baptize babies, it isn't the cornerstone of their existence, belief and practice. It still happens, and we hear it from visitors.

Yes, Presbyterians do baptize babies. No, it doesn't make us aliens, monsters, or outcasts. We value our credobaptist brothers and sisters, and we share the same gospel, especially with those who are reformed. We learn from them, and they learn from us. Not all who hold to paedobaptism are Christians. Neither are all who hold to credobaptism. What you hold to about baptism may not affect your salvation, unless you tie salvation directly to baptism (for example those who hold to some form of baptismal regenration.) The PCA doesn't require members to hold to paedobaptism. The reason is we don't wish to add conditions to salvation that are not in the Bible.