In the passage, we cover concern’s Luke’s one verse report about Lydia and the baptism of her household. This passage is the main proof text used to justify the practice of infant baptism. Infant baptism is used to promote the idea that the church primarily exists to perpetuated itself through the descendents of believers and processes to keep them in the church.

Since so much is at stake concerning the meaning of Acts 16:15, we examine each verse in the Book of Acts that uses the verb “baptize” in various forms. Since Luke’s meaning is the Holy Spirit’s meaning, we must know what Luke meant in narrating teaching about and incidents of baptism. As we address each case of baptism in Acts, we find that it is always believers who are baptized. There are many such incidents. There is never an explicit teaching or example of baptizing an infant or any other household member who had not personally turned to Christ. The evidence is clear and we explain each passage in context.

The next issue is then whether the church is a living organism, attached to Christ as the head, or if it is a self-perpetuating institution. Not only infant baptism, but many other means of keeping the descendents of Christians in the church for multiple generations have been devised in church history. The sorry result is institutional Christianity that often has no gospel and no life of the Holy Spirit. Many times the institutional church holds to the same pagan teachings as the world. We give examples and there are many more. The church does not grow and exist through natural generation, but through supernatural regeneration. The implications of this are many and profound.