John Mark Hicks

Below are summary statements that correspond to chapters or sections of chapters in my most recent book Enter the Water, Come to the Table (Leafwood, 2014). They summarize the theology present in the book, which is deeply rooted (I hope) in the story of God as given to us in Scripture. I am grateful for […]

 [Michael Shank, Muscle and a Shovel: A raw, gritty, true story about finding the Truth in a world drowning in religious confusion (5th edition, 2013; Kindle version). I have cited the book with chapter number first, then the Kindle location. For example, Chapter 1, location 245 is cited as 1:245.] [I have expanded my three-blog […]

[An audio version of this is available here.] Contemporary visitors to Palestine rarely, if ever, find the Jordan River imposing. It seems relatively shallow, not very wide, and quite calm.  Wading across does not seem like much of a problem–except that it would take one from the modern state of Israel into the modern state […]

While there are many variations along a continuum, credobaptists (that is, those who baptize believers) approach children within the faith community in two major ways. On the one hand there are the revivalists, but on the other hand there are those who emphasize nurture. Revivalists believe that children within the faith community, at some point, […]

The 2013 Christian Scholars Conference is currently in progress. Gary Holloway asked me to present a paper that would respond to the ecumenical 1982 Lima “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry.” I have uploaded the paper on my Academic page and it is now available here. The paper suggests that the great strength of the document is […]

While David Lipscomb, editor the Gospel Advocate after the Civil War (beginning in 1866), opposed rebaptizing those who were immersed to obey God though they did not understand its design for the remission of sins, the original editors of the GA thought differently.  While reading through the 1855-1861 GA, I  ran across the following two statements from […]

One of the more common “gotcha questions” in the late 19th century discussion of rebaptism in the Stone-Campbell Movement was something like this: Is baptism administered to a person scripturally valid when he claims he is in Christ before he was baptized, and will contend that his sins were all forgiven him before he submitted […]

In obedience to the Father, Jesus went down into the water to pray. Jesus followed sinners into the water as they repented and confessed their sins. Jesus identified with sinners by sharing this water ritual with them. He underwent a ritual designed for sinners! In response the Father anointed the Messiah with the Holy Spirit, […]

John’s baptism was designed for sinners–penitent and confessing sinners whose sins were forgiven through baptism. Jesus was baptized by John. What’s up with that? It is rather startling actually. Jesus undergoes a ritual designed for sinners. But, perhaps, it is not so startling. Jesus ultimately died a death designed for criminals (sinners) as well. Jesus […]

In 1898, Willam K. Homan in the Texas Christian Courier noted how relationships between the Gospel Advocate and Firm Foundation were deteriorating. This elicited a strong comment from Austin McGary, the editor of the Firm Foundation. I find this particular comment quite revealing as it parallels the instrumental music and missionary society controversies with the rebaptism […]