Tackling Tradition 95: Kat Boan Vs. Paul (On Baptism)

One can’t help but notice she demands a prooftext without any exposition of the text.  Yet embedded in her own meme are 3 statements that are intended to inform us of what she believes the text to mean. 

• It (her prooftext) doesn’t say, “Christ sent me primarily to preach the Gospel.
• It does not say, “Baptism is important, just not the center of my ministry.
• It does not say, “Christ sent me to preach AND water baptize.”

One the one hand, “I don’t need a paraphrase explaining what you think Paul meant,” yet on the other, she provides 3 statements that form either 3 short, one sentence, paragraphs or 3 short statements that form a single paragraph.   What she engages in the very behavior she herselfs eschews from any who dare challenge her.  

Why should anyone here take her seriously?   She’s just another tantruming child testing people’s alleged biblical/theological illiteracy/ignorance as if she is in possession of knowledge & authority derived from prooftexting & bare bones, at best, prooftexting.  

Anybody can prooftext from the Bible — but can they exposit their prooftext & explain its meaning? 

Paul was not a little girl who prooftexts her way through a theological discussion like a heckler crying out “ Free Will!” or “John 3:16!” in a room full of students in a colloquy on Calvinism.    

He was a highly educated (former) Pharisee who debated in the synagogue & who did in fact baptize on occasion.   He was a very sophisticated theologian for a man of that.  

He did not believe in baptism for justification, nor in circumcision for justification.    That’s Galatians. 

That said, he had Timothy circumcised to avoid offense in Acts 16. He agreed with the practice of baptism as a matter of covenant solidarity with the deceased (I Corinthians 15).   He also listened to some of John the Baptist’s disciples who had concerns about the efficacy of their baptism & chose to (re)baptize them (Acts 19). 

In Acts 21,  he followed Jewish customs of purification in order to placate & answer his critics & avoid offense.   Paul’s critics said that he had been telling Jews in the Diaspora not to circumcise their children.  That was a lie on their part.  He taught no such thing.   

He also taught (Colossians 2) that baptism & circumcision are corresponding acts.  

Why then would Paul who did not teach Jewish people to abandon circumcision, not recommend, if not command, Christians to be baptized, particularly in view of (1) the correspondence between circumcision & baptism & (2) Christ’s own command to the Apostles to go & make disciples, baptizing them, authorizing them to witness, observe, & administer Word & sacrament? 

Her prooftext has a specific context.   

• 10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1 Corinthians 1:10–17).

Paul wrote what he wrote to a church that was highly divided, worldly, had major issues with sexual immorality, reviling, idolatry that ran through the local Aphrodite temple, & “Superapostles” among them who frankly are depicted as the polar opposite of Paul rather like Ms. Boan who has very publicly stated, “Everybody wants to follow God’s commandments until one of those commandments tells them to follow Paul.” 

Paul isn’t laying down a fully orbed doctrine of baptism here, nor is he informing us that baptism was not part of his earthly ministry. 

He’s actually stating that the major priority of his ministry was the preaching & teaching of the Gospel, just like other apostles had decided about their own ministries early in Acts 6 —- and he is doing so in answer to a deeply divided church who seem to have been making much more of baptism than they should vs. the pursuit of the study of the Word of God itself.    Their priorities were way out of whack & it showed by way of the moral condition of their church & the party spirit that divided them.   He is correcting their priorities & calling them to repent of “I follow Paul! I follow Apollos! I follow Cephas!  I follow Christ!” theology.  

In other words, the members of the Corinthian church had been dividing over who was baptized by whom.   The identity of the administrator (& thus teaching attributed to them) formed the basis of the party or parties to whom the members said they belonged.  

Ms. Boan’s Facebook & Instagram pages are both littered with Paul, Paul, Paul, & more Paul, & here she is claiming to be one of Paul’s disciples, figuratively baptized by him.   “I follow Paul, & Paul wrote this!  Look at what an authoritative Christian I am!  Challenge me if you dare!”    Does she even know her prooftext is directed at her? 

She is doing the very thing Paul is prohibiting.   The issue here isn’t baptism, it’s a little girl who has  successfully provided a prooftexf that exposes her  for what she really is —- a functional member of the Corinthian church who thinks far to too highly of herself & is not at all following her chosen theological mentor as closely & as meticulously as she herself believes.

Her prooftext, in context, isn’t a prooftext that applies to her question to her audience re: baptism,  as much as it is a prooftext that exposes her as the poor theologian & hypocrite she is.