Did the Babies Stay Home?

What is this page about?

The man who writes this site believes this: when the Bible says that a whole household was baptized, the plain meaning includes the babies. To say that the babies were left out, you must add an idea that the Bible does not say.

He asks three questions.

1. The Bible talks about whole households being baptized. Can we show from the Bible that the babies were left out?
2. Was baptism a gift from God that people received? Or was it a way for each person to tell others about his own faith?
3. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me.” How do we know he did not mean baptism?

There are two ways to read these Bible stories. This page gives them short names.

Many good Christians believe the second way. This page tries to explain it fairly.

Six points

1. Normal words include the baby. “We are coming as a family” includes the children. If people want to leave someone out, they say so.
2. The Bible names whole households, and leaves nobody out. No story names a baby. No story says that anyone stayed out.
3. In the Old Testament, the babies were in the house. Baby boys received the sign of God’s promise when they were eight days old.
4. Jesus took babies in his arms. The story does not talk about baptism. But early Christians soon connected it with baptism.
5. The early church argued about when to baptize babies, not if. Later, many families waited. This page says so.
6. The real question is: what is baptism? If it is our act, babies cannot do it. If it is God’s gift, babies can receive it.

Reading out and reading in

There are two ways to read anything.

Here are some examples from normal life.

• A friend writes, “We are coming to your wedding as a family.” You get a chair ready for the baby too. That is reading out. If your friend wanted to leave the baby at home, he would tell you.
• A medicine box says, “Take two tablets three times a day.” A man thinks, “That means only when I feel ill.” That is reading in. The box did not say that.
• A boss says, “Workers can go home early on Friday.” Later he says, “I meant only the full-time workers.” He added something that his words did not say.

Here is one more example. Remember it, because it is very important later.

The households in the Bible

The Bible tells about several households that were baptized. Here is the first one. It happened in the city of Philippi.

A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one who worshiped God, heard us. The Lord opened her heart to listen to the things which were spoken by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay.”

Acts 16:14–15 · World English Bible

In simple words: Lydia sold purple cloth. She listened to Paul, and God opened her heart. She and all the people in her house were baptized. Then she asked Paul to stay in her home.

Later that night Paul spoke to a man who guarded the prison.

They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him, and to all who were in his house. He took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes, and was immediately baptized, he and all his household.

Acts 16:31–33 · World English Bible

In simple words: Paul said, “Believe in Jesus. You and your family will be saved.” Paul told everyone in the house about Jesus. That same night the man and all his family were baptized.

Paul also wrote this:

I also baptized the household of Stephanas.

1 Corinthians 1:16 · World English Bible

In simple words: I baptized all the people in the house of a man called Stephanas.

Two more stories are very close. A Roman soldier called Cornelius was told that he and “all his house” would be saved. A synagogue leader called Crispus “believed in the Lord with all his house”.

So three households were baptized, and two more are close. Look carefully at what the Bible says and does not say.

• It does not name a baby.
• It does not say that anyone was left out.
• In some stories, the people in the house heard and believed. In other stories, the Bible does not say.

Both ways of reading must add something. The first way adds: “There were probably children, because most houses had children.” The second way adds: “There were no babies in any of these houses,” or “household means only the people old enough to believe.” Only the second way makes the word smaller than it is.

What “house” meant in the Old Testament

The first readers of these stories knew the Old Testament well. In the Old Testament, God often spoke to a whole house. Were the babies part of it? Yes.

He who is eight days old will be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations, he who is born in the house, or bought with money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring.

Genesis 17:12 · World English Bible

In simple words: Every baby boy in your house must be circumcised when he is eight days old.

At the first Passover, each house ate one lamb together. The lamb was for “a household”. The children were there too. They asked questions about it later, as they grew up.

Once, all the people of Israel stood before God to make a promise with him. The Bible says who was there: “your little ones, your wives” and everyone else (Deuteronomy 29:11).

Here is a sad story. A king named Saul killed a priest and “all his father’s house”. The Bible says what that meant:

He struck Nob, the city of the priests, with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and nursing babies.

1 Samuel 22:19 · World English Bible

In simple words: He killed everyone in the town of the priests, even the children and the babies.

It is a terrible story. But it shows clearly that “all his house” included the babies.

The baby who stayed home

There is one story in the Bible where a baby did stay at home. Here it is.

The man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer to Yahweh the yearly sacrifice and his vow. But Hannah didn’t go up, for she said to her husband, “Not until the child is weaned.”

1 Samuel 1:21–22 · World English Bible

In simple words: Elkanah and all his family went to worship God. But his wife Hannah did not go. She said, “I will wait until my baby is older.”

This is honest: here “all his house” went, but a mother and her baby stayed home. But look at what the Bible does. It tells us straight away. It names who stayed home, and it gives the reason. In the stories about baptism, the Bible never says that anyone stayed home.

What did people think in the first century?

Think about the people who first heard these stories, about 2,000 years ago.

A Jewish father had circumcised his own baby sons. He ate the Passover with his whole house. When he heard “you and all your house”, he thought of everyone, babies too.

A Roman or Greek man thought that the whole house followed the religion of the father. A writer named Plutarch, about the year 100, told a new wife to worship only “the gods that her husband believes in”. So when the head of the house turned to Jesus, everyone in the house came with him.

Paul also wrote about the children of Christians:

Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.

1 Corinthians 7:14 · World English Bible

In simple words: Your children belong to God’s holy people.

And when Paul’s letters were read in church, he spoke to the children directly, as part of the church: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1).

“To you and to your children”

On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached the first Christian sermon. At the end he said this:

Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all who are far off, even as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.”

Acts 2:38–39 · World English Bible

In simple words: Peter said, “Turn back to God and be baptized, every one of you. God will forgive your sins and give you the Holy Spirit. This promise is for you and for your children, and for people far away too.”

Some Christians say “your children” means people in the future who will believe. Others say Peter used the words of God’s old promise to Abraham, “to you and to your children after you”. That promise came with the sign given to babies. The verse alone does not decide. But it puts “your children” in the first sentence about Christian baptism.

Some people say, “A baby cannot believe.” But the Bible says that faith is a gift from God:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.

Ephesians 2:8 · World English Bible

In simple words: God saved you because he is kind. You trusted him. Even that trust did not come from you. It is God’s gift.

Martin Luther said that the church baptizes a child because God commands it. The church prays that God will give the child faith.

“Let the little children come to me”

They were bringing to him little children, that he should touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who were bringing them. But when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, and said to them, “Allow the little children to come to me! Don’t forbid them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these. Most certainly I tell you, whoever will not receive God’s Kingdom like a little child, he will in no way enter into it.” He took them in his arms, and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

Mark 10:13–16 · World English Bible

In simple words: People brought children to Jesus. His friends tried to stop them. Jesus was angry with his friends. He said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them. God’s kingdom is for people like them. You must receive it like a little child.” Then he held them and blessed them.

Luke tells the same story. He uses a Greek word that means “babies” (Luke 18:15).

Let us be fair. This story does not talk about baptism. Jesus did not baptize these children. He blessed them.

But the story says three important things. Babies can be brought to Jesus by other people. God’s kingdom belongs to them. And everyone receives the kingdom like a little child, as a gift.

The Bible also says how people enter the kingdom:

Jesus answered, “Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he can’t enter into God’s Kingdom.”

John 3:5 · World English Bible

In simple words: Jesus said, “Nobody can come into God’s kingdom unless he is born of water and of the Spirit.”

So the writer of this site asks: if the kingdom belongs to babies, why keep them from the water? Some Christians say “water” here does not mean baptism. Then the question becomes: what is baptism? That question comes at the end of this page.

Early Christians soon connected this story with baptism. About the year 200, a writer called Tertullian wanted families to wait before baptizing little children. But other people were already using Jesus’ words, “Don’t forbid them”, to say that children should be baptized. Tertullian answered, “Let them come, then, while they are growing up.”

What the early church did

What did Christians do with their babies after the time of the apostles?

• Before about 200: there are some hints, but nothing clear. Scholars argue about them.
• About 200: Tertullian wanted families to wait. So some families were already baptizing babies.
• About 246: a teacher called Origen said that the church received this practice from the apostles.
• About 253: a bishop asked, “Should we wait until the baby is eight days old, like circumcision?” Sixty-six bishops met together. They said no. God’s grace, they said, “is not to be refused to any one born of man”.
• In the 300s: many Christian families waited. Some famous church leaders grew up in Christian homes but were baptized as adults. Augustine was one of them. One teacher, Gregory, said to baptize babies if they were in danger, and otherwise to wait until about three years old.

So the early Christians argued about when to baptize children. Nobody in these old writings says that baptizing babies was new, or that the apostles forbade it. But we must also be honest. Before the year 200 the evidence is not clear. And in the 300s, many families waited. Scholars still disagree about this.

The other side

Here is what Christians who disagree say. They have good reasons, and they should be heard.

• The Bible never names a baby who was baptized.
• Some households heard and believed. At Cornelius’s house, the Holy Spirit came on everyone who heard.
• The household of Stephanas later served the church. That sounds like grown-up people.
• The Bible says “repent” and “believe” before it says “be baptized”.
• Clear evidence for baptizing babies begins only about the year 200.

Inside these reasons there are two different ideas. We should look at each one alone.

The first idea: “There were no babies in any of these houses.” For one house, that is possible. Maybe Lydia had no children. But it must be true for every house, and the Bible never says it. Homes long ago were big and had many children. Also, the Bible never tells of a child from a Christian home who was baptized later as an adult. So silence is on both sides.

The second idea: “Everyone in each house believed at the same time.” This fits the story of Cornelius well. But think about the prison guard. His wife, his older children and his servants all had to believe on the same night. If each person decides alone, that is very hard to imagine. It is easy to imagine only if the whole house followed the father together. And that is the first way of reading: a household is one group, babies too.

What is baptism?

In the year 1527, a group called the Anabaptists wrote a statement. It is one of the first statements against baptizing babies. Look at the order of its words:

They did not start with the stories about households. They started with an idea about what baptism is. The “no babies” rule came from that idea.

Now remember the Christmas meal. The baby was there, but did not eat the meat. In the same way, there are two questions:

1. Were the babies in the household? The word “household” says yes.
2. Could the babies receive what the household received? That depends on what baptism is.

If baptism is mainly our act, where we tell people about our faith, then a baby cannot do it. If baptism is mainly God’s act, where he gives a gift, then a baby can receive it.

What does the Bible say? In many verses, God is the one who acts in baptism:

According to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.

Titus 3:5 · World English Bible

In simple words: God saved us because he is kind. He did it by washing us and giving us new life by the Holy Spirit.

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.

1 Corinthians 12:13 · World English Bible

In simple words: God’s Spirit baptized all of us into one body, the church.

Some verses also talk about what the person does: “repent”, “believe”. Christians who disagree with this page are right that faith matters. But no verse says that baptism is mainly a person’s own testimony.

Check it yourself

1. Read Acts 16:11–34. Find every “house” and “household”. Does anyone stay out?
2. Read 1 Samuel 1:21–28. Who stayed home, and why? How do you know?
3. Read Mark 10:13–16. What does Jesus say about the kingdom and children?
4. Write down your reasons for or against baptizing babies. Next to each reason, write the Bible verse. Does it come from a story about a household, or from an idea about what baptism is?