Author’s Note: This is a pastoral letter written to members of our church whose parents are opposed to them being baptized. If you are in this situation, please seek the wisdom and guidance of your local church pastor.
Editor’s Note: This essay was first published in The Gospel Coalition Australia. It has been republished here with permission from the author.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I thank God so much for your faith in Christ. As first-generation Christians, many of you have chosen to follow Jesus despite strong opposition from your parents.
Some of you have been called fools, others have been banned from attending church, and I know one brother has even been forced out of his home. You have paid a price few other Christians in the West will ever pay and for that, I praise God and honor you.
All of you now face an important decision: will you be baptized against your parents’ wishes? Some of you have been told to wait until you graduate and others until your grandparents die.
I know how much you love your parents and want to honor them. And I see how deeply you love your heavenly Father and want to follow him.
While each of your situations is unique in its own way, I hope that these brief thoughts might help you make a wise and prayerful decision.
Your Earthly Family Really Matters
Firstly, please don’t think that God doesn’t care about your family. He loves them far more than you can imagine and he wants you to love, respect, and honor them.
In the Old Testament, God explicitly commands that we honor our father and mother. In fact, how we honor them is indicative of how we glorify God (Exod 20:12; Deut 5:16). Right throughout Proverbs, we find that following our parents’ instruction is a mark of true wisdom.
And it’s no different in the New Testament. How we care for our parents, particularly in their older age, is deeply connected with the gospel (1 Tim 5:8). The last thing that God wants is for you to dishonor your parents, especially in the name of man-made religious traditions (Mark 7:8–13).
Of course, baptism isn’t a man-made religious tradition; it’s Jesus’ continuing gift and command to his church (Matt 28:18–20). It’s the outward sign that we belong to him.
But baptism isn’t what makes us belong. We’re saved not by the water of baptism but the blood of Christ (1 Cor 10:1–5; 1 Peter 3:21–22). With or without it, we already belong to God by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
God calls us to trust Jesus today but his command to be baptized doesn’t require an immediate response. All this might mean being patient. It might mean waiting for your parents to come around and if you’re a teenager and still living under your parents’ care, it might mean waiting to graduate or move out of your home before being baptized.
But if you are going to wait, please don’t waste this time.
Pray for your parents every day. Use this time to show them that Jesus makes you a better not worse son or daughter. Honor them in such a way that they might be “won over without a word” and “be ready at any time to give a defense…for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:1; 15).
Your Spiritual Family Matters More
Ironically, God’s care for your earthly family magnifies his greater care for your spiritual family. It is precisely because our families matter that God’s family matters so much more.
It’s not for no reason that Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).
Just like us, the first-century Jews believed that the earthly family is our primary place of belonging. They too believed as many of our parents believe, that blood is thicker than water.
But the Spirit is thicker than blood. God is gathering an even greater family—a family defined not by blood but faith. In this household, God is our Father, Jesus is our brother and we are each other’s family bound by the Spirit (Heb 2:11–12; 1 Tim 5:1–2). God has graciously adopted us into this greater family by the Spirit of his Son (Gal 4:4–7).
The church is our truest family — this is where we really belong.
It’s no surprise then that as much as God calls us to honor our parents, there is a limit. Honoring them doesn’t justify not following or living for Jesus, and it definitely doesn’t excuse sin. In fact, Jesus says that our allegiance to family is the cost of discipleship precisely because we now belong to him and no longer to them (Matt 10:34–37; Mark 3:31–35).
That’s actually what makes baptism so important.
Baptism says to the world that we belong to Jesus and his greater family (1 Cor 12:12–13). It’s the ultimate mark of allegiance. So while baptism isn’t essential, it’s inescapably important. It draws a line in the sand. It nails our colors to the mast. And it marks the beginning of our new life in Christ. Outside our conversion, our baptism is the single most important moment of our Christian life.
Being a Christian without baptism is like being married without a ring. The ring might not make the marriage but the marriage is signed and sealed by the ring.
If you plan on waiting to be baptized, please know this: There is a line and you can’t wait forever. In fact, I suspect that the longer you wait, the greater tension you will feel between your earthly and spiritual families.
Many of our brothers and sisters in closed countries face death for following Jesus — even from their own families.
For them, being baptized into Christ’s death takes on a whole new meaning (Romans 6:4). They understand far better than us that “if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection” (6:5).
Our baptism in the face of opposition from our parents honors our persecuted brothers and sisters. If they would willingly embrace death from their own family, how willing should we embrace mere rejection from ours?
The Promise Of A Greater Family
When you decide to be baptized, whenever that might be, I can’t tell you what will happen. I don’t know if your parents will attend and I can’t promise that you won’t even suffer for it.
But know this: God has adopted you in his greater family, and “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mothe
r or children or fields because of my name will receive a hundred times more and will inherit eternal life” (Matt 19:29).
When your day comes, trust that your baptism will be a visible sign to your family that you belong to a greater family and that through Jesus, they can as well.
Whatever decision you make and whatever might happen, never forget: “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD cares for me” (Psalms 27:10).
Your brother in the faith,
Adam