Baptism in the Reformed Tradition (Resources)

A few weeks ago our Presbytery hosted our first ever Minister’s Conference. The title of the Conference was “Today’s Elders and Deacons—Ancient Offices for Today’s Church,” and was held at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Statesboro, GA. Dr. Derek Thomas was the keynote speaker. Dr. Thomas gave two lectures: “Shepherd or CEO: Which Model Are We to Employ for Eldership?” and “Serving for promotion? Why be a deacon?” I gave a short lecture on “Baptism in the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches.” All of the audio from the conference is available here. You can download or listen to the lecture I gave on baptism here.

In preparation for my lecture, I thought I would make some of the resources on Covenantal Baptism that I plan on referencing or recommending available below:

Audio Lectures

Edward Donnelly’s outstanding 6 part sermon series on baptism.

Bill Shishko’s  23 part Sunday School series on Baptism.

Books and Articles

John Holt Rice Essay on Baptism. (Rice was one of the father’s of Southern Presbyterianism, first Professor at Union Theological Seminary and the founder of Hampton-Sydney College)

William Graham (Definitely not to be confused with William “Billy” Graham) The Scriptural Doctrine of Water Baptism 

Archibald Alexander’s chapter, “Difficulties With Regard to Baptism,” in The Life of Archibald Alexander (The first professor at Princeton Theological Seminary walks us through his journey to embrace infant baptism).

Sinclair Ferguson’s 2004 lecture, “The Westminster Doctrine of Baptism and Current Reformed Trajectories” can be purchased here.

Stephen Marshall “A Sermon on the Baptizing of Infants”  preached before the Assembly of Divines at Westminster (this is the sermon that Ferguson mentions in the previously referenced lecture).

Stephen Marshall A Defense of Infant Baptism (an expanded and polemical treatment of the content of the sermon that he preached before the Westminster Assembly)

Sinclair Ferguson’s chapter on “Infant Baptism View” taken out of David F. Wright, Sinclair Ferguson and Bruce Ware ed. Baptism: Three Views pp. 77-81 (starting on pg. 9 in the sample PDF). Dr. Ferguson’s responses to the other two authors also yield an enormous amount of helpful theological argumentation for covenantal baptism.

Mark Ross’ chapter “Circumcision and Baptism as Signs and Seals” in Greg Strawbridge ed. The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism (see pg. 15 ff on the sample PDF) [WARNING: I do not recommend every article in this book as some of the men are proponents of the Federal Vision hyper-covenantalism].

Bryan Chapell “A Pastoral Overview of Infant Baptism” in Greg Strawbridge ed. The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism (see pg. 15 ff on the sample PDF).

John Fesko Water, Word and Spirit: A Reformed Perspective on Baptism (free PDF of the intro to this work)

Jim Cassidy “Calvin on Baptism: Baptismal Regeneration and the Duplex Loquendi Modus,” from the Jeffery Waddington and Lane Tipton ed. Resurrection and Eschatology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2008).

Nick Batzig “The Circumcision of Christ” (A Biblical-theological approach to understanding the relationship between the covenant sign and the cross)