How Problematic Acts 10 Is For Baptismal Regeneration

Jordan Cooper recently released a video that's partly an argument for baptismal regeneration. I've already interacted with the large majority of the points he makes (e.g., here on the alleged parallel between Acts 2:38 and 16:30, here on 1 Peter 3:21, here on the extrabiblical sources). What I want to do in this post is say more about Acts 10.

A Good Discussion Of How Christians Should View Near-Death Experiences

Jordan Cooper just did a two-part series of videos on near-death experiences (NDEs), here and here. The first is about the evidence for the paranormality of NDEs. The second is about how Christians should view them, and it's the more important of the two. His view is somewhat different than mine, but he provides one of the best overviews of NDEs I've seen from an Evangelical. For my own articles on the subject, you can go here.

I left two comments in the thread following the second video. The first comment explained my view of NDEs and why I prefer it to Jordan's. The second comment expanded on a point Jordan made in his second video. The first comment disappeared shortly after I put up the second one. I suspect that's a problem with YouTube reacting to my posting twice in a short period of time. I don't know if that first comment went into moderation, was deleted, or whatever else. The second comment is still there, though.

Resources On Prayers To The Dead

We have collections of resources on the topic here and here, including many discussions of the patristic and other extrabiblical evidence. Jordan Cooper has been producing some videos on the subject that make many good points. See here, for example, and you can find more by running a search on YouTube. The Old Testament prohibitions of attempting to contact the dead tend to be neglected in these discussions. The passages either aren't brought up or get dismissed for inadequate reasons. Gary Smith has some helpful comments in the first volume of his Isaiah commentary, in his discussions of Isaiah 8:19 and 19:3 (Isaiah 1-39 [Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Publishing Group, 2007], 230-31, 357). The passages seem to be condemning all attempts to contact the dead, not merely certain forms of it, like going to a medium.