As the readers of the Altlutheraner may be aware, the opponents of the complete separation of Church and State have appealed to passages of Scripture in which the conversion of entire households are described. One such passage which these violent men (as Scripture describes them) twist in their usual fashion is Acts 16, dealing with the conversion of the Philippian jailer. First, I present the passage in its entirety:
But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.” Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.
Now, this passage was no doubt written in order that the Holy Spirit might, by way of example, refute the nominal reasons given in favor of forced “conversions”; for here we find that although the promise of salvation is given to the entire household, it is not based on the father’s authority (which is even more strongly reflected in Luther’s translation of verse 31), but rather on the Word of the Lord which the apostles spoke. This testimony also shows the absurdity of baptizing open unbelievers, for the jailer’s household was not baptized before the apostles “spoke the Word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.” One can therefore conclude that even before their Baptism (though only immediately before it), the jailer’s entire household believed in God. Furthermore, he rejoices that he “believed in God with all his household.”
This explanation is further strengthened by all other examples in Scripture of household conversions. In Acts 11, the words that Peter speaks are the means whereby the household is converted, not the secular sword. And in Acts 18, the conversion of Crispus and his household only happens after Paul preaches, not that the heathen should all be put to death, but “that Jesus is the Christ.”
Just imagine what the effect would have been if Paul had brought the word of the murder-prophets, which they put forward as the only means by which the Church may be strengthened. What would have happened if he instead cried out: “Be baptized or beheaded!”? Without doubt, we would think of him as we think of the wicked dragoons, the holy saints who cried through their merciless bloodshed: Become Catholic or die! He would be considered like the sacrilegious Puritans in Massachusetts who persecuted pious women for the crime of believing in their hearts “that righteousness comes from faith and not from works,” that is, for being Lutheran — and those who defend the Christian doctrine must also be denounced as “hypocrites” and “heretics.”
All this considered, I have one thing to ask these murder-prophets, who assert that the Church may use the arm of the government to execute unbelievers: Should it begin with you? For all your statements, not a single one of them is Christian. So why, I ask, should the civil government not put you to death, or at least imprison you, especially since you often call for the overthrowal of the existing government?
But for the Christian, I have this to say: Remember the warning of Christ, Matthew 7, which certainly applies to these murder-prophets: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.” These fruits are bloodshed and rebellion, and so one must apply to them the word of St. Paul (Romans 16): “Avoid them.”
Altlutheraner 