Jumpstarter 4 of 10

Direct Answer Based on Finny’s teaching, a second water baptism in Acts 19 threatens Calvin’s anti-“Anabaptist” stance and his commitment to one valid baptism (including infant baptism), so Calvin re-labels the event as “teaching” and hand-laying rather than a real re-baptism. Finny warns the danger sign is when our “agenda” makes us explain away plain meaning and “shoehorn” texts into a system.

Support from Transcript:

• Finny: Acts 19 is “a clear example where someone is baptized twice,” creating “a huge, huge problem for Calvin.”
• He explains why: “Anabaptist” literally means “baptized again,” and Acts 19 looked like a “baptized again experience.”
• Finny says “Zwingli and Calvin had conniptions over this,” implying high stakes in the debate.
• Calvin’s claim quoted: “I deny that they were rebaptized.”
• Finny’s critique: “you must have a total agenda if you cannot see that these people got into some water and were baptized again.”
• Calvin’s maneuver: baptism is “taken” differently; Paul “put his hands on them and taught them,” so “it is then but one thing expressed in two ways.”
• Finny concludes: “an excellent example of twisting the Scriptures… trying to prove what they want to believe.”