Your Child's Profession of Faith

About the Book

A Christian parent would sooner die than make a mistake with the soul of his or her child. And yet so often it's hard to distinguish the stirrings of the Spirit in the soul of a child from their natural curiosity about the things of God that they hear about at church and home. In other words, just because a child starts asking questions about God and the Bible doesn't necessarily indicate he is close to salvation, but may merely reflect the normal thoughtfulness of a growing child about what he's learning at church and home. Still, we always want to encourage and nurture any such godward interest as much as possible. Dennis Gundersen's book can help parents point a child to Christ, and guide them in walking along a biblical path that avoids manipulation and false assurance on the one hand, and presumption and neglect on the other.

— Donald S. Whitney, Associate Professor of Biblical Spirituality, Senior Associate Dean of the School of Theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky

One of God's greatest gifts to a child is to be raised by Christian parents in a great church family. As such a child grows up, however, it can be a great challenge to know when he or she is actually converted. Although, like everyone else, he or she was born a sinner, they can often spout out all of the right answers to gospel questions at a very young age. Do they understand the words they are mouthing? What constitutes real fruits of salvation in their lives? Are they ready to be baptized? Dennis Gundersen has written this wonderful book to provide vital practical help to parents and pastors in answering these important questions. The original edition has been one of my favorite resources on this question over the years; I welcome the extra help in this new expanded edition.

— John Crotts, Pastor, Faith Bible Church, Sharpsburg, GA and author of Mighty Men: The Starter's Guide to Leading your Family and Craftsmen: Skillfully Leading Your Family for Christ

My wife and I have been blessed with three biological children and eight adopted children, who were adopted between the ages of eight and fourteen, and from five different cultures. Your Child's Profession of Faith was very helpful to us in understanding the Biblical principles we needed to follow, to evaluate our children's professions of faith. Some of our children came from very complex religious backgrounds and having a principle-based method was essential in navigating the path that God had laid out for them. We have given or recommended numerous copies of this book to those who have asked us for parenting advice and it is one of the standard parenting resources in our church's library. Thanks, Dennis, for this updated version.

— Robert Edwards, software architect, husband, and father of eleven (eight of whom are adopted)

Your Child's Profession of Faith by Dennis Gundersen

Copyright © 1996-2011 by Grace and Truth Books.

All rights reserved, with the exception of brief quotations (source must be indicated). The purchaser may download one copy for personal use. No portion of this eBook may be copied or sold by any means. To request written consent to reproduce this material, please contact the publisher:

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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quoted in appendices 4 & 5 is taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version.

Cover design by Gregory Gundersen

eBook conversion by Ana Marie Ort and Gerald Mick

First edition: 1996, Christian Communicators Worldwide

Second printing: 1998, Calvary Press, New York

Third printing: 2009, Grace & Truth Books

Second edition: 2010, Grace & Truth Books

Second edition eBook 2011 ISBN-10: 1-930133200

Second edition eBook 2011 ISBN-13: 978-1930133204

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Putting the Issue on the Table

Chapter 2: A Parent's Greatest Concern

Chapter 3: The Intellectual Immaturity of Children

Chapter 4: The Changeableness and Instability of Children

Chapter 5: The Likelihood of Deception in Children

Chatper 6: Childhood - A Time for Patient Cultivation

Chapter 7: The Manifestations of Faith

Chapter 8: When Your Child is Ready for Baptism

Chapter 9: Some Concluding Counsels

Appendix 1: Helpful Suggested Questions for Pastoral Interviews with Children About Baptism

Appendix 2: Common Questions Parents may ask Regarding the Baptism of Their Children

Appendix 3: Andrew Murray on Parental Weakness

Appendix 4: Andrew Murray on Teaching the True God

Appendix 5: Andrew Murray on The Children's Commandment

Appendix 6: Recommended Additional Reading

Scripture References

About the Author

Preface

Not long ago one of my children asked: Dad, how can I be sure that I am a Christian? Perhaps you have heard the same sincere question from your children or grandchildren, or perhaps from young students in your Bible study class. What is your answer? Do you say that one can know for sure he is a Christian because he prayed the right words of a sinner's prayer? Or do you guarantee him of salvation because of his sincerity? Do you tell your child that he must be all right because he made a public profession before the church? Just what do you say?

Whatever your answer might be, I am quite sure that it would require some deep thinking. Too much is at stake in the way we answer such inquires to be casual. In my answer to my child I said that knowing you are a believer, as a child, is sometimes very difficult to discern, and often assurance will not come until he is older: "If I gave you a seed to plant in the ground and told you it was a certain type of flower, you would not know for sure it was so, even if it began to sprout. You would know more when it put out leaves. And you would be even more sure when the bud appears. But you would know for certain when the blooms appeared!"

Can children be converted at a young age? Yes, asserts the author. Can we know with certainty that they are converted at a young age? Often not. You'll find out why this is so from the biblical explanation which follows. Then how should we behave toward our children who believe they are converted or have been told they are already converted? You will discover this also as you read.

This practical tool will find a useful place in the churches and homes where pastors, leaders, and parents really care about true conversion. Read it with prayer, talk about it with others, and pass it on. Our children are worth the effort.

Jim Elliff, Elder, Christ Fellowship Church, Kansas City, MO, and President, Christian Communicators Worldwide, Inc.

Chapter 1

Putting The Issue on The Table

I've heard it said that, if a book doesn't grab your interest within its first ten to fifteen pages, it's the author's own fault that you don't keep reading. By the time you've made it that far, the writer had his chance to whet your appetite for moving on to consume the main course he's cooked up. So, not wanting to be the author of just another book which swiftly heads back to your shelf—or, to an even less honorable location—I'm going to do my best to draw you into the subject at hand without delay.

Presumably, the title of this book interested you enough to pick it up because you have a genuine interest in the conversion of children; perhaps especially your own children and even those of other parents. Maybe you're a Sunday School teacher, or a worker in a children's ministry of some sort. Whatever the source of your interest in the conversion of children, I share your passion over it. Come to think of it, only a few weeks before I started on this most recent edition of the book, our church had a baptismal service at which I baptized nine persons, five of whom were children under twelve years of age.

Since we all must become like little children if we would enter the kingdom of God, I think something about that explains why there's a special beauty about a young child who has already become a member of the kingdom of God. In certain ways, his faith is a model of what the faith of every Christian ought to be like.

But let's delve directly into the Scriptures—starting with the Book of Acts (sometimes called The Acts of the Apostles)—one of the lengthiest books of the New Testament. The book's author is a physician named Luke, a man skilled in his work and yet one who took time to be a co-laborer and companion traveler of the Apostle Paul. Doctor Luke took great pains and care to record considerable detail for us about events in the lives of the first Christian leaders and their planting and establishing of churches for the glory of Christ, both in Jerusalem and all over Asia Minor, even into Europe. It's very clear that Luke enjoys, even relishes, zooming in on the spectacular and striking stories of the conversion of individuals, or multitudes at once, to faith in Christ. In chapter after chapter, Luke tells of this one, or that group, or even a vast crowd turning from sin and self to become disciples of the Lord Jesus. After all, what brings more glory to Christ than the salvation of sinners? This was His aim, His delight, and His crowning work: He has come to save His people from their sins.

But what does Luke have to say about children?

Where are the children in the book of Acts?

Perhaps you have not read Acts in awhile. And perhaps you never, at any time, read Acts with children in mind. Try it. Look for them. Go ahead and give Acts a read this week—it might be valuable to read it during the same period of time as you read this book—and you'll discover a striking and surprising absence: surprising, at least, in light of modern-day church practice. You will notice that there is no reference to young children being added to the churches. There can be no doubt that Doctor Luke enjoys telling us about those who were added, in his written chronicle of the early church. But he mentions nothing about children.

Now, let's not go jumping to boatloads of conclusions from this. It doesn't mean children weren't present in themeetings when the gospel was preached; and it certainly isn't proof that there were no children converted when the gospel was preached in Jerusalem and the cities of Asia Minor and Europe into which the gospel spread with such speed in those times. Nor does it mean, as some have concluded, that children were simply deemed so insignificant by people of past eras, that a writer didn't see any reason to even bother mentioning them. No, if that were the case, you'd have a multitude of Old Testament stories to explain. Of course children were important to them. To people of a Hebrew background, children were their glory, their heritage, their future, and their posterity.

Yet we still have this absence of any mention of their conversion in the Book of Acts. There are no instances in Acts where a child is called a disciple or a believer. There are no stated conversions of children or mention of their professing the faith or being baptized. Even in cases where large numbers came into the church, only the Greek terms for adult men and adult women are used (see Acts 5:14, 8:3, 8:12, 9:2, 22:4). Further, in all five places