Snap Shots From my Library 31- Getting someone started by Jim Curran

Jim Curran Admin 03/29/21 (7) Facebook

Snap Shots From my Library 31- Getting someone started

The recent discussion on “Alien Baptism and the Baptists” brought up the thought to write on “What got me started in Baptist History?” When I first came to Bible Baptist I was not very well grounded- Although I was saved I had not really been grounded in a lot of areas. My pastor gave me three little books that really helped me. These are starter works that we can give to any church member and them be readable and understandable. One of them will probably be familiar to anyone in the group.

1. The Trail of Blood- J.M. Carroll- This is probably the most distributed Baptist History book out there. This is a starter work yet one that puts a tremendous amount of information in a compact form. It is readable by a layman yet can give a starting point for more in depth research. It is available printed in several languages (and we are working on some others- I will share more on that later) One note- do not consider this an end all to your research and reading- this is intended as a brief synopsis a “Cliff notes” of Baptist History.
2. Alien Baptism and the Baptists- William Nevins- Unfortunately this was a victim of water/ mold in storage and I no longer have my copy. This covers one of the critical issues to Baptists- Baptism. To much of “Christendom” baptism has a role in salvation in one way or another. There is also their connection to Roman Catholicism. Proper baptism should have the proper subject (someone who has trusted Christ as their savior already,) The proper mode (immersion,) The proper purpose (not as a means of salvation or grace but the answer of a good conscience toward God) and the proper authority (a local New Testament Baptist Church) Baptism from other groups clearly violates these in one way or another. This book does a good job of dealing with each of these points.
3. The church that Jesus built. Roy Mason- This one is a concise book that clearly shows that Baptist doctrine is Bible doctrine and that the church that Jesus Built was Baptist in doctrine. This is both a doctrinal and Baptist History book. It is compact and easily readable. (As a note- the cover on the new edition is different Thankfully! The folks on the cover of my book are 70’s stylin’-  ) The book does date from 1923 though.

Challenge Press is a source for all of the titles in print- the Trail of Blood is in several languages- English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Russian Spanish and Czech from them. (we are working on some more and will update) Alien Baptism and the Baptists is available in English Spanish and Portuguese. These can be found here https://www.baptist-books.com/collections/baptist-history… The Church that Jesus Built is on a different page https://www.baptist-books.com/…/the-church-that-jesus…An electronic version of the Trail of Blood is at https://archive.org/details/TheTrailOfBlood/mode/2up and Spanish at https://archive.org/details/ElRastroDeLaSangre_201609