The Early Church

Discussion of the early church continued this week. We learned that the body of believers continued to meet in homes, and did not build church structures until around 200-250AD. During this transition, services became more formalized with structured, rather than spontaneous, prayer.
I got a lot of insight into the tradition of baptism through this lecture. We learned how serious and pivotal of an occasion baptism was for the early believers. There was often a 3 year initiation and preparation phase during which the individual was encouraged to fast, pray, and rid themselves of old sins. Their entire life was inspected with a fine-toothed comb to ensure that they weren't hiding any skeletons in the closet. This event grew to such an extreme magnitude that people began delaying their baptism because they thought you could not sin after it happened. Many would rather live as they chose and then make the commitment as late in their life as they felt comfortable.
Since these people placed so much emphasis on baptism and believed that salvation was tied to the act, parents began to have their children baptized at a younger and younger age to protect their souls. As a result, this thorough practice of instruction and preparation began to decline.
It's just interesting to see how the practice of baptism became skewed as a result of our human preferences and priorities. Jesus was quoted in Acts, "This is what you heard from Me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."