{"id":7764,"date":"2024-03-01T04:05:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T04:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7764"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:26","slug":"i-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7764","title":{"rendered":"I DO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today I started writing about my upcoming baptism. I had hoped to post those thoughts here tonight but I am finding it rather difficult to write about.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But that&#8217;s good. Writing helps me figure out what I really think &#8211; and baptism is a serious topic deserving careful consideration.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It feels like a big part of my difficulty is my hesitancy to stir up theological animosity. Baptism is a topic which conjures strong opinions. I sincerely do not want to offend others who hold views of baptism not aligned with my own.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a pastor now, it seems like I might find it tricky to get baptized out of my own personal conviction to obey what God is calling <i><b>me <\/b><\/i>to do, without it being interpreted as something I would dictate for the Church as a whole.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the end, this isn&#8217;t about whether <i><b>anybody <\/b><\/i>who was baptized as a baby <b><i>needs <\/i><\/b>to be baptized as an adult. It is only about whether Steve Gross &#8211; who happened to be baptized as a baby &#8211; <i><b>wants <\/b><\/i>to be baptized as an adult.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I do.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I started writing about my upcoming baptism. I had hoped to post those thoughts here tonight but I am finding it rather difficult to write about.\u00a0 But that&#8217;s good. Writing helps me figure out what I really think &#8211; and baptism is a serious topic deserving careful consideration.\u00a0 It feels like a big part [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7765,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7764\/revisions\/7765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}