Thoughts On the Work of Pastor James Altar

A couple of observations concerning Brother Altar's material here shared:

Brother Altar has done much to help the strengthen vision for Baptist history in our ranks. He is a passionate preacher, which is a blessing. I appreciate his zeal to tell Baptists not to quote from Protestant preachers but to do their study and research among Baptists. However,

He claims the book of Acts is transitional. 

While that view feels like it solves a few problems some have with Acts, i.e. provides a short answer to Pentecostalism, it also diminishes the authority of the book for New Testament Baptists today. There is no biblical authority for assigning it a transitional place in Scripture. It is rather a leap Altar asks his audience to accept without any real proof it is a Biblically credible. I instead see the Book of Acts as what it says it is; the Acts of the Apostles. I view it as a representation of what all of the Apostles were doing at the same time Paul was evangelizing in the Middle East and shores of Greece and Italy. 

Brother Altar claims that the Gospels are "Jewish" 

This also denigrates the authority of Scriptures for New Testament Baptists today. I would not deny that there are certain Gospel passages that find their primary application among the Jews. But I would deny that Matthew 16:18, Matthew 28:18-20 and all of the Gospel references to John the Baptist are Jewish. These passages clearly relate to the church that Jesus founded in the Gospels with members all baptized by a Baptist preacher. 

I certainly do not mean to be argumentative but I do believe we at least need to hear from differing views that we may learn from them. 

(This is in response to the following e-mail sent to the GIBF forum. I have not sent this response but wrote it as an exercise.)

On Jun 19, 2013, at 8:11 AM, David Warner <dwarner@ctcn.net> wrote:

"Brethren,

Some may have already gotten these studies on Baptist History but it seems not everyone did. The link below allows you to download the studies AND the PowerPoints on Baptist History as well as two that accompany the Word Doc studies.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qwemie1q33mclpv/lwHl0vfk3M

The two main studies are the work of James Altar, Sidney, OH who is also the author of Ancient Baptist History.  If you are not familiar with his website, you should be.  He has great material and does tremendous work on our Baptist Heritage.

http://www.ancientbaptist.org/Index.html)"

Marvin McKenzie

In the field