Are you Born Again?

This past Saturday after a vigil mass at St. Boniface in Fort Smith, AR and a dinner at Applebees my wife and I walked over to Hastings to see if they had any new books in their small Christian section. Placed in their allotment of Catholic books was a book by a former Catholic who became a "born again" Evangelical on how to share the gospel with Catholics. It was also smattered with how the catechism contradicted the Bible; well according to his sola scriptura/ sola fide mindset.

One of his premises was that most Catholics have never heard the gospel; thus properly sharing will enlighten the Catholic on how to become born again. After I read that statement I slapped my forehead and told my wife it was time to check out the cds.

When it comes to evangelicals and their evangelizing of Catholics the number one tactic is asking the question, "Are you born again". Now seeing as this is a statement that uncatechized Catholics are fairly uncommon with the usual answer is no and the evangelical leads the Catholic to the conclusion they aren't really saved and they need to pray the sinner's prayer and accept Jesus into their heart. This with no scriptural references to the need of "praying the prayer" or "accepting Jesus".

However, when Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again in John 3 did Christ say anything about praying a prayer or accepting him into their hearts. NO! Jesus told him that one must be born of water and spirit. One must not only have a rebirth of the heart, but a rebirth through the waters of baptism. (If a person would want further proof that Jesus taught the disciples that baptism was necessary to see the Kingdom of God see the apostle Peter's first epistle, chapter 3 verse 21. Heck just look at the first chapters of Acts. The disciple's call to repentance was to follow the way of Christ and get baptized.)

Next time someone asks you if you are born again you should say, "Yes I am. I was born again the way Jesus said you must in order to see Heaven. Have you?"