Well, some of the best questions in our inbox are the ones that I least expect to read.

I'm a Baptist, so are you, Pastor John, your Baptist?

We kind of take that for granted.

It's in the background, rarely foregrounded here on the podcast.

So what is a Baptist?

That's our question today, and here's the email, hello, Pastor John.

My name is Dennis, and I live in the Philippines.

I would like to know what is a Baptist.

I know you are one, but I really don't know what that means.

Can you explain to me what distinguishes you, Pastor John?

How would you approach this one?

The approach I want to take in trying to answer Dennis' question is to describe the kind

of Baptist I am in the hope that I'm not at all quirky, but in fact, would consider all

the defining traits of a Baptist that I'm going to mention as typical of most Baptist

churches in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the reason I say 17th and 18th centuries is

because Baptists, as I understand them, got their start in the early 17th century, that

is the early 1600s, and because in the 19th and 20th centuries, the splintering effect

of most churches, not just Baptists, has resulted in so many varieties of denominations

that I couldn't claim in the modern day.

I don't think that I represent the majority, but I think I can claim that I do represent

the majority of the Baptist churches in the early centuries of Baptist life.

So I understand my roots and the roots of all Baptists in their earliest centuries

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