Baptism has been argued over long before the Bible was established. Christians were making exceptions and adjustments to the tradition from the very beginning. They were debating how much water, who was permitted to perform it, who was allowed to be baptized, and what it accomplished and when. They were writing manuals about it in the second century. By the third century they were stacking proof-texts and threatening excommunication over it, even in the face of persecution where you would think they had bigger problems to deal with.
This article addresses the most doctrinaire treatment of baptism, the modern Church of Christ reading. It will show how their teaching departs from even the strictest early practice, fails on its own texts, and contradicts the people who founded that movement.
For churches of Christ, "equally yoked" extends beyond requiring a Christian spouse to requiring one baptized in precisely the right manner: believer's baptism by immersion, for remission of sins, with the correct theological intent. Someone baptized as an infant, by sprinkling, or with a different understanding of baptism's purpose is categorized as an unsaved, condemned "unbeliever" and not suitable as a spouse for the purposes of 2 Corinthians 6:14.
It is the tradition I converted into and eventually deconstructed from, so it is the one I'll take on. Fair warning: this started as a footnote and got out of hand. Churches of Christ will go ten rounds on this topic, so I've gone ten rounds back. If you're in the ballpark of being a remotely normal person and want nothing to do with this debate, I get it. You can just move along; the rest is for anyone who's been told, in one way or another, someone they love is in hell because they didn't get baptized "right."
Personal note: I deconstructed from the Restoration theology I was baptized into. I still value that baptism, even though I haven't been to any church in nearly twenty years. I've come to see it as taking on an identity and the higher calling that comes with the name, rather than as the moment of salvation. Regarding salvation, I do lean universalist today. I'm not here to argue that. Just that whatever baptism is, it isn't the gate to God's grace. Further, I don't fault any tradition for how it practices baptism; my objection is to using it as the line between who's in and who's out. And to be fair, Restoration theology was not always this divisive about it.
Also: Some of the more extreme churches of Christ get labeled as cults, including by former members. I can't speak for their experience, but I do not and would not use that label for any of the churches I was familiar with.
The idea — A frontier American movement of the early 1800s, led by Thomas Campbell, his son Alexander, Barton W. Stone, and Walter Scott. The goal was to end denominational division by abandoning creeds and restoring the practice of the New Testament church. "No creed but Christ, no book but the Bible." Its founding documents are Thomas Campbell's Declaration and Address (1809) and Stone's Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery (1804).
What happened to it — A movement founded to end division divided. Today its three main streams are the churches of Christ (a cappella worship, congregationally autonomous, first counted separately in the 1906 religious census), the Christian Church and Churches of Christ (instrumental, independent), and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), which became a mainline denomination.
The method — Restoration hermeneutics reads scripture as a blueprint, identifying what is binding through direct command, approved apostolic example, and necessary inference. Within the movement it is often abbreviated CENI.
Proof-Texting Assumes a Settled Canon
The problem comes well before the proof-texts. The Restoration case is built by pointing at verses, then cross-referencing other verses to resolve the ambiguity. That method assumes a settled canon everyone agrees on. The early church had scripture and used it exactly this way, but the boundaries were still being argued. Books now in the New Testament were disputed; books now outside it were being read in churches and quoted as scripture. The Didache was one that was used specifically for doctrine on baptism by the earliest churches, and yet it did not make the cut for the New Testament.
That matters less than what happened when they tried the method anyway.
The First Major Proof-Text Debate on Baptism
The first major proof-text debate on baptism went badly, then everyone died. In the 250s Cyprian of Carthage and Stephen of Rome fought over whether baptisms performed by heretics counted. Cyprian's side argued from scripture and a council of eighty-seven bishops. Firmilian of Caesarea, writing to support him, stacked Ephesians 4:5, Galatians 3:27, Luke 11:23, Matthew 16:19, and Song of Songs into a single letter. Stephen argued from tradition: let nothing be innovated which has not been handed down. He seems to be accusing them of inventing a new doctrine. Stephen threatened excommunication and died before he could carry it out; Cyprian was martyred a year later; the churches went on disagreeing, and the argument resurfaced with the Donatists in the next century.
But there is another verse Cyprian's side was weaponizing: 1 Peter 3:21. Though not for the same reasons that verse gets invoked today. Firmilian read Noah's ark as the Church: everyone outside it drowned, so baptism only works inside, and he cited Peter to close the argument. Even back then they were willing to toss the memory of your dead aunt and uncle into the lake of fire for no other reason than they didn't like the bishop who baptized them.
Today that verse is one of the Restoration movement's primary proof-texts. However, the modern reading draws boundaries somewhere else entirely. For them it's not about who is performing the baptism, but the moment the believer is immersed. We'll look at the modern Restorationist reading below. What matters here is that the verse was already being used by some to sow division in 256.
Firmilian to Cyprian — The letter stacking Ephesians 4:5, Galatians 3:27, Luke 11:23, Matthew 16:19, and Song of Songs, and reading Noah's ark as the Church, is Epistle 74 in the Ante-Nicene Fathers numbering. It is Firmilian of Caesarea writing to Cyprian in support of his position, not Cyprian's own letter. Cyprian's arguments are in Epistles 69–73 and in the record of the Seventh Council of Carthage.
Stephen's reply — Stephen of Rome's position, that nothing should be innovated which has not been handed down, survives in quotation rather than in his own correspondence. Cyprian reports it in Epistle 73.
The council of eighty-seven — The Seventh Council of Carthage, September 256, recorded the individual votes of eighty-seven bishops against recognizing baptisms performed outside the church.
"But if you have neither, pour out water thrice upon the head."— The Didache, chapter 7
Today, the Church of Christ argument rests on the claim that the Greek word for baptism exclusively means immersion. The Didache prescribes baptism in running water, then permits still water, then warm, and if there isn't enough of any, pouring three times on the head. Here is a respected manual of the Greek-speaking church, merely a generation from the apostles, allowing pouring instead of immersion, and no one in that century objected. Also of note is that Tertullian was arguing against infant baptism around 200, so it was already being done. And both Tertullian and Cyprian held that a catechumen martyred before the water was baptized in his own blood. These are the kind of obvious exceptions that churches of Christ are uncomfortable recognizing today.
The Didache, or "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," is a short church manual covering morals, baptism, fasting, prayer, and the Eucharist. Estimates of its composition range from roughly 50 to 120, placing it within living memory of the apostles. It was widely used, quoted approvingly by church fathers, and read in churches. It was lost for centuries and rediscovered in a Constantinople monastery in 1883, which means it was unavailable to the men who built the Restoration doctrine.
In 367 when Athanasius gives the first list matching our twenty-seven New Testament books, he also gives an honorable mention to the Didache as one of the writings appointed by the fathers to be read by those newly joining the faith and seeking instruction. The man who fixed the canon excluded it while recommending it for teaching new converts in the same breath. Nobody in that century said its baptismal instructions were wrong.
None of that makes it canon, or binding on anyone today. It's a historically valuable window into what the church was actually doing, which is the only claim I'm making for it.
Here's the real problem with proof-texting the baptism issue and claiming you're reflecting the exact teachings of the early church. You don't just have to make the argument. You have to make the argument that the early church had clear and obvious instructions on the finer details. To the contrary, the record shows they had the same texts, plus manuals like the Didache spelling out their practice at the time. History shows they reached different conclusions and drew different divisions. Maybe everybody just needs to take a deep breath and remember God is not going to trick you into hell because the preacher was a scoundrel, the baptistry was short a few drops of water, or your church only does baptisms once or twice every year.
Acts Is the Case Law
Acts is the case law. If the claim is that God withholds forgiveness until the water, the place to prove it is the one book that narrates conversions with God's side visible and would have been available throughout Christian history. The book of Acts is the obvious choice. But the deeper you go, the stranger it gets on the subject of baptism. Here is what Acts records:
- Acts 2, the apostles. The Spirit falls at Pentecost. No water is recorded for the twelve.
- Acts 2:38. This is the "repent and be baptized" verse. If the book of Acts stopped here and we didn't have contrasting church tradition, Restoration theology would probably win every debate, hands down.
- Acts 8, the Samaritans. They believe and are baptized in Jesus's name, and Luke says the Spirit "had not yet fallen on any of them; they had only been baptized." It comes days later, by apostolic hands. This becomes a problem, and I'll explain below.
- Acts 9, Saul. Called "a chosen instrument of mine" by Jesus and "brother" by Ananias before the water; his sight returns, and only then is he baptized.
- Acts 10, Cornelius. The Spirit falls on his household before anyone is baptized, and Peter orders the baptism because God has already accepted them: "Can anyone withhold water from these who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" Defending it in Jerusalem, his summary is that God "cleansed their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:9). The missing baptism isn't a barrier in his argument; it's an afterthought.
- Acts 18 and 19, Apollos and the Ephesian twelve. Apollos knows only John's baptism, is corrected, and is sent on with no re-baptism recorded. In the next paragraph Paul re-baptizes twelve men who knew only John's baptism, and even there the Spirit comes with the laying on of hands, a separate step. Two handlings of the same situation, and Luke flags neither as wrong.
Acts 2:38 puts the water and the Spirit in one sentence, but as a promise to the crowd in front of Peter, not as a narrated event. Three verses later Luke records the three thousand being baptized and says nothing about the Spirit; we should assume they received what was promised, since Luke gives no reason to think otherwise. But in every case where he does narrate both the baptism and the Spirit's arrival, they don't coincide; four cases, no exceptions: the apostles at Pentecost (Spirit, no water recorded), the Samaritans (water, then Spirit by apostolic hands), Cornelius (Spirit, then water), and the Ephesian twelve (water, then hands, then Spirit). The promise holds every time, and the timing is all over the map. An interpretation that needs the promise to be in lockstep with the baptism has no explicitly narrated instance to point to, and several that run the other way.
Acts 8:14–17 — The Samaritans are baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and Luke states the Spirit "had not yet fallen on any of them; they had only been baptized." Peter and John are sent from Jerusalem and lay hands on them before the Spirit comes.
Acts 10:44–48 and 11:15–17 — The Spirit falls while Peter is still speaking, before any baptism. Luke calls it "the gift of the Holy Spirit," the same phrase promised in Acts 2:38. Peter's question, whether anyone can withhold water from those who have received the Spirit, assumes the water follows rather than causes.
Acts 15:8–11 — Peter's summary to the Jerusalem council is that God gave them the Spirit and "cleansed their hearts by faith," and that Gentiles are saved "in the same way" as the apostles. Baptism is not part of the argument he makes.
Acts 18:24–28 and 19:1–7 — Apollos knows only the baptism of John, is instructed by Priscilla and Aquila, and is commended to the churches in Achaia with no re-baptism recorded. In the following paragraph Paul re-baptizes twelve men at Ephesus with the same deficiency, and the Spirit comes when he lays hands on them, a step after the water.
Where the Doctrine Actually Came From
The modern history of the baptismal proof-text. Just for kicks and giggles, let's say you're a Christian in the first or second century, and you know nothing about the modern teachings. Could you realistically overlook the baptismal practices going on all around you, explain away the edge cases in the book of Acts, and sidestep the Didache that was likely among your first lessons in Christian doctrine? Is it reasonable to expect you to gather scattered letters you'd have no way to cross-reference and assemble them into the modern doctrine? It seems improbable, but apologists for churches of Christ today speak as though their view is the only obvious conclusion to be drawn.
Beyond all that, the method churches of Christ use, reading the Bible as a rulebook of commands and approved examples, dates to Thomas Campbell's Declaration and Address in 1809. Alexander Campbell first argued that immersion is "for the remission of sins" in debates in the 1820s. Walter Scott turned it into the five-step plan in 1827. And the insistence that the baptism must have been done with the correct understanding of its purpose was pushed through in the 1880s by Austin McGary over the objection of David Lipscomb. It also ran against the movement's own founder, who wrote in 1837 that he could not make "any one duty the standard of Christian state or character, not even immersion." The gate is not a recovered first-century doctrine. It's a nineteenth-century innovation, and Campbell had dismissed its harshest form before it existed.
Thomas Campbell, 1809 — Declaration and Address of the Christian Association of Washington sets out the method of reading scripture as a pattern of express terms and approved precedent. But its purpose was unity, not boundary-drawing. Proposition 1 holds that the church on earth is "essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one," consisting of all who profess faith in Christ and obedience to him. Proposition 3 holds that nothing ought to be required as a term of communion but what is expressly taught in scripture. And Proposition 11 identifies the cause of every division the church has ever suffered: making "human opinions and human inventions a term of communion." Campbell also states that his own propositions are not intended as a creed or a term of communion.
Walter Scott, 1827 — Scott reduced conversion to a five-point sequence while evangelizing on the Western Reserve for the Mahoning Baptist Association, the form in which the plan spread through the movement.
Alexander Campbell, 1837 — The quotation is from his reply to the Lunenburg Letter, Millennial Harbinger, September 1837, page 411. In the same article he writes that there is no occasion for making immersion on a profession of faith absolutely essential to a Christian. He qualifies the position elsewhere in the piece; he does not retract it.
Austin McGary and David Lipscomb, 1880s — McGary founded the Firm Foundation in 1884 with Elijah Hansbrough, expressly to attack Lipscomb's position, and pressed the requirement that a valid baptism be received with the understanding that it is for the remission of sins. Lipscomb, editing the Gospel Advocate, held that anyone immersed from a sincere desire to obey God was validly baptized whether or not they understood that. James A. Harding agreed with him, as did most of the movement's leadership; before 1884 there was near unanimity on that side. Historians of the movement date the reversal precisely: a minority position in 1878 had become the majority position by 1957.
Worth noticing what McGary's rule actually is. A convert must affirm a specific doctrinal proposition at the moment of immersion or the immersion does not count. That is a confessional test for admission, in a movement whose founding slogan was "no creed but Christ."
"There is no occasion, then, for making immersion, on a profession of faith, absolutely essential to a Christian."— Alexander Campbell, Millennial Harbinger, September 1837
1 Peter 3:21
Now the proof-texts. Setting aside the hurdles, and assuming you're still reading, we can finally address the textual arguments made by churches of Christ and other conservative apologists for the Restoration position. The clearest example of retroactive proof-texting is what happens to 1 Peter 3:21. It gets quoted for the baptismal barrier, cropped to four words: "baptism now saves you." Peter wrote a longer sentence, and every clause he added pulls the other way. Baptism is the antitype of Noah's deliverance through the flood. It saves "not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Read whole, the power is in the resurrection and the point is to make the appeal. The "not… but" clause is often read as if it describes how baptism works. It doesn't. In Peter's Greek, "removal" and "appeal" stand in the same grammatical slot as "baptism" itself, the way "a doctor" does in "my brother, a doctor, lives in Denver." They rename the subject rather than modify the verb. Peter is clarifying what the baptism is, and what he says it is, is the appeal. And the word behind appeal is open to interpretation.
The grammar — "Removal" (apothesis) and "appeal" (eperōtēma) are both in the nominative case, the same case as "baptism" (baptisma). Nouns in the subject's case standing next to the subject are appositives; they define it. An adverbial reading ("saves by means of an appeal") would require a different case or a preposition, and neither is there. This is not contested; it is how Greek cases work.
The word — Eperōtēma occurs only here in the New Testament. Its attested first-century sense is a question or request, hence "appeal" (ESV, NASB). The contractual sense behind "pledge" (NIV, CSB) is documented mainly in second-century papyri, so I don't lean on it, though second-century Christians and later may well have heard it that way.
The genitive — "Of a good conscience" is a bare genitive, which Greek does not resolve. It can name the object of the appeal (an appeal for a good conscience) or its source (an appeal from one). The rendering above takes the second. Either reading leaves point (1) intact: whatever the appeal concerns, it is the appeal, not the water, that Peter names as the thing that saves.
Text — Nestle-Aland, 28th edition.
The ESV has an appeal to God for a good conscience; the Revised English Bible has it made from a good conscience; the NIV has "pledge," which reads baptism as allegiance, an identity taken on rather than a rescue asked for. Same Greek word, three directions, and the Greek itself doesn't decide it. Nor does the verse say whose voice makes the appeal. Infant-baptizing traditions hear the church and parents speaking for the child; believer-baptizing traditions hear the one going into the water. Rendered as Peter built it, the verse says: baptism, which is not a washing of dirt off the body but an appeal to God from a clear conscience, now saves you through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Peter's sentence accommodates every tradition that makes the appeal, and privileges none. Restoration preachers concede both points: the word is ambiguous, and the water has no power of its own. What they add is that God answers the appeal at the moment of immersion. That doesn't come from this verse; they pull their reading of Acts 2:38 into it, while setting the other examples aside.
The reply I would have given when I was under Restoration theology is that none of this touches the real claim: the resurrection saves, faith saves, and the water is simply the commanded point of contact with the blood, as the Jordan was for Naaman. The argument seems good on the surface until you realize commanded is not the same as conditioned, and it's a pretty pedantic God who pegs salvation to where your baptism falls on the space-time continuum. The commission in Matthew 28 is addressed to the ones doing the baptizing; it says what the church is supposed to do, not when God acts. Acts 2:38 is addressed to the crowd, and it states a promise, not a penalty. Neither text says God waits. And Christ said something harder than either: "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." Churches of Christ generally don't read that one as a gate.
The access claim also runs into their own chain: (a) you receive the Spirit at baptism (Acts 2:38), (b) no Spirit means you aren't Christ's (Romans 8:9). By that logic Cornelius was saved before the water and the Samaritans were baptized without being saved. The fallback is that those were only the miraculous gifts, not the indwelling. That is an awkward excuse, and Luke doesn't make it; he calls what fell on Cornelius "the gift of the Holy Spirit," the same word as Acts 2:38, and says the Samaritans "had only been baptized." The other fallback is that Cornelius in Acts 10 was a one-time sign that Gentiles were admissible. That cuts both ways; one could as easily call Acts 2:38 a one-time command to a crowd Peter had just charged with the crucifixion. Either way, Peter didn't call Cornelius an anomaly. He told the council that Gentiles are saved the same way "we" are (Acts 15:11), and made it the pattern.
The early church, which held the access view more strictly than any modern congregation, said a catechumen killed before water baptism is justified, and considered them "baptized in their own blood." The strict Restoration position is not the ancient one; it is the ancient one with even the most obvious exceptions removed.
Other Texts That Come Up
Titus 3:5
"He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit." This is the Restoration answer to "baptism is a work," and on that narrow point it's a fair one: Paul puts the washing on the mercy side of the sentence. But the technical case doesn't pin "washing" to water baptism by immersion. Don't get me wrong, it's a reasonable reading. However, it is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the minimum standard needed before you can tell people the rivers of Hades are flowing with the blood of those who were only sprinkled.
In all seriousness, the word is loutron, a bath. It says nothing about immersion, and in ordinary Greek a bath could be poured as easily as entered. Titus doesn't even say "water." That gets imported from Ephesians 5:26, the only other place the word appears. A first-century reader might have made the connection, but it seems a stretch without modern study aids.
What we clearly get is cleansing, and the passage has no clock in it. "Through the washing" names a means, not a moment. The one place Luke shows the Spirit "poured out" on new converts, Paul's own word here, it comes before the water (Acts 10:45).
Acts 2:38 and "eis"
"Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins." Restoration preachers spend a great deal of energy on the Greek preposition eis, translated "for," proving that it means "in order to" and not "because of," and that it attaches to both verbs. Maybe I'm brainwashed from my time with them, but I think they're right about this technicality. Baptism here is done for forgiveness, for a multitude convicted of direct involvement in Christ's crucifixion. Grant all of it, because it doesn't settle what some claim it settles.
A purpose phrase names what an act is aimed at, not whether the act is the exclusive mechanism. The parallel they like to cite is Luke 5:4, same structure: "put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." Read one verse further. The nets caught nothing all night; Peter lets them down "at your word," and the catch comes. The nets were simply what fishermen had. Had the disciples been in another trade, the sign would have come through other tools, and no one would say the miracle depended on the mesh. Baptism is "for forgiveness" in that sense. Ritual washing was already how first-century Jews understood cleansing, John had made it the shape of repentance, and God met people through the form they knew. It was commanded, and in a familiar shape; that doesn't mean nothing else could have served.
And if they're going to play the proof-texting game, I'll play it too. "For the forgiveness of sins" is attached to Christ's blood (Matthew 26:28), to repentance with no baptism in the sentence (Luke 24:47), and to Christian baptism (Acts 2:38). Three subjects, one phrase. If "for the forgiveness of sins" marked the one place forgiveness happens, then blood, repentance, and baptism would each be that one place, and only one of them can be. Each is true where it stands. None of them are exclusively true.
Acts 22:16
"Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name." This is the one place in Acts where baptism is explicitly commanded for washing away sins. But there is a multi-day gap in this process. Restoration preachers can pressure potential converts to avoid that delay and go straight into the water, claiming the person is not saved until they do. So look at who says what during those three days. Jesus tells Ananias that Saul is "a chosen instrument of mine" (9:15). Ananias greets him as "Brother Saul" before baptizing him (9:17). The scales fall and his sight returns, and then he is baptized (9:18). The delay in the story is the church's, not God's; Ananias was afraid to go.
The verse also ends with "calling on his name," which is the appeal Peter describes. The Greek doesn't fix whether Saul had already called on the name or was calling on it in the water. Either way, the text ties the washing to the appeal, not to the water, and not to whether he already belonged. That is the same picture 1 Peter 3:21 gives: baptism as the formal occasion of the appeal.
Mark 16:16
"Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned." Mark's gospel ends at verse 8 in the two oldest complete manuscripts, on a sentence so abrupt, "for they were afraid," that many readers, ancient and modern, have thought the real ending was lost. Verses 9–20, where 16:16 sits, are most likely a second-century supplement written to close the gap. There are conservative Restoration preachers and scholars who have worked through the textual criticism and concede as much. The church has read those verses as scripture for a very long time, and I'm not arguing they should be removed. But the most explicit "baptized and saved" sentence in the gospels is one no one can confidently attribute to Mark, and that is thin eis to stand on when telling someone their grandmother is roasting in hell because she wasn't baptized.
Even taken as it stands, it doesn't say what it's used to say. The promise names belief and baptism together. The penalty names unbelief alone. Restoration apologists like to make a technical logic point here: the omission doesn't prove baptism isn't required. Perhaps, but it is reasonable doubt, so why leave it out? Is God trying to trick people into hellfire by not mentioning it? What the omission does show is where the writer put the weight. Baptism is in the promise and missing from the threat, and I think that matters, because the threat is where a God who was hyper-focused on everyone getting baptized or else would spell it out loud and clear. If their logic holds, God needs a better copy editor for his warning labels.
When their own scholars concede the verse isn't originally Mark's, the Restoration fallback is to claim that it records what the second-century church believed. Fine. The second-century church also poured water when it couldn't immerse, was baptizing infants, and counted an unbaptized martyr as baptized in his own blood. You don't get to call the second century a witness for one verse and a corruption for everything else it did.
What Baptism Actually Is
The forms vary, but the church has always helped believers make their appeal through some form of baptism, as a means of grace for some and a mark of identity for others. Neither makes it the point at which a person becomes God's. Paul says as much about the older sign: Abraham received circumcision as a seal of the righteousness he already had by faith (Romans 4:11). The seal followed the acceptance. A wedding is where a couple's commitment becomes public and binding, but nobody thinks they began to belong to each other at the altar, and a couple killed on the way to the church did not die strangers. Baptism is where a formal appeal is made and a name is taken on. It is not where God decides whose you are.
In the end, sola or solo scriptura can't settle this in any obvious way. Neither can early church history or tradition; they were subject to the same types of infighting and division we are today. Instead, I suggest this: Paul writes that some honor certain days and others don't, and that each should be fully convinced in his own mind (Romans 14:5). That seems like the right principle for baptism. Traditions are good, and should even be a point of identity and pride. Just don't make them the line between who's in and who's out, or the test of who is acceptable for marriage.
"All were admitted to fellowship, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and obeyed him; and their obedience was considered the best evidence of their faith."— Barton W. Stone, The Christian Messenger, December 1826
Personal note, a word about my own consistency: I have to admit that this article is harder on proof-texting than the rest of my work is. Here I've been critical of how verses get stacked to make a point about baptism, while on other subjects I stack verses when they support me, in ways that wouldn't have been obvious to the ancient church, and I mostly ignore the manuscripts that were in wide use but didn't make the canon. Anyone who calls that inconsistent has a point.
Here is the distinction I'd defend. Proof-texting to affirm and proof-texting to condemn are not of the same spirit. If I read a verse generously and I'm wrong, I've hoped for too much on someone's behalf. If a church reads a verse as a gate and it's wrong, it has told a grieving daughter that her mother isn't with God. The burden of proof scales with the cost of the error. A verse can carry a hope on its own. It can't carry a verdict on its own, and the argument of this article is that on baptism it has never been able to.
That doesn't get me all the way clear. I still owe the pre-canon record the same attention when it cuts against me, and I don't always pay it. I'd also rather set the proof-text debates aside entirely and sit down to discuss what a reasonable standard actually looks like. Much of what this site does is use better proof-texts to shut down proof-texts I believe are handled in error or even in bad faith. That's a second-best method, and I use it because it's the one the argument is being conducted in. What I can say is that I've tried to argue here by the standard I'd want applied to my own claims: reasonable doubt should always run in the direction of grace.
And if I get it wrong? St. Peter might have some sharp words for me in the afterlife. Rest assured, I do intend to win any such debate.