If you read all of 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter, that I referred to yesterday, you would have come across one of the “hard passages” in the Bible:

Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? (1 Corinthians 15.29, ESV)

Baptized for the dead? It’s the only reference to such a thing in the entire Bible. The Mormons have built an entire enterprise around it, resulting in one of the best sources of genealogical data in the world. The rest of us are pretty sure that there’s no merit in being baptized for someone who has died, but what are we to do with 1 Corinthians 15.29?

The best explanation I have seen is in The Passion Translation. It’s one of those, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Here is the note:

This is one of the most puzzling verses in all the New Testament. Bible scholars are divided over its meaning, with nearly two hundred interpretations offered. Paul is not condemning nor commending this practice, but merely using it as evidence that the hope of resurrection life after death for the believer is widely believed. Apparently, some believers were baptized in hopes of benefitting those who died before receiving baptism. This practice is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible nor in other writings of the earliest church fathers.

Two hundred interpretations! But here is the simplest: it means what it says. People were being baptized for the dead. That means that people believed in the resurrection of the dead, something that some in Corinth were doubting. That’s the whole purpose of 1 Corinthians 15 – to make a case for the resurrection. “Paul is not condemning or commending this practice, but merely using it as evidence…”

The larger principle is that just because someone did something and the Bible records it, doesn’t make it right. For example, I’ve always been bothered by the end of Ezra, where Ezra makes the people send away the foreign wives that they had married. (See Ezra 9 and 10.) They’re already married! They’ve had children! Wouldn’t it be better to keep them in the fold so they could learn about God? What’s the message?

My friend Dr. Willie Peterson, who was a professor at Dallas Seminary, gave me a clear answer: Ezra was wrong! Again, just because a person did something, and it’s recorded in the Bible, doesn’t make it right.

For the rest of you who are in mixed marriages—Christian married to nonChristian—we have no explicit command from the Master. So this is what you must do. If you are a man with a wife who is not a believer but who still wants to live with you, hold on to her. If you are a woman with a husband who is not a believer but he wants to live with you, hold on to him. The unbelieving husband shares to an extent in the holiness of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is likewise touched by the holiness of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be left out; as it is, they also are included in the spiritual purposes of God. (1 Corinthians 7.12 – 14, MSG)