Matt 28: 18-20

¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

 I was converted in a Southern Baptist Church. I went to a Baptist School. When I began to study baptism in earnest it was very serious with me. In studying baptism (and the main controversy is thought be person and mode), any scholar who changes from effusion to immersion is important especially if his testimony is a persuasive account of his change.

There is one 3 volume works, I can't at the moment remember the author. He begins his with work with the text above. He makes the statement, "if I had no the other reason, the order of the command, make disciples…baptizing them would be enough to convince me that baptism was confined to believers, because you can make disciples only of believers”. I don't think I read any further.

This helped convince me that for the most part the position anyone takes on Baptism is something determined largely outside of scholarship. Another determining factor is how the understanding of the analogy is determined. If the analogy is the work of the Holy Spirit then it will be effusion. If it is death, burial, and resurrection it will most likely be immersion. Also how the covenant is understood is important to Reformed Scholars. More later.