2. BAPTISM. Baptism is a public pronouncement of one's personal faith, and act of obedience to God, and is done by immersion in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We believe that all Christians should be baptized publically. We believe that baptism may be performed by any believer, so in additional to clergy, we permit Agathos layleaders, Christian parents, or the one who lead a person to Christ to perform the baptism if the professing Christian desires it.

3. COMMUNION. Communion is an act of Christians done in remembrance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the bread representing His Body, the wine (juice) representing His Blood. We ask that nonChristians do not participate in Communion.

A "Position" is a conclusion we have drawn based upon our study. Even leaders at Agathos Ministries may disagree with our Positions, though we do expect leaders to teach the Agathos Position on any given subject, though the leader may also express and substantiate his/her own views. We recognize that many individual Christians and Christian churches will disagree with some or all of our positions.

See also AGATHOS CULTURE.

FREE WILL vs. PREDESTINATION? Short Answer: Yes. Explanation: We believe that God has ordained all things from before the beginning of time. To be more precise, since we believe "To God, All Times are Now," we believe that all things are ordained from outside of Time. We also believe that every human being has Free Will, that we all have an opportunity to make choices from all options available to us at any given time. Illustration: Suppose all human beings have Free Will, but you travel back in time to just before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (and we will presuppose that John Wilkes Booth perpetrated it). Suppose you arrive at Ford's Theater and watch the events unfold. If everyone still has a choice, and they still have not made their final choices yet (Booth can still choose to abandon the assassination), can you predict what will happen? Of course, because to you, it's history. You already know what choice everyone will make, even though they have no made those choices, yet. It's the same for all history. When we read history, all is decided. If we travelled back in time, to US, all is still decided. If we are back in time, to them, they still haven't made all their choices, yet. Trying to wrap our minds around the idea of an Infinite God might be difficult, but if even at a human level we can see how this might work, we can understand how Predestination and Free Will easily go hand in hand.

DIRECT COMMANDS and IMPLIED COMMANDS. A Direct Commnd is something the Bible specifically says. An Implied Command is a command implied by the Direct Command. For instance, if the Bible says we are not to murder, the Direct Command is "Do not murder." The implied commands would include "Do not incite someone else to murder" which would include hiring a hit man, manipulating someone into murdering, etc. Likewise, if we are told "Do not steal" then the implied commands would include "Do not tempt others to steal." If we actively try to get others to murder or steal, few people would consider that okay. Likewise with other commands. If the Bible teaches "Wives submit to your husbands" then husband who do not lead are tempting their wives to be unsubmissive. An obvious illustration is if a husband leads the family into clear sin. A wife cannot submit to such a husband in this instance, since she must do the right thing before God even if it means not submitting to her husband. But a husband who leads well encourages his wife's submission. Likewise with "Husbands love your wives." If she is mean and nasty, she tempts him to be unloving, making his obedience much more difficult. But if she is lovable, then she is helping him obey the Direct Command. In general, we should work to help people obey Direct Commands, not sabotage them in their spiritual growth.

HEAVEN and HELL. Heaven, at its most basic, is God's Home. Hell is being outside God's Home. Being in Heaven is living with God in His presence and glory, having a relationship with Him. Hell is being separated from Him. God cannot allow Sin into His presence. Consider that sin cannot exist in the presence of His glory, and it becomes clear that we cannot come to Him on our own merits. Also, if God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then rejecting the Son is rejecting God, and thus we say we do not wish a relationship with God as He Is. Thus, the gift of Salvation is an opportunity to have an eternal relationship with God, be free from sin and free from the eternal consequences of that sin. Hell, on the hand, is like an eternal Debtor's Prison. In old days, debtors who did not pay their debts could be locked in debtor's prison until someone else payed the debt. We cannot pay our debt in full on our own, so Jesus paid it for us - and if we accept His payment, we can be saved from prison. In Hell, we pay the price and experience the normal and natural consequences of our actions for eternity. God honors our choice about a relationship with Him, letting us choose Heaven or Hell, allowing us to choose to be released from prison by simply accepting that He paid the price for us.

DEGREES OF HEAVEN and HELL. Similarly, we believe that there are degrees of Heaven and Hell. In Heaven, we receive rewards and our ultimate debt to God is wiped out. While we strongly affirm that Good Works in no way contribute to Salvation, we do believe that Good Works do contribute to Treasures in Heaven. What counts is subject to debate, but, in general, we believe that God rewards Good Works by some formula that everyone would ultimate agree is fair. Likewise, there are levels of punishment in Hell. What we call Hell has many different names in Scripture, from Hades to Tarterus, Ghenna and Sheol. It is called the Lake of Fire, Outer Darkness, and, of course, Hell. Some terms such as "twice the son of Satan" and "greater condemnation" speak of different levels of punishments. But Hell is still Hell, even if you are comfortable relative to others there.