By Hoyt H. Houchen
Question: Does salt and shortening, liquid or solid, make the bread of the Lord’s’ Supper unscriptural as adding leavening does?
Reply: Unleavened bread is bread that is baked from unfermented dough. It is without yeast. The term “leaven” is from the Latin “levamen” that is, that which raises. If the bread is not allowed to rise it is unleavened. The addition of such ingredients as salt (for flavor, or to prevent fermentation) and shortening (for texture) does -not change the bread into some other kind of bread than that which the Lord authorizes. The bread remains unleavened bread. It is not another kind of bread.
Question: Can one be baptized scripturally in a bath tub with only the candidate being in the tub?
Reply: Yes. The candidate must be immersed in water for the remission of his sins. Whether or not someone is in the tub with the candidate is incidental. “Both” went down into water (Acts 8:38) because the circumstances of the water (pool, stream, or whatever) required it. They had to reach a sufficient depth of water in order for immersion to be possible. The same circumstances would require it today if it were necessary to reach the proper depth of water. The person doing the baptizing accompanies, carries or assists in carrying the candidate to the proper depth of water for immersion to take place. Whether a person is carried to a proper depth of water (such as in a tub), or whether a person walks with the candidate into a baptistry (or some other body of water) are incidentals. They are just as incidental as a tub, a pool, a stream, lake or ocean, in the first place. A person would not have to be in the tub with the person in order to baptize him. If it is contended that he would, then we would have to rule out a tub as a place to baptize because in most cases, if not all, a person could not walk into the tub with the candidate because the tub would be too small for two people. The New Testament does not place emphasis upon the person doing the baptizing, but upon the candidate. Whether the person doing the baptizing is in the tub or out of the tub makes no difference. This is incidental to baptism.
Truth Magazine XXIV: 32, p. 514
August 14, 1980