Imagine that you see somebody trying to ride a bicycle with only one tire. If you wanted to show that person how to properly ride the bicycle might you tell them that they need the other one? Might you even stress above all else that they need that other wheel?
If you do that, it doesn’t mean you’re denying that you need pedals to ride a bike. Of course you need pedals to ride a bike, but that’s not the area that needs the attention at this moment. You might even be accused of believing that the tire is the most important part of the bike; after all you sure do talk about it a lot more than say, the chain.
Of course, you know that the other tire needs to be on the bike if it is going to function properly. So, if somebody says “you don’t believe pedals are necessary because you spend so much time talking about the tire” then you rightly understand the absurdity of their claim.You mention the tire not because it is the only part that matters, but because it is the part that is missing and needs to be noticed.
Sometimes members of the Lord’s Church are accused of something similar, though. They see in the Bible that baptism does play a role in salvation (Acts 2:38, 1 Peter 3:21 etc.). They emphasize the need for baptism because it’s an area that many who claim Christianity deny.
Because of that emphasis they are sometimes slandered with the claim that they don’t believe in grace or that they believe they are saving themselves through works of merit. Those claims are on par with saying somebody who stresses the missing tire doesn’t believe in the pedals.
By stressing a missing tire you don’t deny the rest of the bicycle. By stressing that New Testament emphasis on baptism you don’t deny the rest of what the Bible teaches regarding God’s gift of salvation.
