One In Jesus

I think the original design of baptism is not only God’s design, but the best possible design. God’s wisdom in providing for a confession followed by baptism of a believer is how churches ought to handle conversions.

Words are necessary, but words can be cheap. Asking for an action as evidence of faith helps confirm in the heart of the convert that faith requires certain behaviors. It’s not just words.

And baptism powerfully illustrates what God is doing. It’s a death, burial, and resurrection, and it’s a cleansing from sin. The symbolism is powerful. Continue reading →

An arranged marriage

One more story. A couple is married at the age of 8 days. They are from a province in India where the parents arrange and make marriages for their children.

Many years later, when the children are of age, there’s a ceremony designed to confirm the marriage. According to the law, either one could refuse to confirm the marriage, but rarely does anyone do that. Rather, they remain true to their upbringing and voluntarily go through the confirmation ceremony.

The boy and girl, now 21, have never met and have never confessed their love for each other. But they are genuinely committed to the marriage. Indeed, these marriages have a better success rate than Western marriage built on romantic love and the passions of the young couple. Continue reading →

Why does God want believers to be baptized? Well, actions matters, just as words matter.

* The requirement to be baptized forces another requirement — confession. I can have something like faith and keep it a secret. But when I confess my faith to others, wonderful things happen.

First, I admit my faith to myself. I make a decision: my faith matters enough that I’m willing to admit it to the church. That’s a big deal because faith too weak to be admitted is faith too weak to matter. Continue reading →

Sixth point: For some reason, God wants his converts baptized in water. There’s not the least hint of water baptism in the OT. It was introduced by John the Baptist as a sign associated with the coming Kingdom and adopted by the followers of Jesus at Pentecost.

Rarely does anyone pause to ask why? Well, people need rituals. God doesn’t so much, but people do.

Love

Consider a young couple. The young man embraces his girl friend and for the first time says, “I love you.” She hugs him, smiles, kisses him passionately, and the evening ends. Continue reading →

Fifth point: The faith that saves is the faith of Abraham. Paul says so in Rom 4 and Gal 3. The one wrinkle is that, after the resurrection, Abraham’s faith in God becomes faith in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son. But it’s still faith in God.

Paul says that we’re saved by God’s promise to Abraham to count faith as righteousness.

(Rom 4:9-12 ESV) Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. … 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well,  12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

Continue reading →