One Baptism

Baptism is like a precious jewel – set apart by itself, it is nice and appealing but has nothing within it to compel. But place baptism against the backdrop of our sin and turn on the light of the cross, and the jewel explodes with significance. Baptism at once reveals the beauty of the cross and the darkness of sin. As a stone has many faces, baptism has many sides: cleansing, burial, resurrection, the death of the old, and the birth of the new. And as a stone has no light within it, baptism has no inherent power. But just as the stone refracts the light into a rainbow of colors, baptism reveals the many colors of God’s grace.

How does baptism unite believers? In many ways baptism is a rite of passage – an essential threshold that all believers must cross. All throughout the book of Acts, anytime a person comes to faith in Jesus, they were immediately baptized – in the river, along the side of the road, even at midnight. There were no unbaptized believers in the book of Acts.

~ Jeff