Salvation & Grace
I came to faith over a year ago and never got baptized. Nobody has pushed me on it and I am not sure whether it really matters.
“That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.”
After Israel crossed the Jordan, Joshua had twelve stones hauled out of the riverbed and stacked on the bank for one stated reason: so that when children asked what they meant, somebody would have to tell the story. God repeatedly gives his people physical, public markers. They are not decoration. They fix a moment to a place so that it can be pointed at years later.
“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:”
These are among the last recorded words of Jesus to his followers, spoken as he sends them out. Baptism appears there without argument, as an assumed part of what following him involves. Christian traditions differ, sometimes sharply, over what baptism accomplishes and when it should happen, and that conversation is old and worth taking seriously. What none of them dispute is that Jesus told his people to do it.
A path forward
Ask your pastor this month what your church teaches about baptism and when the next available date is. The conversation is usually shorter and warmer than you expect it to be.
Invite the people who matter to you, including those who are not believers. Baptism is public on purpose, and it is one of the few natural occasions to say out loud what happened to you.
Write out in a paragraph what changed and roughly when. You will probably be asked to say something, and thinking it through in advance turns a nervous moment into a clear one.
Closing verse
“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
- Romans 6:4
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