The passage we turn to today, Acts 2.41-.47, appears to slow the action at last but in reality reveals the origin of the church. With three thousand people trusting in Jesus the day was spent baptizing people in the Jordan River. Each apostle would have baptized about 250 people! At the end f the day and in the days to follow the apostles taught the new believers about the Messiah and what it means to place their trust in Jesus alone. Because most of these people were not from Jerusalem (remember they had come for the Feast of Weeks to present themselves at the temple), they did not have the resources to stay on. Those who lived in Jerusalem sacrificed their homes and food to share with their brothers and sisters in the faith. We’ll talk more about what that means next week, today however we will define what baptism is and why its important.

You may have heard it said that Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship. This is mostly true as following Jesus has very few practices that may be considered religious acts. Compared to Judaism, which has multiple feasts, sacrifices, tithes, temple taxes, commandments and laws, Christianity is downright Spartan. In fact, there are only two ordinances in the faith: baptism and communion. Both were practiced (Luke 3.21-22) and commanded (Matthew 28.19) by Jesus.

Baptism throughout history has been a show of one’s faith in a particular message. John baptized people who wished to identify with his teaching regarding the kingdom of heaven, but John’s baptism was unique in a couple ways. First, all baptisms prior to John were self-baptisms, meaning that while others would witness the event the individual would immerse himself or, if immersion were not possible, pour water over himself. John was the first to baptize anyone, hence his name “John the Baptizer”. The second unique aspect to John’s baptism is that he had no group, no church, no religion that he was baptizing anyone into. It was purely identifying with his message regarding the Kingdom of God.

If anyone in all of history had a right to baptize himself it was Jesus. Yet Jesus submitted to John’s baptism and its style, which is likely why the disciples adopted this method when they baptized new believers. Some modern Christian’s argue that this method symbolizes the death (lowering of the body), burial (being immersed in the water) and resurrection (being brought up out of the water) of Christ and this is indeed a wonderful picture. Yet this method of baptism was practiced by John before the crucifixion of our Savior, so the actual method of baptism may not be as important as the act and identification of one’s belief in the grace of Jesus.

Baptism in the early church was performed shortly after one’s confession of faith in Jesus. This is an undeniable pattern in the book of Acts that will be seen many times as one continues reading. In fact, nowhere in this book is an unbeliever ever baptized. If one were baptized as an infant, or as a child before making a confession of faith in Jesus, I would encourage them to baptized again. I would councel a re-baptism not because it is essential for one’s salvation – it isn’t. Even so, while baptism does not effect forgiveness it reveals one’s identity with the message of forgiveness and with Jesus.

While most of the readers of this site are Americans who face no danger when identifying with Jesus, many around the world endanger their lives when they publically proclaim their faith through baptism. Hundreds of thousands of Christians have been killed for doing so. Remember them the next time you second guess revealing your faith at work or school or among extended family.