baptism on Baptism into Death

Some time back, a retired missionary dropped by our church. She had served faithfully in Africa, and one day, she happened upon a small baptismal service. A fellow missionary took three new converts t...

[When you were baptized,] you died and were born in one and the same moment. This saving water was both tomb and womb. It is a strange thing, quite out of the ordinary. For indeed, at the moment of Ba...

For all Christians, baptism embodies release from yesterday’s sin and receipt of tomorrow’s promise: going under the water, the old self is buried in the death of Christ; rising from the water the sel...

We may never be martyrs but we can die to self, to sin, to the world, to our plans and ambitions. That is the significance of baptism; we died with Christ and rose to new life.

But sometimes I think what the church needs most is to recover some of its weird. There’s no sense in sending her through the makeover montage of the chick flick when she’ll always be the strange, awk...

St. Paul reminds us: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just...

Textual Overview The Gospel of Luke has a clear narrative path that begins with links to Israel’s past and God’s promises to her. Those promises are now going to be fulfilled in the life, death, resu...

Textual Overview The Gospel of Luke has a clear narrative path that begins with links to Israel’s past and God’s promises to her. Those promises are now going to be fulfilled in the life, death, resu...

Defined by Action and Accessibility Action defines us. We either play the game or we sit on the sidelines. We either get our hands dirty and by doing so gain credibility or we sit aloft our pulpit an...

Preaching Commentary Defined by Action and Accessibility Action defines us. We either play the game or we sit on the sidelines. We either get our hands dirty and by doing so gain credibility or we ...

Almighty God, by our baptism into the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ, you turn us from the old life of sin: Grant that we, being reborn to new life in him, may live in righteousness a...

PRAYER OF CONFESSION Pastor: The Lord calls to all to “Come and see” who He is, repent of our sins and put our faith in Christ. Silence for personal confession. Pastor: Merciful God, People: w...

Baptism Service PRESENTATION OF CANDIDATES FOR BAPTISM. FOR ADULTS OR OLDER CHILDREN The candidates who are able to answer for themselves are presented individually by their Sponsors, as fol...

Pastor: In the beginning, Father, Your Word spoke all things into being and from nothing You made all that is. Help us to see the imprint of Your love in the goodness of creation and to exercise res...

Thus the vocation of the baptized person is a simple thing: it is to live from day to day, whatever the day brings, in this extraordinary unity, in this reconciliation with all people and all things, ...

The 2023 survey that was conducted by the Wall Street Journal in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago found that only 39% of the 1000 adults polled deemed religion “very important” to ...

Preaching Summary An Incomplete Trinity? Protestant churches who lean evangelical but not charismatic have occasionally been accused of being more “binitarian” than “trinitarian.”  The suggestion i...

We believe in one God,     the Father, the Almighty,     maker of heaven and earth,     of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,     the only Son of God,     eternally b...

Thus the whole death is not the biological phenomenon of death but the spiritual reality whose "sting... is sin" (1 Cor. 15:56) - the rejection by man of the only true life given to him by G...

Baptism signifies that the old Adam in us is to be drowned by daily sorrow and repentance, and perish with all sins and evil lusts; and that the new man should daily come forth again and rise, who sha...

The seed dies into a new life, and so does man.

At the very beginning of creation, the book of Genesis tells us, there was watery chaos. And over that watery chaos there was, depending on how you read the Hebrew, the Holy Spirit hovering or a great...

Enter John the Baptist John the Baptist enters the stage in Mark 1 as the “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” (Isaiah 40:3) whose message and ministry is to “prepare the way of the Lord.” Mark d...

Baptism is the prime sacrament, the foundation of them all…There are two things which baptism signifies, namely, death and resurrection…We call this death and resurrection a new creation, a regenerati...

For us, Jesus instituted two ongoing signs to confirm our confidence in the gospel of his grace, the first of which is baptism. Though simpler and less obviously supernatural than the ten plagues on E...

His previous life had been that of the Perfect Ideal Israelite – believing, unquestioning, submissive – in preparation for that which, in His thirteenth year, He had learned as its business. The Bapti...

At the very beginning of creation, the book of Genesis tells us, there was watery chaos. And over that watery chaos there was, depending on how you read the Hebrew, the Holy Spirit hovering or a great...

Thus, we must regard baptism and put it to use in such a way that we may draw strength and comfort from it when our sins or conscience oppress us, and say: ‘But I am baptized! And if I have been bapti...

Order of Service After gathering, the minister begins with admonitions and Scripture. Scripture quotations are from ESV. Admonitions and Scripture Minister:  Beloved of God: because all human...

Your own baptism was a naming ceremony: you were baptized “in[to] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). That naming ceremony no more changed your heart than did ...