Baptism: An Act of Discipleship

Have you been baptized?

If not, why not?

Do you consider yourself a disciple of Jesus? If so, then baptism should have been your first act of discipleship. If you haven’t been baptized, you need to do so soon.

WHY?

Baptism is an act of discipleship.

Disciples of Jesus follow the teachings of Jesus and share those teachings.

Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. John the Baptist didn’t want to baptize Jesus. He didn’t think he was worthy to do so. However, Jesus said that John needed to baptize him to fulfill the righteousness of God.

Whether we understand what happens in baptism or not, according to Jesus baptism is what God’s will is for all of us.

So, if baptism was good enough for Jesus, baptism is good enough for us as his disciples.  

Jesus taught it. Jesus demonstrated it. Jesus commanded it.

Baptism was one of the first things Jesus did at the start of his ministry. Baptism should be one of the first things we do.

FIRST STEP

Since I strongly believe in a systematic and precise approach to discipleship, here is my guidance. Don’t do anything else in your discipleship until you have been baptized.

Sounds a bit eccentric? Yes. But, if you stick around this blog long enough, you will understand why.

I believe most people, and churches, take a random, shotgun approach to discipleship resulting in very vague and haphazard growth in discipleship. Perhaps if we took one thing at a time that Jesus taught us as his disciples and didn’t move forward until we fulfilled that one thing, we would be much better off in our discipleship.

So, I will stick with my guidance. If you haven’t been baptized, don’t do anything else until you have.

If you were someone I was discipling, we wouldn’t do anything else until you had been baptized. Every conversation we had, every walk we took, every time we met, everything would be about baptism.

WHY (again)?

Why would that be all we talked about? If you are unwilling to do the simple thing of baptism, then the likelihood of you doing anything else Jesus taught is slim. Baptism is easy. What Jesus teaches later is more difficult.

Further, if you look at the New Testament and the early church, baptism was always the first step.

BACK TO THE TOP

We find ourselves where we began with a simple question that requires only a simple act of faith, have you been baptized?