1 Corinthians 1

 "17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."

We could focus on the fact that Paul talked about preaching the cross, which is vital, but what I want to look at is Paul's comment that Christ didn't send him to baptize. When we read Matthew 28:19, part of what has been called the Great Commission was to baptize, so what is going on? The logic here is that baptism is a sign of conversion. It is a sign that God is doing or going to do something special in the life of this person. Paul looked at the work of an Apostle was to proclaim the truth, not seek an outward sign of conversion.  Conversion came, and Paul did baptize some, but that wasn't his purpose when he spread the gospel. 

This is where later "Missionary" (I use that word loosely) missed the mark. They were focused on baptism and even forced baptisms. They didn't preach the truth and let God change the heart. They used force and coercion to make people to become converts, but not true believers. Even today, there is a push to get "converts," baptisms, and new members, but are we missing the true calling that Paul is speaking about? I think we are. We proclaim, and God does the important work. An interesting note is that in the early centuries of the church, they didn't baptize people or allow them to take communion until they finished a long catechism process.  I wonder if we would be wise to do that today?

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash