Salvation as a Divine Gift | Disruptive Presence 85

David: 0:05

Hi and welcome to the Two Texts podcast. I'm here with my co-host, john Andrews, and my name is David Harvey. This is a podcast of two friends from two different countries meeting every two weeks to talk about the Bible. Each week we pick one text to talk about, which invariably leads us to talking about two texts and often many more. This season we're taking a long, slow journey through the book of Acts to explore how the first Christians encountered the disruptive presence of the Holy Spirit. So John, paul and Silas were left by us in the last episode, having escaped prison if that's the right word to use of the work of the Holy Spirit in that space. But they're definitely out of the cell and they're now, in this moment of transformation, really in the jailer's family, aren't they?

John: 1:00

Yeah, beautiful, beautiful story of this jailer now opening up his home. I loved our reflection last time, just laying the table before them and that beautiful picture of them ministering to them. We saw that lovely, almost echo of Lydia having her heart opened and opening up her home. And now the jailer responds almost identically. He's like he's come to this place of salvation. The first thing he does is starting to serve and it's just a magnificent transformation when he probably would have been a man used to being quite rough with prisoners and not very hospitable at all. And the first thing he offers to Paul and Silas is hospital they have his home and bandaging and ministering to their wounds, which is just spectacular, really not something to be rushed past, I think.

David: 1:52

And so let's not rush past it. Then We've sort of bounced around inside this story, but let's think about the jailer's track for a little bit in this episode today. So we're going to read. Let's read again, actually, because it's been a few weeks perhaps since people refreshed their memory of Acts 16. So we'll read from verse 29 down to 34 of Acts, chapter 16. Okay, yeah.

John: 2:22

Let's do that, let's do it. So I'll jump in. Verse 29, says this the jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked Sirs, what must I do to be saved? They replied believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house At that hour of the night. The jailer took them and washed their wounds. Then, immediately, he and all his household were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and said a meal before them. He was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God, he and his household. When it was sorry, sorry, sorry. We've got the verse 34, that's the last reading there. So I was so excited I was going to jump at the first.

David: 3:21

It's interesting, john, just as a reflection there. There's almost two narrative tracks going on here and I don't know that I'd heard it until again. As you and I often say when you're listening to someone else read it, I don't know if it activates different parts of your brain or if it just turns off your brain from different types of focus, but you've got this one track which sounds very acts like. What do I need to do? I need to believe in Jesus.

David: 3:48

We've seen that before in acts and I don't mean that to dismiss it. I mean it's familiar to us. But then it struck me that there's also a little bit of a Good Samaritan arc in this, that there's a washing of wounds, there's a taking into the house and looking after, and the surprising person, the person that you don't expect at the start of the story to be looking after Paul and Silas, becomes the person looking after Paul and Silas. I mean it's not a great exegetical point, it just struck me when you were reading it there. I thought, oh, it sounds like the Good Samaritan Does that make sense?

John: 4:26

Yeah, totally does.

John: 4:27

And of course, what's lovely is, of course, the Good Samaritan is unique looking material, so he's the only one who gives us that magnificent story parable.

John: 4:37

So again, it's not lost on us that, oh, we've got a lovely, a lovely little hero here that wouldn't normally be expected to be behaving in that way but transformed by the gospel. And in the same way that the Samaritan is seen to be practicing Torah, loving God and loving his neighbor, here now the Jailer is practicing the gospel, literally engaging in actions that would suggest something has happened in him and transformed him. So I do love the tenderness of this and you do get the sense that, the way it's described, that the man is acting in real tenderness towards them. There is a lovely sort of you're almost drawn into the intimacy of the story the food, the bandaging the wounds, the baptizing, the fact that you get the multiple references to his house and his household and you're getting this lovely sense of we're being drawn into something that it feels deeply personal and very, very intimate in the context of this man's transformation and change.

David: 5:49

Really, and it's fascinating how the some of them have necessary this change is. If this man doesn't ask this question, if this man remains in his previous position, he just locks Paul and Silas back up again. So the way the spirit actually liberates him is the beginning point of how the spirit liberates Paul and Silas, and you see almost this very common-looking narrative arc of the powers being brought down. I mean, we've talked about this years ago in this podcast. Think about Luke's opening with the song of Mary that the rulers and authorities are brought down low. Well, again, I mean, we said back then goodness, I think it was like Christmas two years ago. We talked about that.

David: 6:45

People want to scroll all the way back in those episodes. But if you think we talked about then about how the song of Mary in Luke's gospel sets up his agenda at some level of what you're going to see happen all the way through the gospel. But actually it's what you're seeing happening beyond the gospel, into the acts of the Holy Spirit, where the powerful jailer is now washing wounds and serving food to the people who were previously the prisoners. So there's a beautiful like go and read the song of Mary, I would say to our listeners, and you're seeing her prophetic vision worked out in a Roman prison cell in Philippi.

John: 7:28

Yeah, superb, it's superb. And again, it shows you, doesn't it, that this kingdom, this gospel, this good news, is not working in the normally expected ways you would expect. If we're going to establish a kingdom, we're doing it through sword and power and politics, and maneuvering in the corridors of influence and working from the top down. And yet, as predicted in the ministry of Jesus, this amazing kingdom seems to be very comfortable. Working from the bottom up, it seems to be. It doesn't need laws to be changed, it doesn't need further to be some sort of right. Everybody listened to the Christians decree but actually, whether given, given freedom or not, this gospel is starting to work.

John: 8:19

And of course, we remember that the context of this moment is persecution. The context of this moment, paul and Silas have been personally persecuted because of the work of the gospel in Philippi. And here we've got this. I think it's a gorgeous, almost analogy of the Gospel. It's trapped, it's chained, it's in the darkest, deepest, dankest cell and yet, and yet, and yet it finds a way to break out, it finds a way to get beyond the chains and it finds a way to infiltrate Roman life. And it's infiltrating Roman life here at its most difficult and debase in terms of the jail.

John: 9:01

So this idea of the jailer being saved and totally in line with Luke's narrative of the margins and bringing the margins and even the margins within the margins being pulled into the power of the Gospel. This man isn't just a Gentile, but he's a jailer and therefore is even possibly on the margins of his own world in terms of how he would be viewed by the upper echelons. But here he is getting radically transformed by this Gospel. That now begins to work not only in him but in his household, and we assume that will continue like the yeast in the dough, will continue to work out into the community in a powerful way. And who knows the other prisoners? We're given no details about the other prisoners, but who knows the other prisoners? Listening to Paul and Silas, we don't know specifically what impact this Gospel has on them, but it wouldn't be unreasonable that if this event has had such a dynamic impact on the jailer, it could have also had similar unrecorded impact on other prisoners within that, and maybe the jailer himself would have been influential over them.

David: 10:14

Absolutely. I was thinking, as you were reflecting there as well, about it being on track with Luke's patterns. There's also a pattern of the Gospel verses. I mean, I'm playing here a little bit, but I actually quite like this. The Gospel verses Roman technology, right? So we have seen that the Roman cross was not really as impacting on well, it was hugely impacting on the world. Actually, it may be the cross.

David: 10:48

I was just actually in a class just recently about Saint Maximus, one of the early church theologians, and he talks about the cross as the beginning point of history, because the cross is a cosmic event that changes everything. And the cross is so cosmic it changes things in the past as well as things in the future. Right? So when you're reading Hebrews, you realize that the effect of the cross works backwards, right? So in one sense, the Roman cross has been profoundly world-shaping, but it's not in the way the Romans imagined it, right? So the Gospel has flattened the power of the cross in its expected way and then blown the power of the cross up in completely different ways.

David: 11:32

But here we have another Roman technology the prison and the prison guard and it turns out, exactly in keeping with Luke's narrative, that actually the Roman technology is not as effective against the Gospel as the Romans might want it to be, and you can sort of run off and have fun with that. I mean good, godly fun with that where you then think about how we're actually reading Acts. We're reading a story of the Gospel using Roman trade routes to make its way around the world. So you're actually seeing, in a few verses time we're going to hear somebody say this about the Gospel, that they're turning the world upside down, right, and that's exactly, I think, what we're seeing, that prisons are no longer safe.

David: 12:20

And so, if you can read Luke's narrative, think about Mary in Luke, chapter one and her song. I then was thinking like look at Zechariah's song, also in chapter one. I mean, just let me say this for a second verse 74 of Luke, one we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear. And then this by the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet in the way of peace.

David: 12:53

And it's just I mean again, we're always saying this, John, that just we're living in the space of imagination here, but this is Luke recording Zechariah's prophecy that, rescued from our enemies, that dawn will break upon us. Dawn from on high will break upon us, give light for those who sit in darkness, in the shadow of death, and guide our feet in the way of peace. I mean, at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns. All the shaking happens, they're set free, and actually, were you to have continued reading two verses longer? The jailer turns to Paul and Silas the next morning and says go in peace. It's exactly Zechariah's prophecy happening, isn't it?

John: 13:38

Yeah, yeah amazing, amazing, and those beautiful connections right through that are showing us and I was just as you were talking and reflecting on that I was just taken to Paul's beautiful statement himself where he says, writing to Timothy, he says but the word of God is not chained, is not bound, is not restricted. What you've just described is this boundless word of God that, spoken in different contexts by different people, is loosed to achieve and accomplish everything that God has sent it to achieve. I was just reflecting on my devotions this morning. Isaiah 55 again, that the word of the Lord that is sent forth will accomplish what he has sent it forth to achieve. It will actually achieve the thing he sent it for.

John: 14:31

And yet sometimes we're looking at stories where the opposite, on the surface of it, seems to be true. We've got things that seem to be restricting the word of God, chaining the word of God, persecuting the word of God. Yet it finds a way to be heard. It finds a way through the chains, through the darkness, through the annals of time even, and it gets to its glorious point. And I love this sort of idea that Paul and Silas, as they're there in the prison cell, are experiencing not only the power of the Word of God in themselves to sustain them, and we've reflected on the singing and reciting of Psalms and these beautiful hymns. But also now, the power of the Word of God is touching this prison house and this jailer is responding Whatever he has heard in the prayers and the songs on to God, the hymns on to God, something there has touched him to cause him to create such an amazing response to this particular moment and ask this incredible question.

David: 15:41

Really, and that question is probably worth reflecting on, isn't it? We talked a little bit about his intro to the question in the last episode, lord's what must I do to be saved? And I was thinking about how. It's interesting, how there's almost two levels of conversation going on here. What does the man actually mean when he first asks the question? Because, if you notice, he draws his sword and is about to kill himself, since he supposed the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouts in a loud voice do not harm yourself, for we are all here. And then the jailer says what must I do to be saved?

David: 16:23

I almost wonder if his initial register of that question is if I don't kill myself here, the Romans are going to kill me, and so you're now telling me not to kill myself. So how do I save myself? At some level is the question that I think is posted there. But then, of course, he's also heard the Psalms and he's heard the songs that they're singing, and he's heard the testimony that's ended up in prison as well. So that is he. Is he actually asking that deeper, salvific question, as well as as to how do I do this?

John: 17:04

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's a fascinating reflection because it is such certainly for our 21st century world. If we read that from our 21st century evangelical, pentecostal world, that sounds like the perfect question. That's the question every, every pastor, every leader wants to hear on a on a Sunday gathering, that someone just rushes up to them and says Pastor, what must I do to be saved? Because on our interpretation that it would be very much the default of a salvation moment. But of course there could be the reflection within that that hold on, his whole world is being shaken and that actually he's thinking about, about the repercussions of the shaken world. Within that. I like to think it's a bit of both.

John: 17:50

I think, yeah, I think within there there's a sense in which and I think I think you reflected on this at some point last time I think there's a sense in which, hold on a minute, something really unusual has just happened. So you would normally expect, with earthquakes, for walls to fall down and gates to fall off, and but you don't normally get what is described in the story prison doors flying open and chains falling off. That's very specific description of what happens. So I think he's aware that something above his pay grade is happening here that he can't quite explain it. And and of course, if he, like the other prisoners, has been hearing these prayers on Psalms in the background and, who knows, paul and Silas may also have been making declaration of God's, confessing God's greatness in the context of this and lifting Jesus up, then actually I have no problem believing that this man is so provoked by both what is happening, and we might want also to suggest by the provocation of the Holy Spirit within him, that he actually comes and says look, what do I need to do to be saved?

John: 19:08

In, in, in this moment. And it's clear, whatever he meant by that, I think, which is interest and interest discussion, paul and Silas, whatever the man meant by that, grab the initiative, absolutely take the initiative and sort of say believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved during your household. So so if there was, if there was double, double layers to the meaning saved there or not Paul and Silas are definitely taking the initiative and saying, oh no, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. So they're interpreting that for him. They're definitely clarifying what they think he means, even if he doesn't fully mean that.

David: 19:52

And there's maybe a level, contextually, that we would say is there both going on here which I would agree with? I think there is both going on here. I agree with everything you've just said. I think I sometimes wonder whether the question of both is maybe our modern lenses of looking at it as well and that maybe for the Roman, for the Roman prison guard sorry, I almost made him a centurion there, I don't know if that's a promotion or a demotion.

David: 20:25

Maybe there's a sense for the Roman prison guard that those are two sides of the same coin, right? So so there's. We would see it as, oh, the salvation of his body from Roman authorities and the salvation of his being for eternal life. I wonder if there's also a way of seeing it to say yes, both. But for the Roman guard, he might see those things as highly overlapping. The declaration that Caesar is Lord is a declaration of political life allegiance and also eternal life allegiance. The gods are seen as kind of blurry with the authorities so often, so there's a way of saying it that the Roman prison guard realizes everything in my life is different, if what these men say is true and the events of the last few minutes are making him think. I think they definitely are true.

John: 21:30

Yeah.

David: 21:31

And this is a beautiful question as well that I think you see all the way through scripture and I love where. What must I do to be saved? And the response you get is trust Jesus and you will be saved. So so he asks this question of okay, tell me what I need to do, and Paul responds with no, something is going to happen to you, and you get this gorgeous sense of humans wanting you see, all right, what must I do to inherit eternal life? People ask Jesus and it's like that's the last stronghold of humans as well what do? I must have to have some active part in this. I'm thinking this because I was just teaching last weekend on John 316 and it struck me how passive everything is in John 316. It's all passive text. It's something that happens. Salvation is something that happens to you.

David: 22:30

Does that make sense.

John: 22:32

Oh, totally. I think it's absolutely a beautiful point and, again, I think it leans to the power of the gospel, that the natural human default is I must do. And the gospel, of course, has declared no, it is done, and in the believing we receive what has been done to us. So it's this you don't need to do anything, there's nothing you need to position yourself in or achieve, you just need to believe. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. So I love that. That is at the very heart of this conversation because again, it's reminding us that this glorious salvation that is being presented and about to come into the household of the jailer is by grace and grace alone, and not by anything we can maneuver or do or change, which, of course, in the Roman world and in the Greek world would have been very, very common. So, appeasement of the gods, honour of the gods, serving the gods, doing things for the gods, and it's something slightly different of them in order to get their favour. And so this is a very natural question for a Roman, for a Greek, to ask okay, what do I need to do? Tell me, tell me what's expected of me, and I'll do it now. And of course Paul introduces this glorious idea to him. That's faith alone in the done work, in the finished work, in the completion work of Jesus that makes a way for us. I suppose we are so familiar with that conversation when you're part of the churches that we're a part of. You can become then a little bit familiar with the dynamic power of it. It is such a radical idea that as a human, there is nothing you can do as a human, there is nothing you should do as a human, nothing of our doingness contributes one little bit to our salvation, that actually everything that secures our salvation in Christ is about what has been done and what has been achieved.

John: 24:43

I was teaching recently for a class on sort of a broad brushstroke of soteriology and I was talking about the righteousness of Christ that has come to us, been deposited to us, that has been imputed to us and given to us. And it's a remarkable idea, david, that my personal righteousness, which hopefully comes out of his righteousness right, but my personal righteousness doesn't contribute to his righteousness. I won't get into heaven because of the righteousness of Jesus plus my righteousness. I get into heaven because the righteousness of Jesus has been imputed into me.

John: 25:21

My righteousness is the product, is the outworking, is the evidence that I have been made righteous and nothing I can do, even in my righteous deeds, contribute to the saving righteousness of Christ in me and conversely and this is maybe very controversial nothing I can do can detract from the righteousness of Christ in me. Now that's about his righteousness in me, which comes by faith, comes by believing. His righteousness in me doesn't come by me working hard or doesn't come by me doing the right things. That's the outworking of my righteousness, because his righteousness has come to me. I don't know if I've overcooked that, but for me this is very important that we are saved by grace and then we live by faith in the grace of God, and we must not allow ourselves to fall back into a conversation that suggests my righteousness is a contributor to my own salvation. It is his righteousness, and his righteousness alone, that saves us.

David: 26:32

It's interesting how that connects with our current text and then unsurprisingly for me to say this a text in Galatians. Just look at chapter 3 of Galatians, verse 27. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There's no longer Jew or Greek, no longer slave or free, no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus, and if you belong to Christ, then your Abrams offspring airs according to the promise. I mean like a stunning text. The scripture Bits of that will be highly familiar to people. No longer Jew or Greek, no longer slave or free, no longer male and female. One of the sad things I think about that text is we often don't read the surrounding verses. That we're actually verse 27. It's profoundly important and a summary of really what you've just said. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. I almost want to say it like this, in fact, no, I do want to say it like this. Because I'm going to say it like this?

David: 27:38

One of the most foundational moments of realization for me in studying Paul's take on the gospel is, I'd say like this when God looks at you, he sees Jesus. Yeah, and at first glance that will sound like an absolute heresy, like wait a minute, no, that's not how it works. But I think that's exactly how it works, that when God looks at me he sees Jesus. He doesn't see mostly Jesus in a bit of David, that I am clothed in Christ. Now perhaps some of our listeners will even hear then the allusion to the tonement notions that the blood covers the arc, and the author to the Hebrews definitely picks up on that language.

David: 28:27

But this idea that I am so completely enveloped into Christ that Christ has overwhelmed me at that level. So I bring nothing to the table and that's good news. That's great news. That is good news that I come to the table and I am baptized into Christ, clothed in Christ, belonged to Christ, won in Christ and therefore and hear me well I am not saying I am Christ, I'm saying that everything that Christ has done has brought me into Christ, so that when God sees the Father sees me as won in Christ. So to your point, it's all a gift from Him and my own I mean Paul says it in Romans not having a righteousness of our own. That's the full sum total of all that we've done, and all that we've worked up, ends up to this statement not having a righteousness of our own. Yeah, so good, so good. It's gorgeous, isn't?

John: 29:32

it. It's gorgeous, it's amazing and what an amazing thought, david to pull Galatians back to our story is that the minute that the jailer believed, he was won in Christ, with not only the Lord, jesus Christ, but he was now him and Paul, him and Silas, so these seasoned men of God, these amazing teachers of the Word of God, and yet the minute the jailer believes, in terms of salvation, standing and state they are won, they are equal. There is no, okay, well, yeah, but Paul's slightly higher than you. No, no, they are the same. So that beautiful sense of bond and free, literally you've got.

John: 30:23

The jailer is free and Paul and Silas technically are bond, are slaves, but of course, in the Gospel Paul and Silas are free and this man is a slave to sin. And yet the minute he becomes a follower of Jesus and believes, they are free in Christ, like instantly. So if that jailer was to die, at that very moment he is, he's catapulted in to the presence of God, based on the righteousness of Christ. That has just been. This is just clothes to him, that is just being put on him, it's, it's just totally stunning and our minds struggled with that because hold on a minute no, no, no, surely Paul and cellars are sort of a step above the jailer? No, at that moment they are absolutely equal, one the same as far as seeing through the eyes of Christ by the Heavenly Father and I. I think that's a remarkable idea. When we keep, we need to keep reminding ourselves the.

David: 31:30

I Mean, my goodness, it's quite, it's quite, it's quite something, as you were saying, I was thinking about, and it's way back in June 2021, I think, episode 12 of our parable series. We talked about the, the parable of the vineyard workers, this amazing, amazing parable of Jesus, where, where some people were there from the start of the day, some people just not came at the end of the day, and and what do we get? We get every, exactly what you, the point you've just made, jesus makes in the parable that they are as Welcome, as totally supposed to be there as anybody else. My, my goodness, I mean, that's the offensive part of the gospel.

John: 32:14

It is something else wants to say wait a minute.

David: 32:16

You're saying that in God's eyes, the jailer and Paul are the same and this is like Seconds into the journey and like yes, absolutely, and notice the level of Trust that the jailer throws into this and that's, I always think, this language of belief and faith. I always want to encourage people to hold that. The language of trust is part of that Semantic range as well. Trust in Jesus, like what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Trust Jesus, I think sometimes when we hear the word belief, we think of a Always. He learned all the doctrines and we're looking at this going when nobody's talked to the creeds about with him, nobody's, nobody's taught him anything. He's not taking a class, he's just told trust in Jesus.

David: 33:01

And bear in mind, all that he really knows of Jesus is maybe what he's heard in the trial, the songs that Paul and Silas have been singing and the fact that he can shake chains. But notice what he does and I think this is really important for us as modern people to read that at that same hour. So he trusts, wash his Paul's wounds and then, and then he is. He and his entire family are baptized Once again, all the same hour. So again, we don't. We're not aware there's been a baptism class. We know that when Paul starts teaching doctrine it goes hours into the night. We've got that. Later We'll encounter that story. But trust in Jesus is enough for the jailer to be baptized.

John: 33:43

I mean, that's it.

David: 33:44

That's an interesting point for us isn't it it's.

John: 33:47

It's a staggeringly interesting point and it brings us back to the power of, or the question what are we baptizing when someone gets baptized? Are we baptizing their good behavior between their confession Going through a baptism class and in their baptism, or are we? Are we baptizing their confession? And I, I, I love this idea and I think we've even Sort of seen it in Lydia as well, if you consider me to be a believer in the Lord. She said come and stay on my house, opens up her home, gets baptized, and and the gap between Lydia and her household being baptized, and the confession is a short one We've talked about this in the Ethiopian unique literally comes to a realization of Jesus, messiah from the prophecy of Isaiah, and gets baptized immediately.

John: 34:36

Their Pentecost of baptized Immediately, within, within practical restriction, and here's the same idea here and however they baptize these, this household, it's done within the hour of the confession, and you're going, wow, and I think, I think we, without us grinding out an agenda here. I do sometimes think that the gaps between what a person confesses and then baptism have allowed ideas to be introduced there that are more about behavior than confession, and I think it's really, really important that we remember in the book of Acts, a Roman centurion in Ethiopian, unique Jewish people on the derpente cost, and also this man and his household, and as well as a businesswoman in the same city, got baptized in water almost immediately After they confess Jesus. And I think, I think we, we should have the courage to try and Push those two things much more close together, because we're baptizing confession, not behavior.

David: 35:48

Yes, that's a great word, john, and I think I mean if, if, if any of our listeners were to go and study the history of this. That's exactly where I think we get a little derailed and, a long, long time ago, get derailed where this question starts to arise about what? What if somebody's faith gets shaky? Post basses Both baptism right, that's the word I was there for and and what. What happens if that, in that sort of situation, and you end up with this notion that you want to get baptized At such a time that you can be confident that you'll never sin again. So you start, so what starts to develop over the over the few hundred years of the early church, is essentially Last right baptisms, that you just get baptized just at the very, very end. It's a high-risk strategy, but to your point, it becomes connected to behavior and not confession. Whereas the early Christians and you see it in Galatians you are baptized into Christ, like Now again, don't hear what I'm not saying, but but the confession of faith and the practice of baptism were seen as Two sides of the same coin of the journey of salvation. Yeah, and actually this shouldn't surprise us too much, because Christianity is constantly offering us Confessions of faith with practice. Right, it's the sun, it's a modern notion that faith is purely a cerebral thing. Yeah, the early church.

David: 37:24

If you look at the early church and think faith is just something we think, being a Christian is just something we think, you're gonna struggle to make sense of acts. Yeah, christians do things. They, they take communion together because they, they know that Jesus is present to them. But they take communion as a practice. For that they, they gather together. I mean, if I had a, if I had a dollar, john? For every time I hear somebody say Christians don't need to go to church, and I often I understand what people are scratching at when they're saying that Going to church doesn't make you a Christian. But actually you look for that notion in scripture. Try and find in the New Testament, this notion that Christians don't need to go to church, and you don't find it. What you find is Christians need to gather together, not in order to be saved, it's just that their confession requires company. And now we can make same to baptism.

David: 38:19

I don't think Jesus is ever going to give us something and just say just simply Know that it's true. He's giving us practices to remember that it's true. And so, like I've recently, I was recently at a service and the person that was leading the service something I'd I've only recently come to know was even a thing in certain sacramental traditions where after the baptism service it was at baptism service they went around the room splashing water on everybody with this, with this simple, with this simple pronouncement remember your baptism and and John, it was gorgeous like it was. It was a gorgeous. Now, people within sacramental traditions will probably go.

David: 39:06

Oh yeah, I know when that happens, but for me, I was struck with John. I was like it reminded me of the truth of my own baptism and I was in the middle of the USA, remembering something that happened to me in the middle of Scotland 30 years previously. But then, when the water hit me, I remembered I am baptized right and and the practice for me as a human, same reason, I wear a wedding ring, not because, not because I forget that I'm married, but every time I touch that ring, I remember that I stood amongst family and friends and proclaimed a promise to somebody else that I've kept it. I mean, I'm probably getting off on the wrong tangent here, but I think it maybe helped me unpack what I'm trying to say but the practice, the sacramental practice of doing something that connects you to what you've confessed. It's a guy. Just I don't want to lose that, john, even though our modern kind of way says no, no, no, you don't need the practices. Am I making any sort of sense?

John: 40:04

Oh, no, it's.

John: 40:05

I think it makes total sense and I think we must never reduce this wonderful Faith down to simply orthodoxy, an idea of I believe something and leave that as a sterile, vacuumized idea, both both Tanaka New Testament teaches dynamically that true Orthodoxy, true faith, will always lead to practice, will always lead to outworking, will always lead to action, actions that affirm and confirm and Declare and proclaim the very thing that we believe.

John: 40:42

And, of course, as Baptism is as important to the person being baptized, it is all so important to the world that that person belongs to, in that there is a declaration that I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God so much that I am prepared to publicly surrender my life in baptism, die in the waters of baptism and be resurrected to new life in Christ Jesus, and I'm prepared to do that in front of Whoever wants to watch that idea. And and I think that is absolutely essential orthodoxy yeah, absolutely stuff we got to believe, but never in a sterile vacuum. As well, orthodoxy must always lead to orthopraxy, which allows us to be people who not only believe something but people who do something, and it's our doing that affirms we truly believe.

David: 41:37

So that's it for this episode. We know that there's always more to explore and we encourage you to dive into the text and do that. If you like this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you rated, reviewed or shared it. We also appreciate all of our listeners who financially support the show, sharing the weight of producing this podcast. If you'd like to support the show, visit to texts comm. But that is all for now. So until next time from John and I, goodbye.