Baptism Every Fourth Sunday

By Bob Prichard       A sign outside a large church building in Birmingham announced “Baptism every fourth Sunday.” I wonder what Peter or Paul would have thought about baptism offered as a kind of fourth Sunday “blue plate” special.     Consider Peter’s experience. On Pentecost, he told the gathered multitude, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). Then just three verses later, Luke tells us that the same day three thousand were added by being baptized for the remission of sins. Daily church growth (Acts 2:47) must have meant daily baptisms.     When Ananias came to Paul and said, “And now why tarriest thou, arise and be baptized, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16), he was baptized immediately.     As prisoners in Philippi, Paul and Silas prayed and sang at midnight, and the prisoners heard them. An earthquake shook the jail, so that the jailer planned suicide, thinking the prisoners had escaped. But after they taught the jailer and his family, they were baptized “straightway,” “the same hour of the night” (Acts 16:31).     “Baptism every fourth Sunday” just doesn’t sound like God’s plan.

- Bob Prichard serves as an elder and evangelist for the Hillview Church of Christ in Birmingham, Alabama, since 2016. In his forty-five years of preaching he has served churches in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama.