How do the global flood, circumcision, and the Israelites wondering in the wilderness foreshadowed the baptismal flood in Christ?

Find out in the issues that set a book of the month for August, the baptismal river, studying the sacrament throughout Scripture.

This new Bible study is published by Concordia Publishing House, their phone number 1-800-325-3040, or find out more about the baptismal river at issuesetc.org, the baptismal river studying the sacrament throughout Scripture.

The gifts are from the God, where He calls us His own.

The life He is that takes us as His own.

We believe what His heart says, when water and His blood, what our Lord God is that gives us to all Him alone.

Stanza 2 of the hymn, the gifts Christ freely gives. The gifts flow from the font. Well, speaking there about baptism, what are the gifts that God gives through Christian baptism?

And how do we find those gifts prefigured and predicted all through Holy Scripture?

Welcome back to issuesetc.org, I'm Todd Wilkin. It's part one of our series on Christian baptism. Joining us on this Monday, Dr. Richard Davenport, he's pastor of our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and author of the issuesetc.org book of the month for August, the baptismal river, studying the sacrament throughout Scripture.

Dr. Davenport, welcome.

Glad to be here.

What is Christian baptism?

Well, I mean, it's one of the things that we kind of have drummed into us as Lutherans, as you go up through Sunday school and through confirmation and such.

We talk about baptism. We look at Luther's small catechism where he talks about it, but we talk about it as a sacrament, as a means of grace.

And we hear Luther say, well, this is forgiveness, life and salvation, but as we start looking at what God has said throughout all of Scripture, we see that what baptism is is God taking that forgiveness, God taking that salvation and life that we receive through His grace.

And He shows us what that looks like. He gives us something that we can kind of pick up and look at and understand what that is doing for us.

It's not just that God kind of drops salvation on us. He's active in remaking us even now today.

Many Christians think of baptism as an incidental right in Scripture. How do you respond to that?

Given how much time God puts into telling us about baptism, going all the way throughout all the Old Testament and throughout the New Testament, this is something that God has put this much time into weaving into the story of Scripture that He means this to be a major event.

Not even just a major event, but one of the events that mark who we are throughout our lives.

It's why Jesus describes baptism as new birth. I mean, as big a deal as your own birth was, this should be that much and more.

And seeing how much we have going on into baptism, there's just so much that we see God doing through baptism that it should be an overwhelming experience.

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