This week on Things Unseen, we've been thinking about something we've all seen, baptism.

And I've tried to avoid the usual controversies about baptism, whether or not believers only

or believers in their children should be baptized, whether baptism should be by a

mountain or pouring or sprinkling. And I've done that for what I think is a good reason.

Not just to avoid stirring up controversy, but because discussing these things very rarely

helps us do what I said earlier on in the week our spiritual forefathers urged us to do,

namely, improve our baptism. That is to put it to the proof, to make good use of it in

an ongoing way in our own Christian life. You know, even our spiritual forefathers who

used that term sometimes felt they were fighting a bit of a losing battle. The Westminster

devines who wrote the shorter and longer catechisms, for example, called this a needful but

much neglected duty. So here are the questions I'm asking myself today. When did I last

actually think about my own baptism? And then when did I last try to improve it? When

did I last think this really makes a difference to my Christian life knowing that I was baptized?

Today and tomorrow I want to suggest two ways in which we can all improve or make the best

spiritual and practical use of our baptism. And as possible, they may challenge us to adjust

our focus a little bit. I think I can introduce the first theme by saying this. Sometimes when we talk

about baptism we focus all of our attention on what we're baptized with and ignore what we're

baptized into. We're baptized with water. Water is the instrument, the means that we use to

baptize. But despite all our discussions about the amount of water we use, that's not really

the chief focus of what we're baptized into. You know that I'm sure because you're familiar with

the way Paul talks about baptism in Romans chapter 6, verse 3. Don't you know he says that all of us

who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. He uses similar language

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