Welcome to Things Unseen today, and especially welcome if you're new to our podcast.

This week we've been thinking about what is surely one of the profoundest elements, if not

the profoundest element in the Christian faith,

the Trinity. I love the saying of Augustine that no doctrine is more difficult or more

dangerous than the doctrine of the Trinity, and yet at the same time, no doctrine is more rewarding.

I hope we caught just a glimpse of that yesterday when we were thinking about the fact that

God is love and being love is Trinity and that these two truths mesh together beautifully.

But there's a very obvious reason why we should be more Trinitarian in our

thinking than I suspect we actually are. And perhaps it's also the most obvious reason for saying

that far from being speculative and impractical, as people often say, the doctrine of the Trinity must actually be the most basic

and the most profoundly practical of all doctrines.

The reason is actually so obvious that we rarely notice it, and sometimes we tend to obscure

it or divert people away from it.

I won't even guess what I'm thinking about.

I'm actually thinking about baptism.

It's something that all Christians have in common.

I'm not thinking here about the elements that Christians tend to debate together, who should

be baptized and how we should baptize.

I'm talking about the words that we all use at a baptism.

I baptize you in the name, singular, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the words that go back

to Jesus' Great Commission in Matthew 28.

I think it's wonderful to remember that this was actually the first time, if I can put it

...