Welcome to another week on Things Unseen. This week we're actually going to talk about something we do see.

Baptism. Now, I can imagine a variety of responses to that statement, everything from, oh, no,

I'm not sure I can bear to listen to yet another person lecturing me on my views of baptism,

to, on the other hand, oh yes, I think I agree with Sinclair Ferguson on baptism, so he's going

to nail the opposition.

But the point of things unseen is not to air controversial topics for these few minutes each

weekday.

I think it's worth saying, actually, that if we think of baptism first and foremost as a controversy

rather than a gift from the Lord Jesus, somehow we've got hold of the wrong end of the stick,

and I hope you agree. So what I want to say at the outset is this. Baptism is a gift from the Lord

Jesus to help us all to live for his glory. And I hope I can avoid the usual controversies on baptism to help us get to the main thing.

So if you find anything I see is controversial, it won't have to do with either when baptism is

administered or how much water is used. Yes, I know these are views in which we have different opinions, but I want

to reflect with you on something more fundamental. And I want to do that because I suspect that

whatever our views on these issues in baptism, we're not actually particularly strong on appreciating why Christ gave it to us, what it

means, or the impact it's meant to have on our daily Christian living. Because baptism isn't

just something that happened once and is over and done with.

If you read the New Testament, you notice that its significance is meant to last through

the whole course of our Christian life.

Well, the first question to ask is this.

What is baptism?

I mean, what kind of event is it?

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