We pick up this week in Hebrews 6 1:1-3. People were coming to the church from all different directions. There were those that believed in one of the many deities of the day, some who had no religious affiliation of any kind and baptism was the means of reception into the Church and confession of faith. There was a book of instruction written about AD 100 called Didache, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. It contained instructions about living a Christian faith and Christian life. This is written about baptism, I am inserting those written remarks here. 

‘Concerning Baptism, baptize in this way. When you have instructed the candidate in all these things, baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in running water. If you do not have running water, baptize in any other kind of water. If you cannot baptize in cold water, baptize in warm. If both of these are unobtainable, pour water three times upon the head of the candidate in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Before baptism, let him who is to baptize and him who is to be baptized fast, and let any others who can do so do the same. You must bid him who is to be baptized to fast for two or three days before the ceremony.’

Using this early writing we see that baptism in the early church, if possible, was by immersion. It shows that there was a period of instruction and indicates that those who wished to become part of the church have been instructed in the way of Christian faith and life. It also sets forth alternatives should total immersion not be possible. There is a period of personal preparation that is to be considered. There is another interesting thing here. In the early days of the church no one, in the words of one commentary “ no one slipped into the Church without knowing what they were doing.”  In some ways I think we don’t communicate the importance and the responsibilities of living a Christian faith and life and the fact that it is a bit more than just church membership. You must now go on to build a stronger life based on your faith in Christ. As we noted last week you must go on to perfection, having a firm foundation never look back, press on in the faith. Another point of interest was the practice of the laying on of hands and in the early church it always accompanied the baptism as the way the Holy Spirit was conveyed to those just baptized. Christianity has always dealt with immortality and righteous living, thus there is the resurrection, the forgiveness of sins, a reason to live a Christ like life. You could say that as a Christian your life from the day you accepted Christ has been one of Christian judgement. Christian judgement will never let us forget that the day will come that we at the end of this life must face God. The judgement of God is far more important than what other people think of us.

Next week we will move on to verses 4-8 in Hebrews 6. Please read these verses and prayerfully consider their meaning. See you in the Pew next week.

Life is Good

jk

We start the new year off with Chapter 6 of Hebrews and a reminder that we have a responsibility as people of the Faith to grow and learn that which we are charged by our Lord and Savior to do. There must be progress in the Christian life. Just as a builder lays a good foundation, he moves on to other aspects of the build to ensure its completion. The word used by the writer of Hebrews translates from the Greek to perfection.

‘Philo. … 50 CE), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. Philo used philosophical allegory to harmonize Jewish scripture, mainly the Torah, with Greek philosophy.’  (*1)

Philo divided his students into three groups. There were those just beginning, those who were making progress and those beginning to reach maturity. This is often referred to as going on to perfection. We must not allow ourselves to be mislead by this use of the word perfection. We know or should be aware of the fact that we will never reach perfection in this life. Most commentaries agree that what the writer is more concerned with here is the aspect of maturity, giving us two things to consider.

-He equates it to something to do with the mind. As we grow older we should have by this time thought out some things in life and be better able to articulate our faith in Jesus and why we believe he is the Son of God. We should have a deeper understanding of the importance and significance of the Christian faith and living as a disciple of Christ.

-He means it has something to do with life. Our lives should reflect Christ more and more as we seek to remove the spiritual faults and striving for a more virtuous life. There should be in our lives a spiritual peace that can be seen by those around us. We must continue to build upon the foundation of faith and share that faith with a maturity gained in reflective study of God’s word.

We are only into the first three verses of this chapter and the intensity of the writer can be experienced in the words he puts to the paper. There are some basic teachings of the early Church revealed in these verses. The repentance of sins is a major event in the early christian life. Putting aside those things that separate us from Christ, a literal change to how we live life. There is a faith that looks to God. Our actions are determined not by the actions of others but by the will of God as  given by the discernment of the Holy Spirit. Then there is the teachings about washings. Simply put, Christians must know what baptism really means. I am going to stop here and pick up next week with some things about baptism that are extremely interesting concerning the many different methods employed in the Christian church today. We will look at the biblical explanation of this very important step on our journey to perfection. Please join us in the Pew next week.

Life is Good

jk

Sources .   (*1) Wikipedia      DBS/Barclay