14th February 2025

If I may be allowed to ignore the obvious subject for a St Valentine’s Day, I’d like instead to mention a date of significance for me this weekend, the 55th anniversary (tomorrow) of my baptism as a believer. At the time, I’d no intention of ever becoming a minister of religion, let alone a Baptist; I simply wanted to witness to my faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and I wanted to do it in the proper New Testament way. Yes, put like that, it could be said that this was probably as much about me as it was a public witness to Christ, but looking back I now recognise that something else was also happening.

Nine of us were baptised that evening, and I remember being taken totally by surprise at how moving I found the whole occasion – so much so that I could barely say the baptismal confession, ‘Jesus is Lord’, when I took my place in the baptistery. Throughout the service, I felt held by God, though I probably couldn’t have found the words to express that at the time. Far from this being about me making my ‘stand with Jesus’, it was a demonstration of the grace of God in my life. It was God who’d brought me to this point, and it would be God who’d take me into whatever was to come.

Paedobaptists will stress the action of God in baptism, while Baptists tend to emphasise the response of the believer, but of course both are involved. That said, the initiative will always be with God, the One who through his Son has saved us.

Ken Stewart