The Privilege of Obeying Christ

“…and was baptized, he and all his straightway (immediately)” (Acts 16:33)

Missionaries in a remote area were experiencing a time of phenomenal success, seeing old and young alike being saved. The missionaries decided they should start a required new converts’ class which would be mandatory before one could be baptized. When the missionaries learned about a teenage girl who had not signed up for the class they asked one of the villagers who had been saved about her.  “She must take the class or we cannot baptize her,” they said.  The villager replied, “She’s the one who shared the gospel with all of us and led us to saving faith in Christ.”

The jailer in our story was baptized upon his verbal profession of faith in Christ and verified his experience of faith by following the Lord in baptism. It is very similar to the profession of faith and baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts chapter eight.

I am an old man. I professed faith in Christ as an eight year old boy and was baptized shortly thereafter. If I and the group of all ages of people who where baptized with me on that Sunday afternoon had needed to take a class and pass some imposed test I might not have been baptized yet.

Baptism does not save. But it is the first act of obedience for a new believer. Who are we to deny someone the privilege of obeying Christ?