For week 2 of our Asking for a Friend series, we’re talking about baptism. The four questions about this topic that came in were:
Is water baptism required for salvation?
Must you be baptized to be saved?
If our church believes salvation starts at baptism, then why do we sometimes have people wait or insist on talking/meeting with hem to be baptized?
Why was Jesus baptized?
To address these questions, we’re working through a few different texts: Acts 2:37-39, Romans 5:8, 2 Corinthians 6:1-2, Galatians 3:26-29, and Colossians 2:11-12. Feel free to lead your group through a discussion of all of these, or just highlight one or two. Alternatively, you could flip to the concordance in the back of most Bibles, and have your group look up every mention of “baptize” or “baptism,” and then talk about what you find.
Walter will be preaching about this all on Sunday, April 19. You’ll want to have your discussion on this topic between now and then!
Followup from Last Week
To kick off your group discussion, we recommend that you check in with your people about their previous “I will” statement. Start group time, before you read, with this question: “How did your ‘I will’ go this week?”
Secondly, it’s important that we are sharing God’s truth with those around us. Your second question before the read-through should be, “Who were you able to share with this week?”
Step 1: Assignment - Read various Bible passages on baptism.
Before your group meets, text this passage to them and ask them to read it at least once.
Step 2: Read Through - When your group meets, read the text in at least two different translations.
Step 3: Retell - Ask one or two people in your group to restate the passage in their own words, as if they were telling the story to a friend. Make sure you choose different people each week!
Step 4: Reflect: Go around the group and ask each person to answer these two things.
What does this passage teach us about God?
What does this passage teach us about human beings?
Step 5: Respond - Go around the group and ask each person to complete this statement, “Because of this passage, I will _____this week.”