Here are a few more photos of Jade’s baptism:

Setting up the baptistery beforehand, heating the water:

Jade answering questions before the baptism and listening to verses given to her (John 15:9/ Col 2:6-7):

Everyone watching!

The joy of a baptismal service is great, but the advantage of this portable baptistery is that we can be ready to do another baptism at very little notice! So if anyone else wants to be baptised, just let us know – this is one service we are very happy to repeat!

In photography, the photographer focuses on a particular object and draws the eye to certain things; how a photograph is framed or composed gives a definite focus to how we look at the photo.

In this photo, the rose is the focus of our attention, with the rest of the church (including the cross) intended as background:

In this photo, however, the church hall is the focus of our attention, with the rose as background.

All too often, we spend our lives in the now, focussing only on what is immediately before us, failing to see the ‘bigger picture.’ Luke 12:16-21 tells a parable about a rich man whose focus was wrong. By focussing only on the prospect of riches and a life of ease, he failed to contemplate eternity. We can focus on riches, reputation or other people, and fail to think about God. The present reality we see, however, is only part of the picture. Ps 40:4 in the Message Version says ‘Blessed are you who give yourselves over to God, turn your backs on the world’s “sure thing,” ignore what the world worships; the world’s a huge stockpile of God-wonders and God-thoughts.’ We have to refuse to buy the lie that the world sells as our main focus and refocus on God.

Col 2:22-3:4 reminds us that the things of this world are destined to perish, and we need to fix our hearts and minds on things above. We have to know what our goal or purpose is in life and we need to allow God to direct our focus. A good way of discerning where our priorities lie is to look at where we willingly spend our time. As Jesus reminded us (Matt 6:19-21), where our treasure is, there our heart is. We are called to love God whole-heartedly (Mark 12:30) and must have a clear focus on God, for it is all too easy not to have in mind the things of God (see Matt 16:21-23).

God works with each one of us both individually and collaboratively, rather like a conductor directs and holds the orchestra together. We can’t see the whole picture, but must rely on the Holy Spirit to have that bigger picture in view and to direct us into what we should be doing. We have to be single-minded in our pursuit of God, allowing both what we seek and think to be focussed on God. A zoom lens on a camera can focus on even the smallest detail, but sometimes in the process, it’s easy to lose sight of the whole. We need to allow God to be at the centre of our lives so that our focus is on Him; that way, we can be sure not to get lost and lose our focus.

Everyone enjoyed singing about the love of Jesus tonight!

It’s so high…

… and so low…

… and so wide…

We also enjoyed hearing other people’s testimonies of how they had come to know God and how their baptisms had led to times of blessing:

After the service, there was time to eat and share fellowship as we all celebrated this great occasion.

Tonight we held our first baptismal service in our building on Market Street, an occasion for great celebration!

We held the service in the community room in order to be able to accommodate the baptistery, starting with a time of worship:

Dave then explained about baptism. In our church, we don’t baptise babies, but baptise believers who want to obey Jesus and live for Him. Baptism is by full immersion, since this was the way that this was done in the Bible, and does not save anyone; it’s a sign of the salvation that Jesus has already given to us. Rom 6:1-12 explains that as we go down into the water, this is symbolic of the death of Christ to take away our sins and symbolic of our own death to our old way of living. As we rise up from the water, this is symbolic of the resurrection of Christ and the new life He brings. Baptism is our identification with Christ and a public proclamation of our allegiance to Him.

Then it was time for the actual baptism, with various shades of apprehension on Jade’s face!

Dead to sin…

… but alive in Christ!

A truly joyous occasion!

The questions raised by the Corinthians don’t always seem especially relevant to people nowadays. In our culture, do we still sacrifice meat to idols? Do we stress over how to give money to charity? Surely we’re not still hung up on sex in the way the Corinthians were? Because many of the New Testament letters deal with specific questions that are inevitably related to their context and times, there can be a tendency for people to shrug their shoulders and ignore what is written as no longer relevant to them. Similarly, because many modern questions involve aspects of technology that were not even invented when the Bible was written, there is often a tendency for people to believe the Bible must inevitably be irrelevant nowadays, for it cannot possibly speak about those issues. Questions such as the ethics of IVF or embryonic cloning, GM crops, transgender issues, organ transplants, computer hacking and so on are not specifically mentioned in the Bible; because of this, many people feel that they must work out their own stances on such issues with no reference to the Bible.

I often wonder what Paul’s letters to churches would look like if he were writing in the 21^st century. How would he ‘get down to the questions asked of him’ in a modern context? Our ‘Talking Point’ series is perhaps a little taster, as we seek to relate the Bible to these modern issues, severing the disconnect that many people feel exists between the Bible and modern issues.

It is perhaps pointless to speculate about what Paul would write nowadays, but I am by no means convinced either that the issues we read about in the Bible are irrelevant today (when you get to the heart of the issues, the sinfulness of the human heart is exposed, and that hasn’t changed since the Fall!) or that the Bible has nothing to say on ‘modern-day issues.’ Article VI of the ’39 Articles of Religion’ (the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation) says ‘Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.’ In other words, all we need to know concerning life and salvation can be found in the Bible. That may well not be all we’d like to know, for we’re curious, thinking, intrigued people. But all we need to know to live as God wants us to live can be explored in the Bible. Our problem is not necessarily not understanding the Bible, but our failure to obey it. Ps 119 talks of the need to meditate on God’s word and allow it to permeate our whole lives; Ps 119:32 says ‘I run in the path of your commands, for you have broadened my understanding.’ As we seek God and allow His Spirit to breathe on His word, I believe He will broaden our understanding and give us wisdom beyond our intelligence and our years; for us to truly have this broad understanding, however, we must also seek to obey (to run in the path of God’s commands.) As Mary reminded the servants at the wedding at Cana, ‘Do whatever He tells you.’ (John 2:5)

We live in a world of ambiguity. At times, we rail against that, longing for clear-cut, definitive commands which take away any necessity for individual thought. On other occasions, we chafe at commands, wrestling with individual situations which don’t seem to fit the rule book. The tension between principles and laws make up much of our legal wrangles, as we seek both certainty and flexibility, justice and ‘right.’

1 Cor 7 is a chapter which deals with both commands and advice. It provides clear-cut commands on marriage, emphasising the sacredness and permanence of this institution (1 Cor 7:10-11, 39). It emphasises the importance of sex within marriage, stressing mutual responsibility and obligation which go far beyond the mood of the moment (1 Cor 7:3-8). It commands fidelity within marriage (1 Cor 7:2, 19) and denounces promiscuity (1 Cor 7:9), recognising the stresses and commitment which marriage brings (1 Cor 7:29-35). It also gives clear instructions to the unmarried and to the widowed (1 Cor 7:8-9) and celebrates singleness in a way that is generally alien to human thinking! (1 Cor 7:17-38).

Yet for all the clarity within this chapter, there is also ambiguity. Paul, at times, writes with complete certainty: ‘I give this command (not I, but the Lord.)’ (1 Cor 7:10), echoing Jesus’s own words on marriage (see Mark 10:2-12, also Matt 19:1-12). On other occasions, he makes it clear that he is offering his advice: ‘I, not the Lord’ (1 Cor 12, 25), though he is confident of his unity with the Spirit of God (1 Cor 7:40).

How do we deal with such ambiguity? How do we reconcile the blunt certainty of commands with the ambiguous flexibility of choice? How do we decide if we have the gift of singleness or marriage, for example? Where does our free will sit with God’s sovereignty?

Paul knows that knowledge is not the be-all and end-all of the Christian life (see 1 Cor 8:1) He knows the dangers of legalism better than most (see 2 Cor 3:6) and that there is a fine line between freedom and legalism. There is, indeed, a place for individual wrestling with God (see Gen 32), a place, as we grow, for chewing on meat, not just sipping milk. We seek to submit to God’s authority, having our thinking transformed so that we do not conform to the world’s patterns (Rom 12:1-2), but that does not mean we can always live in a black and white world. Ambiguity, it seems, is here to stay, forcing us to exercise our spiritual muscles by staying alert (Deut 4:9, The Message). Jesus reminded His disciples to keep watch: ‘Stay alert, be in prayer, so you don’t enter the danger zone without even knowing it. Don’t be naive. Part of you is eager, ready for anything in God; but another part is as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.”’ (Mark 14:38, The Message) Working our way through ambiguity is part of our maturity in Christ, never easy, but always necessary.