As you will hear in this encore PODCAST, the dread disease called Covid has worked its way into the Bertolini household.
Rather than give you an unprepared, or under-prepared message, I’ve reached back into the archives to a story guaranteed to lift your spirits and send your soul a-soaring, just as it has mine.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, with his faith in a free-fall, our old friend John the Baptizer asked Jesus The. Most. Important. Questions that anyone has ever asked.
Questions that every human being who has ever lived has asked.
Questions, perhaps, that you have asked.
Questions that I have asked.
Jesus’ answer to which was brilliant beyond words.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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In honor of this Christmas season now officially upon us, let’s go back to the beginning.
In this PODCAST, you will hear from the one, the prediction of whose birth shattered 400 years of a deafening silence and started the Christmas ball rolling—our old and dearly beloved friend, John the Baptizer.
This is his compelling story, as told in his own voice.
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As you will hear in this PODCAST, the exact same question that I asked of a couple of hundred of the best high school students you’d ever want to meet. Here’s my question:
Do you want to live your life in the midst of God’s blessing?
If your answer to that question is “Yes,” THIS is what God’s blessing means; THIS is what a God-blessed life looks like.
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As you are about to hear in this new PODCAST, a new day dawned upon these first committed Christ-followers.
If that metaphor of a new day seemingly overstates the case, then at least we can say that a dark cloud now-shadowed the sun for these first committed Christ-followers. Not quite on the level of our eclipse; but portentous just the same. An ominous bellwether that signaled for these early believers a change in the temperature of Holy City.
For the first eight-12 weeks following Crucifixion and Resurrection, these early believers were able to bask in the glow of their newfound faith unmolested.
Not any more.
Persecution was about to break out for first time in the now-2000 year history of Church. Relatively mild at first. No one died. No one was beaten. It was limited to Peter and John.
But as you will hear, it did involve intimidation, incarceration, and threats of greater reprisals if the apostles refused to cease and desist as far as their preaching in Jesus’ name was concerned.
Refuse they did.
This was a harbinger of things to come. A dark cloud heralding a storm. A storm that continues to rage unabated to our day. Not here in America so much. But certainly in many parts of our troubled world, where committed Christ-followers today attend gatherings at great risk of life-threatening peril to themselves and their families.
As is becoming increasing clear in our ongoing study of Peter in HD, we stand in awe at the strength and resilience of these very first believers—our ancestors in faith, to whom we owe so much, and who have SO MUCH to teach us. As they will do here in this week’s study.
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It is an elegantly simple, straightforward, non-controversial statement (at least in original language).
Yet, as you will hear in this PODCAST, one that has led to nearly 2000 years of confusion. Confusion over things like:
What is the proper mode of baptism? (Sprinkling? Immersing?) Should babies be baptized?
Is baptism a sacrament? An ordinance? What’s the difference between the two? And what does it matter?
Must someone be baptized in order to be saved? And if you have not been baptized, are you then not going to Heaven?
My, oh my. How adept we humans are at taking something so supremely simple, and making it so insufferably complicated.
My friends, we have a lot to talk about.
Specifically: We need to talk about:
1. What did Peter actually say?
2. What did Peter not say?
3. What is the Scriptural significance of baptism?
4. Where exactly did Peter say this? IOW, is this story even plausible? Where in the Jerusalem of Jesus’ day do you find enough water to baptize three thousand people?
5. What are implications of Peter’s words for us today?
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While I am away speaking at a Middle School Camp on the East Coast, I have left you in wonderfully capable hands. Those of our old and dear friend, John the Baptizer.
John the Baptizer is, by his own admission, a walking contradiction. As you will hear in this PODCAST, he had a remarkable beginning, and yet a dismal crash and burn.
In a word, his faith in Jesus COLLAPSED, completely.
His is quite the story to tell. But as you will hear me say, it is John’s story to tell, not mine.
So, if you can employ a little sanctified imagination, I will do my best to be true to John’s story, and respectful of John’s memory, as I sort of try to “become” (if I can put it that way) John the Baptizer.
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