Why Did Paul Say Christ Didn't Send Him to Baptize?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1, 1 Corinthians 1:17, Ephesians 4, Galatians 3, Romans 6, Colossians 2, Acts 22:16, Acts 16

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--why-did-paul-say-christ-didnt-send-him-to-baptize
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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Well, not at all. Uh, this has a couple of very interesting lessons for hermeneutics or principles of interpretation. The first thing is you always have to look at context. Anytime there is a difficult statement or curious statement, a statement that seems to be contradictory or different from what your understanding is from the rest of scripture, go back and look at the context and don't be limited just by the verse and chapter because those divisions were added later for convenience.

But look at the relevant maybe the entire book or the reverent discussion in a section of that book. Uh second thing is when you look at the epistles you have to realize they're occasional. That means they're written for occasions. So although the Lord inspired them for universal benefit, for our benefit, they're not written like a systematic theology. They're written in response to questions or problems. And so it's like listening to one side of a phone conversation. You don't know what the other person is saying. You can guess a lot of times from hearing the person that you're listening to um what must be stated on the other side, but to fully understand what that person is saying, you you kind of have to either know or guess what they're responding to.

So when you look at 1 Corinthians 1, you immediately see this. Some people in the church in Corinth, Corinth had Paul had started the church, but he was no longer there. And some people had written to him saying, "We've got some problems here." uh and we have some questions. So, can you please address these problems and can you please answer these questions? So, that's really a key to understanding the entire book of 1 Corinthians. What problem is Paul trying to solve and what questions is Paul trying to answer? And in chapter one, you see the immediate problem is there's division. He says, "I'm really upset.

I'm worried to hear this report. There's division, contention. You're divided into factions. Some say I follow Paul. Some say I follow Apollos. Some say I I follow Cphus which was a Aramaic uh name for Peter. And some say probably this is the the most presumptuous of all. I don't follow any of those guys. I follow Jesus Christ. I get direct orders. And he said how can you do this? How can you be divided like this? He said you know was was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul? And so, of course, the obvious answer is no. Jesus Christ was crucified for you and you were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, which by the way is another one of many examples where we see that the early church always baptized with the invocation of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But he's arguing from that, look, you should be united. We should all follow Christ, but we should follow our godly leadership, but not pit one against the other, not be in factions, not do this. And so in that context, he says, "I'm thankful I didn't baptize hardly any of you except just a few of the early converts because you sure enough would be following me. You should you would be saying, "Well, I got baptized by Paul. You only got baptized by Apollos, but I was baptized by the founding pastor." He says, "Thank God I didn't baptize hardly any of you." So, you can't use that argument.

And he says, "By the way, God didn't send me to baptize. He wasn't denigrating baptism." Because if you read the rest of Paul's epistles, uh there's L one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Ephesians 4, Galatians 3, as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Uh Romans 6, you're buried with Christ in baptism. You're baptized into his death. Um Colossians 2, you're buried with Christ in baptism. So Paul is one of the key teachers to say baptism is part of our salvation. is part of entering the family of God, part of the new birth, spiritual circumcision, you know, on and on and on.

In fact, in Paul's own conversion, Acts 22:16, Ananas told Paul, "Why are you tearing? Why are you waiting longer? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord." So Paul wouldn't have repudied his own experience. A baptism was actually for the remission of sins. So you would have to negate Paul's own experience as well as the rest of the New Testament and specifically the rest of the writings of Paul to say that somehow baptism is not important or not part of salvation. But going back to my original context, Paul was basically a traveling missionary. He would go into a new area like Corinth.

He would establish a church. So to do that, he would baptize some of the first people. But once he got some solid converts and he always went to the Jews first because they were the people of God. Plus they would be more likely candidates for early leadership because they already believed the Bible. They already believed the one true God. They already understood repentance. They already sed faith. They understood holiness. So if he could get them to believe on Jesus, be baptized in Jesus name before the Holy Spirit, they could soon become leaders of the church. And if you read in Acts 16, Paul's method as Paul and Barnabas would go places and then later Paul and Silas, they would go to a church, make converts, stay there a while, and then ordain elders in every church.

So yes, Paul would baptize a few early converts, but he probably let Barnabas and Silas do that as well and other members of his party as but then as soon as they had elders, he would turn that over to the local pastors because the people needed to get connected to their local church, their local pastor. And so no, he wouldn't baptize a lot of people. That's like me in my pastoral ministry. Of course, I baptized many people. But as our church grew, I allowed our associate pastor and other minister to baptize, especially if they had helped um you know, bring someone to church or taught them a Bible study.

Then I would often let others baptize. And of course today I'm not tied down as a pastor of one church but I'm preaching everywhere teaching uh you know most weekends if I'm I'm preaching in a church and most of the time somebody's going to receive the Holy Ghost somebody's going to be baptized but I never baptize them. I go there to preach and to encourage to uplift to teach uh to help people receive the Holy Ghost but I don't go there to baptize people. So I could say the same thing as Paul. I traveled. I ministered in over 80 countries around the world. I've ministered every state of the union, uh, every province of Canada.

But I could say I don't go to the baptized. I I baptize very, very few. only if someone only if I'm in a new country where I'm helping break new territory which has happened a few times I might personally baptize or unless the pastor for some reason very specifically there's some reason but otherwise I will go a whole year and never baptize anybody uh so I could honestly say God has sent me to preach around the world teach and win souls but he didn't send me to baptize and it's not denigrating baptism it's saying it really doesn't matter the personality or identity of the one baptizing you.

You shouldn't boast or brag of who baptized you. You should boast of Jesus Christ who died for you was buried and whose name is being called over you. So no, Christ didn't send me to baptize. He sent me to start churches and win souls. But it's obviously understood if you read the rest of Paul's writings that part of that process people will be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so Paul's words actually fit very well with our experience today.