LENT DAY 19: Abusing Baptism

 Day 19 Wednesday - Mar 15, 2023; Mar 6, 2024; Mar 26, 2025

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? -1 Corinthians 1:13

This comes from one of the oddest passages on baptism. It is so odd because Paul speaks so negatively of the sacrament. He even goes so far as to be glad he hardly baptized anyone in that church (1 Corinthians 1:14-16). If baptism is this great thing we’ve been talking about, why would he say that?

A sacrament, like every other good thing God has given us, is something we are very much able to misuse. We can take the gift of a child and turn that little babe into an idol. We can be entrusted with a vocation that is meant to be a blessing to our community, and use it to embezzle, cheat, or in some other way wrong our neighbor. We can take the name of God and use it to wage war, justify genocide, and disown our children. There is a reason Jesus teaches us to pray “hallowed be thy name.”

And when it comes to baptism, we are most definitely entrusted with God’s name and expected to use it rightly. Paul reminds them of this: were you baptized in the name of Paul? In the church in Corinth, divisions had arisen and one of the ways people were dividing was over baptism: which pastor did your baptism? Who will you side with then? To Paul, this was an abomination and an absurd distinction to make. It was Christ who died for you and his name you were baptized into. We cannot make baptism into something of an elite club. We cannot make it about what church denomination it happened in, what age we were when we were baptized, the way we were baptized (were you sprinkled or dipped?), or what pastor performed it. When the church starts using baptism to divide itself, then we like Paul should want as little to do with those baptisms as possible.

In verse 17 Paul puts it all out there: he says, “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel…”. Paul never baptized people for baptism’s sake or to make a group of Paulites who would always follow him. Paul was an apostle, sent on behalf of Christ. And he was sent to proclaim his gospel. That’s the only reason he ever baptized. The minute we start baptizing for another reason, we’ve started misusing it.

The good news with baptism is this: if you have been using baptism for the wrong reason, you can start believing in it for what it is now! This is what Paul was asserting to them. While they were dividing over baptism, later he proclaims to them “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13). The very thing they were dividing over proclaimed a wondrous unity! It’s time to start believing that.

Help me, Holy Spirit, to use my baptism rightly. Gather and enlighten me into your one holy church with the entire communion of saints. Use this sacrament to unite by proclaiming to us the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.