Ben asks Dan — just back from Zimbabwe — to tell the story from a 75-year-old historic church at the center of a mission area, where they held a revival and a vacation Bible school with hundreds of kids. Dan recounts a Saturday night when teens poured in and worshipped deafeningly loud with no band, then he preached the covenant in God: the promise to Abraham in Genesis 15 and the 'cutting the contract' — animals cut in half — traced through the Red Sea, Mount Sinai, and the cross, where Jesus dies between 'two carcasses' to keep the promise. Forty-five people came forward and kept pouring in until they added benches; the next morning Dan and his friend John baptized person after person, and the local preacher said they'd never experienced anything like it. Dan notes he preached the same sermon in America on Easter to 'that was nice.'
More on Baptism
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Is skinny dipping in the Sea of Galilee sacrilegious?
- Is skinny dipping in the Sea of Galilee sacrilegious?
The hosts debate the hard question: one argues the category of 'sacrilegious' itself is man-made — something is sin or it isn't — and that the congressman's real problem was foolishness, not location (Jesus was in a boat there; it is moving, recycled water).
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Chat questions: what must one do to be saved?
- What must one do to be saved?
- At what point is someone saved?
Reading listener questions from the chat — one host tosses the first to Dan by name — the hosts answer that faith is always the baseline: belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of the living God who died physically and rose physically, since 'demons believe and shudder' too.
From No. 34 · Where Do I Start?
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Dawson: everything feels like a sales pitch
Mike asks Dawson where the church presents community poorly. Dawson: everything feels like a sales pitch now — every invitation defended with ten reasons, which makes people suspicious.
From No. 590 · Theodore Franco
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Baptism Sunday spectacle: mascot, dunk Sunday, inflatables
Ben describes a church advertising a big baptism Sunday complete with a basketball-team mascot, “dunk Sunday,” rides, and inflatables, and asks whether meeting Jesus is really that life-changing or whether churches fluff it up.
From No. 588 · hypokritēs