Today's verse has to do with baptism, a very important topic today. Today's verse is Luke 3:16, not to be confused with John 3:16:
"John answered them all, saying, 'I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."
The ESV Study Bible has this to say about the verse:
"In the two phrases (1) he who is mightier than I is coming and (2) He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire, the Greek word order emphasizes the pronoun "he," pointing to Jesus (cf. John 3:30). John the Baptist's answer indicates that people will know that the Christ has come when he baptizes with the Holy Spirit- which took place at Pentecost in Acts 2. Whether being baptized "with the Holy Spirit and with fire" will be positive (involving the coming of the purifying fire of the Spirit at Pentecost; Acts 1:8; 2:3) or negative (involving the divine judgment of fire; Luke 9:54; 12:49; 17:29) depends on the response of the individual person. See notes on Matt. 3:11 and Acts 2:3."
Today was a momentous occasion for me, as today was the day I was baptized. My grandparents attended this happy event, and it happened near the end of the service. I was led onto the stage, with spare clothes and towels on standby, and waded into the baptismal tub on the stage. My youth pastor was there with me, and he gave a short speech on baptism, and introduced me to the audience. I told the audience why I wanted to be baptized, and what my life verse was. I wanted to be baptized because I had been thinking that, what with my eighteenth birthday coming up, I ought to start off my adult life with something big, a big step in my walk with Christ. My pastor then submerged me in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the deed was done. After the baptism, I was the man of the hour. Everyone, people I knew, people I didn't know, wanted to shake my hand and congratulate me. People who didn't know about the baptism until I told them were excited for me and extended their salutations. It was, in a word, a glorious time of day.
During the main service, before my baptism, the pastor spoke about how only God can justify us, and how He got rid of our old, sinful nature, so that we believers will appear with Christ. Later, after the baptism, during the High School service, the youth pastor there, the same youth pastor who performed my baptismal ceremony, conducted a quiz on candy ingredients. We were given a candy's list of ingredients, and we had to identify what candy it was. I got four out of twenty, and my buddy Nathan got seven out of twenty. The sermon was about David, Uzzah, and the Ark, and how they basically messed up because they weren't following God's plan, a common theme in the Bible. Just goes to show that even the most saintly Biblical superstars can go wrong sometimes. After church, we came home and, joined by some friends, had a lunch of grilled chicken Caesar salad. It was very tasty. I also devoted some time to filling out my first voting form. Funny how there was only one candidate for some of these positions. I spent a lot of time researching the issues and candidates, mostly rinky-dink position like Port Commissioner Position No. 2 or Sewage Commissioner or something, a couple of school district positions and a bunch of taxes. Honestly, I don't even know what half of these people's jobs are. If someone would like to clue me in, I'd be happy to listen.
In other news, I have three new articles up over at Primary Igntion. I have an article on the first issue of my pet character's first ongoing series in "A Look Back: Azrael #1", a review of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Volume 1, and an expose on Black Mask, "Behind the Black Mask", meant to coincide with the release of the new Batman video game, Batman: Arkham Origins.
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