How much should a person know before being baptized into Christ? It’s a good question, and one we need to consider as we teach people the gospel. On the one hand, some accounts of conversions in Acts seem to imply a very introductory understanding of the facts about Jesus. Cornelius (Acts 10) and the Philippian jailer (Acts 16) were baptized at their first hearing of the good news, apparently without any in-depth discussion of all that discipleship requires. At least, no such discussion is recorded. On the other hand, biblical teaching about repentance and the costs of discipleship needs to be made clear to prospective Christians before they make an ill-informed commitment that they may not be inclined to keep. Obviously, they cannot be fully advised of every difficult spot on the road to heaven that they will encounter. But they need to be aware that “we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God<\/em>” (Acts 14:22), and that anything less than total devotion to Christ is useless.<\/p>\n This seems to be the point of some of our Lord’s teaching. Please read Luke 9:57-62 and 14:25-35, where Jesus bluntly insists that one must be prepared to give up everything to follow Him. Repentance itself involves change – something that many people are simply not intending to do. Unfaithful Christians are sometimes Christians who didn’t make this fundamental commitment at the start, only to find somewhere down the road that Christ demands more than they are willing to give.<\/p>\n The rich young ruler (Mark 10) might have made a ‘good” lukewarm Christian. But Jesus saved him the trouble. We do no one a favor by watering down a message that will face them, undiluted, in judgment.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Jim King How much should a person know before being baptized into Christ? It’s a good question, and one we need to consider as we teach people the gospel. On the one hand, some accounts of conversions in Acts seem to imply a very introductory understanding of the facts about Jesus. Cornelius (Acts 10)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[52,390,1093],"class_list":["post-57068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-baptism","tag-conversion","tag-knowledge"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":49619,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/six-questions-about-baptism\/","url_meta":{"origin":57068,"position":0},"title":"Six Questions About Baptism","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"by Matthew W. Bassford This lesson was prompted by a series of questions passed to me by one of the young people in the congregation.\u00a0 They are all very thoughtful, and they are all on the subject of baptism. I think publicly exploring the topic is important.\u00a0 Others may be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92783,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-cleaning-the-conscience-by-jesus-blood-come-before-any-obedience\/","url_meta":{"origin":57068,"position":1},"title":"Does Cleaning the Conscience by Jesus’ Blood Come Before Any Obedience?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 24, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Hebrews 9:14 says that He \"offered Himself without spot to God,\" and this was to \"purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.\" Does Jesus purge our conscience before we hear the gospel, believe it, repent of sins, and are baptized in His\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92363,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-baptism-only-for-the-jews-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":57068,"position":2},"title":"Was baptism only for the Jews? (3)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 28, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good day. Does I Corinthians 12:13 refer to Holy Spirit baptism? Was water baptism only for the Jews? Did it stop when Paul got his assignment to the Gentiles? Thanks. Answer: I Corinthians 12:13 tells us who was behind the means by which we can be saved. The Holy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68764,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-umbrella-nature-of-the-term-faith\/","url_meta":{"origin":57068,"position":3},"title":"The Umbrella Nature of the Term \u201cFaith\u201d","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 7, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton One preacher (Stephen Whitsett) argued the following: \"In the same way, it would be possible that Acts 2:38 is indeed communicating the fact that they were to be baptized \"as the result of\" or \"because\" they already had believed and in doing so had already received\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27997,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-baptism-unnecessary-for-salvation-because-every-conversion-in-acts-doesnt-mention-baptism\/","url_meta":{"origin":57068,"position":4},"title":"Is baptism unnecessary for salvation because every conversion in Acts doesn’t mention baptism?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi. I received the below email and am having a tough time responding to these verses in regards to is baptism being necessary for salvation. I was hoping you might be able to help with these verses. Thank you Here are the places in Acts that you need to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31173,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-a-person-be-baptized-again-if-he-was-baptized-for-the-wrong-purpose\/","url_meta":{"origin":57068,"position":5},"title":"Should a person be baptized again if he was baptized for the wrong purpose?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good day sir. Well done on your website. I just finished reading the \"Baptism: Necessary for Salvation\" posting. and quickly browsed your other links. I was encouraged by your website and the fact that you used scripture to back up what you were stating when it came to salvation.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}