1. Throughout the Scriptures, God puts "signs" or "seals" upon people. Often these are placed upon the forehead. How do all these connected stories take us from the mark of Cain, to the Exodus, to the cross, and finally to baptism?
  2. Is there ever a time when someone needs to be re-baptized? Not if we believe that God is the one who does the baptizing.
  3. In the wilderness, God reaches down to show us that the only life is in one place: where there is water.
  4. The kingdom of God is not a place, a thing, a concept, a philosophy, a spiritual force, or a state of being. The kingdom of God is a person.
  5. As we do in daily life, so we have done in our reading of the Bible: we have placed ourselves at the center, and Christ at the periphery.
  6. When Lamech named his newborn son Noah—which means “rest”—he said, “This one shall give us comfort from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed”
  7. Some things, once they are deemed disgusting or contaminated, permanently carry that quality with them. These things are even thought to be “contagious,” negatively affecting whatever they come into contact with.
  8. When people are baptized, time is transcended. They go back to the Jordan and the Jordan comes forward to them. In a single splash, or a single dunk, they enter the war.
  9. In Christ, God’s Son, yesterday, today, and tomorrow all collapse into one. He holds in himself everything from the beginning to the end of the world.
  10. A single, fifteen minute sermon that proclaims Christ and him crucified for you is more important than hundreds of hours of lectures by experts on revitalizing your ministry.
  11. Old Testament narratives foreshadowed the gifts that our Father gives us in baptism.
  12. In those waters we are nailed to his cross and washed out the door of his tomb. Within his wounds we safely hide.
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