Baptism in the name of Jesus

Baptism in the name of Jesus is one of the practices through which Luke–Acts depicts people entering the community of the Realm. It is not treated as an isolated rite: repentance, baptism, and reception of the Holy Spirit together characterize full participation, while baptism also signifies forgiveness, release from the powers of the old age, and incorporation into a community that welcomes people previously kept at its margins.

Meaning and Place in the Community

In Luke–Acts, baptism represents forgiveness of sins, but forgiveness has a larger scope than the pardon of individual transgressions. Sin is also understood as a power belonging to the old age; to receive forgiveness is therefore to be released from that power’s ultimate domination. Baptism marks initiation into the community of the Realm and assures the Ethiopian eunuch that the forces that have broken his life do not determine its ultimate significance. He has a place in the community, which, in a figurative sense, becomes his family of sons and daughters.

The discussion connects this welcome to the eunuch’s circumstances and to the symbolism of water. In antiquity, water could signify life, fertility, and generativity, associations especially potent in a semi-arid wilderness setting. Baptism thus represents the return of generativity: people who identify with the eunuch are not ultimately cut off or rendered fruitless. Because baptism creates a community, that community is called to foster generativity both among its participants and in other communities.

The rite also establishes a shared identity that carries obligations beyond the moment of initiation. The book urges congregations to consider how baptism gives identity, commissions people for mission, and brings them into common life and witness. Remembering baptism can therefore lead members to renew their commitments to a baptized life, rather than treating baptism as a completed personal milestone.

The Pattern of Repentance, Baptism, and the Spirit

Luke’s account of Apollos presents a distinction between an incomplete beginning and fuller participation. Apollos is eloquent and well versed in scripture, and he teaches, but he has received only the baptism of John. In the book’s account of the community’s entry practice, this is incomplete discipleship: participation involves repentance, baptism in the name of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Apollos’s learning and leadership do not make further growth unnecessary.

A related episode occurs at Ephesus, where Paul encounters people who regard themselves as disciples of Jesus but have not heard of the Holy Spirit and have received only John’s baptism. Paul explains that John directed people to believe in Jesus. They are then baptized, receive the Spirit, and experience a version of Pentecost. The sequence makes the Spirit integral to the book’s understanding of full-bodied discipleship, not an optional addition to a rite already complete.

The same pattern shapes the account of Cornelius and the gentiles. Cornelius is a gentile and a Roman centurion, a God-fearer who prays and gives alms without fully converting to Judaism. Peter’s preaching is followed by the gentiles’ reception of the Holy Spirit, their praise of God, and their baptism. The events echo what happened among the Jewish community at Pentecost: the Spirit falls on those who hear, they speak in other languages, and they acknowledge the supremacy of the God of Israel. Through receiving the Spirit and being baptized, gentiles become full participants in the community moving toward the Realm.

This episode presents baptism as part of a communal change with consequences for the church’s boundaries. The evidence for the gentile mission is not confined to an argument about doctrine: it includes the gentiles’ experience of the Spirit and their baptism. Their reception demonstrates that the community’s life cannot be restricted to its prior membership. The book consequently treats welcome to gentiles as part of the church’s continuing mission.

Baptism and the Expansion of Belonging

The baptism of Lydia and her household offers another account of incorporation. At Philippi, witnesses meet Lydia by a riverside place of prayer on the Sabbath. She is a gentile seller of purple cloth, a commodity affordable only to the wealthy, and the head of her household. Through baptism, she and the household she heads become part of the community of the Realm. Her story connects baptism with a household’s entry into shared religious life, rather than presenting conversion solely as an individual’s private choice.

The book draws attention to Lydia’s position as a woman who heads her household and makes her own decisions without reference to a man. Her presence signals that women in similar circumstances are welcome in the community. It also signals that people of means need not remain outside its life and mission: their resources can become means of providence for others, while participation in shared life challenges the idolatry of wealth. Baptism, in this setting, accompanies an enlargement of the community across gender and economic position.

A different transformation appears in the account of the Philippian jailer. After an earthquake opens the prison doors and loosens the chains, the jailer believes that the prisoners have escaped and begins to take his own life, fearing the punishment attached to his responsibility for them. Paul urges him not to do so: the witnesses are still there, though free. The jailer believes in Jesus as the one bringing the Realm, takes the witnesses home, and washes their wounds; afterward, everyone in his household is baptized. The official who had represented a system of imprisonment becomes a provider and healer within a household that joins the community.

The jailer’s baptism therefore follows a reversal in conduct and relationship, not simply a change in religious label. The narrative moves from his fear of punishment and intended suicide to Paul’s intervention, hospitality, care for the witnesses, and the baptism of the household. Baptism belongs to the story’s movement from confinement toward life-giving communal responsibility.

Form, Membership, and Christian Practice

Luke–Acts specifies baptism in the name of Jesus, including in the account of Cornelius and the gentiles. The book contrasts this with Matthew’s formulation of baptism in the name of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. It notes that both Matthew and Luke–Acts regard Jesus’ baptism as a model for entry into the community, while their baptismal language differs. Rather than resolving this difference, the discussion asks what a congregation should make of such pluralism.

That contrast also informs the book’s treatment of the lectionary. Acts 10:34–43, assigned as an alternative Easter reading, offers a way to consider the resurrection as a force for the reconstitution of human community, rather than merely as an anticipation of individual eternal life. The account of gentile baptism in Acts 10:44–48 is assigned elsewhere in the lectionary; the book proposes reading the two passages together on the Baptism of Jesus so that congregations can compare how Matthew and Luke–Acts understand baptism and entry into community.

The narrative of the Ephesian disciples raises practical questions about membership and repeated baptism. John’s baptism is distinguished from Christian baptism, yet the disciples are baptized after having received John’s baptism. The account prompts questions about whether Christian baptism may occur more than once, whether baptism must be in water and in Jesus’ or the Trinity’s name, and whether immersion, pouring, or sprinkling is required. These are presented as questions for church deliberation, not settled rules supplied by the account.

Across these episodes, baptism is both a recognizable act and a sign of a larger communal reality: forgiveness, release from the old age, reception of the Spirit, and belonging that crosses established boundaries. The book’s emphasis falls not only on who undergoes the rite but on what kind of community baptism creates—a people called to common life, welcome, and witness while moving toward the Realm.