Book Review:
Understanding Baptism
by Bobby Jamieson
A recommended resource for "You Are... a series in Christian Basics"
Review by Mason Phillips

How old are you? 40? 16? 65? I’m 20. Think of the changes you’ve gone through as you’ve aged. Some change is physical, like your joints that are starting to ache when you forget you’re not the athlete you were in high school. Some change is mental, like the child that is learning every day. Some change is emotional, like the relationships that come in and out of our lives. Change is a part of life, and the longer you live the more change you’ll see. But the bottom line is: You’re still you.

Let’s think about baptism, now. Baptism has been around for thousands of years. It’s been a key part of Christianity since Jesus commissioned the apostles to make disciples and baptize them, and, like you and me, it has gone through some pretty major changes. Do we immerse or sprinkle? Infant baptism or believer’s baptism? Does baptism actually do anything or is it just symbolic? What if you don’t do it? The Church has answered those questions in various ways throughout the centuries, and it can be easy to get lost in the midst of it all. Understanding Baptism by Bobby Jamieson provides a short, accessible guide for navigating all of the confusing change that has happened by identifying what makes baptism, baptism.

Jamieson defines baptism as, “a church’s act of affirming and portraying a believer’s union with Christ by immersing him or her in water; and a believer’s act of publicly committing him or herself to Christ and his people, thereby uniting a believer to the church and marking off him or her from the world.” While there is a lot being said in that statement, and he elaborates on it quite a bit, the key point is that baptism is a sign of unification with Christ and the Church. When we are baptized, we are declaring to the world that we follow Jesus. We are also declaring to the world that we are a part of the Church. Jamieson writes, “[baptism] initiates that person into the company of the church, Christ’s new covenant people on earth.” Church is not optional for believers, so neither is baptism. Cyprian of Carthage, an early Church father, wrote, “No one can have God as Father, who does not have the Church as mother.” The Christian life is meant to be lived as a part of Christ’s Church, and baptism serves as the new believer’s initiation ceremony.

Because baptism is the first act of obedience for a Christian, Jamieson argues that baptism should be required for church membership. Throughout the New Testament, there seems to be an assumption that all the believers in a church would be baptized. Jamieson spends an entire chapter presenting an argument for why baptism, true biblical baptism, as defined in the rest of the book, should be considered a criterion for church membership.

As you read this book, I hope you become convinced of how truly important baptism is. Jamieson is aware of the fears and reservations many of us have about being baptized, and he addresses them at length. If you, a friend, or maybe your child, is delaying baptism for any reason, I highly recommend using this book as a resource for having conversations about it. He also addresses some of the misconceptions about baptism that lead people to wonder about their own experience with baptism: Does your baptism “count” if you were a baby? What if you were not really a Christian at the time? Jamieson’s book Understanding Baptism answers these questions and more.

Understanding Baptism is short and readable, and I recommend that you read it for a couple of reasons. First, because baptism is such an important part of the Christian faith, and every Christian should have a basic understanding of it. Jesus commanded it as a part of the Great Commission, after all (Matt. 28:19-20). The second reason is that baptism is, ultimately, a matter of obedience. You either obey Christ, or you do not. This book will, hopefully, help give you a true biblical understanding of baptism.