It’s serendipitous that two folks would be talking about salvation at the same time. Alan is working on a comprehensive series on his site. For my friends that are not from a Restoration Movement background, it is not a discussion on baptism, it is a discussion on what constitutes a saving faith. In other words, what does a person need to know in order to be saved. I say that because I’m linking to him – a discussion of baptism is a non-sequitir.

Last Sunday, we were covering this topic in Sunday School. Unlike Alan’s series, though, we actually talk about baptism. It’s partly the what-you-need-to-know part with the how-do-I-get-saved part. I’ve attached it as a Word filefor your perusal. It has a few diagrams that do not translate well into web formatting, so I leave it in all it’s M$ glory.

I got to co-teach this lesson. Our minister is on call once a month as a chaplain in a local hospital, so he gets a helper just in case he has to leave. (The same is true for the Sunday sermon as well.) This short lesson is designed to get people talking about salvation and what it means to them. It is by no means comprehensive, but it does get down to the essentials. The essentials are: relationship, grace, and faith.

I like it better than the traditional, Hear, Believe, Confess, Repent, Baptized formula because salvation is more than a procedure. Coming from two traditions that can be dogmatic about proper procedure, I understand that the message can easily get lost in the method. It’s simultaneously funny and sad that so many aspects of the Christian faith devolve into arguments over proper procedures and methods.

Salvation is primarily about relationship, not baptism. In helping people to know God, I would much rather point them to the relationship and talk about what that means. Whether or not you believe in original sin, the fact remains that the relationship between God and a person is broken because of sin.

Like any broken relationship there must be trust to repair the breech. God does all he can to demonstrate his trustworthiness: sacrificing his Son, extending grace, showing love to us. The most important thing to see is that God is reaching out to us.

For our part, there must be faith. It’s one thing to be given a great gift, it’s another to attach significance to that gift. Yes, God sacrificed his Son for us, but there is no meaning unless we have faith. Thousands of people were crucified by the Romans. Many Jewish people were crucified in Judea in the first century AD. Various cults believed that people had returned from death. Knowing this has no power. However, once we believe that the sacrifice and resurrection of this specific individual has cosmic meaning, then there is power. I can say that the Flying Spaghetti Monster assures us through the comforting touch of his noodly appendage, it’s another to actually believe that FSM is more than a satire of intelligent design. (and a good one BTW)

So if this individual, this Jesus, is part of the reconciliation process, who is He? That pretty much leads into Alan’s series again. What you need to know is important. Before the what, though, it is important to understand the why. God desires relationship. Without the understanding of relationship, the life and times of Jesus is nothing more than a biography.