G'day everyone. I am a proud papa today. I just came back (on Saturday) from a Baptism class at Hosanna led by Pastors Larry and Susan Fannon. Our daughters Asia (age 16) and Olivia (age 13) have chosen to be baptized and attended the class as part of their baptism which will take place today. The class was great and I learned another great verse that supports Baptism of all Christians. Take a look at Matthew 3:15, where Jesus asks John to baptize him, and John says he's not worthy to. Here is Jesus' response – " But Jesus said, "It should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires.*" So John agreed to baptize him". (Matthew 3:15 - NLT). So baptism is a requirement from God for the Christian life. In the Great Commission, Jesus commanded it, God requires it, so we should do it!
Second, I found what I thought was a really interesting article in the Washington Post on China's religious explosion. What's going on in China? Here are portions from the article: Constitutional changes in 1982 led to greater freedom of religion, all this is very sudden. It was barely 25 years ago since the Amity Press, the official press for the Patriotic Church, started printing Chinese Bibles. Only three years since Hu Jintao, president and general secretary of the Communist party told the Chinese Politburo:"We must strive to closely unite religious figures and believers... to build an all-around...prosperous society while quickening the pace towards modernization and socialism". These are sentiments supported in public statements by Premier Wen Jiabao.
This has resulted in more Muslims in China than in the whole of Europe. There are more practicing Protestants in China than in Britain. More practicing Catholics than in Italy. And an estimated 100 million or more people who consider themselves Buddhists. … Official Chinese surveys show that nearly one in three Chinese describe themselves as religious. This is not where they were 30 years ago.
Tom's thought: China is now an open field where different religions are staking their claims to a country with over 19% of the world's population (see Wikipedia). With over 1.3 billion people, it is difficult to expect that China will continue to allow the expansion of Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. Something's gotta give.
Link to the article is here.
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