Professor Aronnax, Coffee, the Church

After yesterday morning’s Bible reading over coffee with Captain Nemo, I join slightly more sane company this morning aboard the Nautilus.

“When I reflect that this marvelous electric agent, after having afforded motion, heat, and light to the Nautilus, still protected her from outward attack, and transformed her into an ark of safety, which no profane hand might touch without being thunderstricken, my admiration was unbounded, and from the structure it extended to the engineer who had called it into existence.”
- Professor Pierre Aronnax, “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” (Jules Verne)

Christ, the Engineer of His Church (Matthew 16:13-19) and Preacher of His saving righteousness (2 Peter 2:5), brings us through the waters safely home (Psalm 65:7; Revelation 17:15). I look forward to being with His people today at the Table and in the Word, His shipbuilding means of grace (Ephesians 5:26). See it by faith, beloved (Hebrews 11:7)! May our admiration be unbounded for the Engineer and His Ark!

Captain Nemo, Coffee, Baptism

“I had done with the world on the day when my Nautilus plunged for the first time beneath the waters.”

- Captain Nemo, “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” (Jules Verne)

Waking up with the Captain and coffee on the mind...read through the N.T. passages on baptism, including: “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you - not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience - through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him” (1 Peter 3:18-22).

And: “Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brethren, what shall we do?’ Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.’ And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, ‘Be saved from this perverse generation!’” (Acts 2:37-40).

And: “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

And: “...having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, Who raised Him from the dead” (Colossians 2:12).

His promise in baptism is sure in Christ, no matter what the world throws our way, Church.