The Ordinances of the Church: The Waters and the Table

Lesson 11 • The Ordinances of the Church: The Waters and the Table — New Members (discipleship class).

Water baptism and the Lord's Supper: the two things the Lord Jesus left to His Church to be seen. A preparation class for those who have recently believed and are about to take part in both.

Marcas do Evangelho Church — Cariacica, Brazil • New Members Class • 3rd Quarter of 2026.

✶ Golden Text — 1 Corinthians 11:26

"For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes." (1 Corinthians 11:26)

• Study Texts — Matthew 28:19 · Romans 6:3-4 · Acts 2:41-42 · Luke 22:19-20 · 1 Corinthians 11:23-29
• Scripture Reading in Class — Romans 6:3-5 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-29
• Bible version — Scripture quotations in this translation are copied from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), never from memory. Greek transliterations follow the standard academic convention.

Seeing the Word

Beloved new member, open with me the first page of our Church Covenant. Before any commitment, before the Petrine Principle, before anything else, the Covenant begins like this:

"Having, as we believe, been brought by divine grace to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to surrender our lives totally to Him, and having been baptized upon our profession of faith, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we unanimously decide, as one body in Christ Jesus, to establish, solemnly and joyfully, in the presence of God, our covenant of commitment to one another."

— Preamble to the Church Covenant of ADME

Notice what you have just read. Before taking on the first commitment, the Covenant already presupposes two things about you: that you have repented and believed, and that you have been baptized upon your profession of faith. The entrance door of this house passes through the waters.

And further on, in the section on the Word, the same Covenant says that we will learn to do five things with Scripture: read the Word, preach the Word, sing the Word, pray the Word — and see the Word, in the ordinances.

Seeing the Word. Stop for a moment on that. A word is something we hear. A word is something we read. A word is something we sing and pray. But see? How do you see a word?

The answer is that the Lord Jesus, when leaving His Church in this world, did not hand her only words. He also handed her water, bread, and a cup. Two things that do not enter through the ear — they enter through the eyes, through the hands, through wet skin, through bread in the mouth.

He did this because He knows the clay from which we were made. He knows that we forget. He knows that Sunday's sermon has already vanished from your memory by Tuesday. And so He gave His Church two things that memory does not lose, because the body took part in them.

✶ The sentence that sums up the whole lesson

Preaching is the Word that is heard. The ordinances are the Word that is seen.

In this lesson we will deal with these two things. You will take part in both of them in this house — in one, a single time in your life; in the other, every first Sunday of the month, as long as the Lord gives you breath. And it is my pastoral duty to ensure that you do neither of them without understanding what you are doing.

Part I — What an ordinance is

1) Two words and a choice

Historic Christianity uses two different words to name these acts. It is worth knowing both, because each one illuminates a side of the truth.

Sacrament comes from the Latin sacramentum, which in the Roman world was the solemn oath of the soldier upon entering the legion. The man raised his hand before the standard and swore loyalty unto death. It was a public, irreversible commitment, with witnesses. Whoever first applied this word to baptism saw something true: whoever goes down into the waters is taking the oath of the soldier of Christ.

Ordinance comes simply from to ordain. It is the act that the Lord ordained for His Church to practice. It is not a custom that the church invented, nor a tradition that accumulated over time — it is a direct commandment from the mouth of Christ, and therefore it is not subject to vote, preference, or modernization.

We, in the Assemblies of God, prefer the word ordinance. Not out of contempt for the other, but because it preserves better what we most need to remember: baptism and the Lord's Supper are not here because the church liked them. They are here because Christ commanded them. And what Christ commands, the Church does not debate — she obeys.

How many ordinances did the Lord institute? Two. Only two. Not one more. The Church does many good things — lays on hands, anoints with oil, prays for the sick, consecrates church workers, celebrates weddings — and all of this has a biblical basis and real value. But as an ordinance in the strict sense, an act that Christ Himself instituted and commanded the Church to repeat until His return, there are two: water baptism and the Lord's Supper.

2) Why God gave visible signs

Someone might ask: if the Gospel is proclaimed with words, and if faith comes by hearing the message of the Word of God (Romans 10:17), what is the point of getting people wet and sharing bread? Would preaching not be enough?

It would not be enough. And the reason is pastoral, not theoretical.

The human being is a bodily creature. God did not make us floating spirits — He made us from dust, with eyes, hands, skin, tongue. And He has always spoken to His people through things that are seen. The rainbow after the flood. The blood on the doorposts on the night of the Passover. The bronze serpent lifted up in the wilderness. The ark, the altar, the incense, the veil. God is the God of the preached Word — and He is also the God of the visible sign, because He knows our weakness.

When the Lord Jesus came, He gathered all those signs and fulfilled them in Himself. And He left two — only two — for the age of the Church. One that is done once, marking the beginning. Another that is repeated always, sustaining the way.

✶ The image to keep for your whole life

Baptism is the door. The Lord's Supper is the table of the house.

You walk through the door once. You sit at the table your whole life.

3) What the ordinances do not do

And here, new member, I need to be very clear with you, because at this point many people get lost and some churches have been lost for centuries.

Water does not wash away sin. Bread is not a medicine of salvation. The cup does not confer eternal life on someone who has not believed. There is no automatic salvation inside these ordinances, as if they worked by themselves, regardless of the faith of the one who receives them. Whoever goes down into the waters without having been born again comes up wet and lost — Mark 4 has already taught us this in plain words.

Are the ordinances, then, merely empty symbols? Not that either. And this is the other error, equally dangerous and today much more common in Brazilian churches: treating baptism as a formality and the Lord's Supper as a five-minute religious snack at the end of the worship service.

Biblical truth lies between the two extremes, and our Wesleyan heritage expresses it with precision: the ordinances are means of grace. They do not produce grace — they receive it and channel it. They are channels through which the Holy Spirit truly works in the life of the believer who draws near in faith.

When you go down into the waters believing, something real happens. When you eat of the bread discerning the Lord's body, something real happens. Not because the water and the bread have power — but because the Holy Spirit honors the means that He Himself ordained.

A means of grace is not an automatic machine. It is an open channel. The outlet does not manufacture electricity, but whoever does not plug in the appliance stays in the dark complaining about the lack of light.

	Error on one side	Error on the other side	What we believe
Baptism	The water saves by itself	It is just a formality	Means of grace: it proclaims what has already happened and the Spirit honors obedience
The Lord's Supper	The elements turn into the physical body	It is just a mental reminder	Means of grace: the Lord feeds His own at His Table, by the Spirit

Part II — The waters: baptism

Let us go to the waters first, because that is where one enters.

4) The word the Holy Spirit chose

When the New Testament speaks of baptism, it does not use just any word. It uses a word that already had a defined meaning in common Greek, long before the Christian church existed.

⚓ In the original — the word that decides the mode

βαπτίζω (baptízō) — "to dip, to submerge, to immerse, to sink". In secular Greek, it was the verb used for a ship that sinks, for the cloth that the dyer plunges completely into the dye until it changes color, for the vessel that is thrust into the water until it fills up. The central idea of the word is complete submersion, not partial sprinkling.

βάπτισμα (báptisma) — "baptism", the act itself, the rite. It is the noun that names the ordinance: immersion as a public and one-time event in the believer's life.

ῥαντίζω (rhantízō) — "to sprinkle". It exists in the New Testament, in other contexts.

ἐκχέω (ekchéō) — "to pour out". It also exists in the New Testament, in other contexts.

Notice what this means. If the Holy Spirit had wanted to say to sprinkle, there was a Greek word for that. If He had wanted to say to pour out, there was another. Both were available and both are used. But when it comes to baptism, the word chosen is always baptízō. To immerse. It is the two words He did not use that prove the force of the one He did use.

5) By immersion — and the text shows it

It is not only the word that teaches the mode. It is the narrative.

First. When John baptized the Lord Jesus, Matthew records that once Jesus was baptized, He came up immediately out of the water (Matthew 3:16). Whoever comes up must first have gone down. And someone who receives only a few drops on the forehead does not need to come up from anywhere.

Second. John was baptizing at Aenon because there was much water there (John 3:23). If baptism were by sprinkling, a single pitcher would suffice. The choice of the place was determined by the volume of water required.

Third. The Ethiopian eunuch and Philip: he ordered the chariot to stop, both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him; and then they came up out of the water (Acts 8:38-39). The text makes a point of recording both movements — going down and coming up.

And there is a theological reason that makes immersion not merely preferable, but necessary: baptism is the enactment of a burial. And no one buries a body by sprinkling dirt on its forehead. To bury is to cover completely. We will return to this shortly.

6) Who is baptized

The New Testament never presents a single case of anyone being baptized without first believing. The order is always the same, without exception: hear, believe, repent, be baptized.

"Those who embraced his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to the believers that day." (Acts 2:41)

They gladly received his word — and afterward were baptized. In this order. And when the eunuch asked to be baptized, Philip's answer was a condition, not a formality: it was permissible if he believed with all his heart (Acts 8:37). The Lord Jesus Himself established the sequence, declaring that whoever believes and is baptized will be saved (Mark 16:16). Believing first. Always.

That is why we do not baptize infants. Not because we do not love children — our house invests as a priority in children's ministry, as the Covenant declares. Rather, it is because baptism requires a personal faith that an infant cannot yet exercise. We dedicate children to the Lord, pray for them, teach them from the womb, and wait with joy for the day when they themselves believe and ask for the waters out of their own conviction.

And when someone asks about the entire households baptized in Acts — that of Cornelius, that of Lydia, that of the Philippian jailer — the text itself answers. Of the jailer it is written that he rejoiced because he had believed in God with his whole household (Acts 16:34). The whole household believed, and therefore the whole household was baptized. Faith preceded the waters there as well.

Baptism without faith is a bath. Faith without baptism is half-obedience.

7) What baptism means

Now we come to the heart of the matter. What exactly is being said when a believer goes down into the waters before the congregation?

First: a death, a burial, and a resurrection.

"Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:3-4)

Everything is here. Baptism is the public enactment of the Gospel in your own body. You go down — and that is the burial of the old self, who has already died with Christ on the cross. You disappear beneath the water — and that instant declares that the old life is over. You come up — and that proclaims the resurrection, the newness of life, the new self who walks with Christ.

And pay close attention to this, because it is what separates biblical faith from superstition: baptism does not make any of this happen. Baptism announces that it has already happened. The death of the old self took place on the cross; your spiritual resurrection took place on the day you believed. The waters simply make public, visible, and unforgettable what the Holy Spirit has already wrought within you.

Second: a clothing with Christ.

Paul writes to the Galatians: "For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." (Galatians 3:27) The Greek verb is the same one used for putting on a garment. It is as though the believer, upon coming out of the waters, came out clothed with Christ before the world. From that day forward, whoever looks at you ought to see whose you are.

Third: a clear conscience before God.

Peter writes a sentence that has confused many people. Speaking of Noah's ark, he says of baptism: "And this water symbolizes the baptism that now saves you also — not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God — through the resurrection of Jesus Christ," (1 Peter 3:21)

Read it calmly, because Peter himself, in the very same sentence, explains what he means and what he does not mean. It is not the dirt of the body that the water removes — he expressly rules that out. What saves is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Baptism is the figure, the appeal, the pledge of a conscience that has been cleansed by the blood and now presents itself before God in public obedience.

Fourth: an oath of loyalty.

And here we return to the Roman soldier. By going down into the waters you are saying, before witnesses: I belong to Jesus Christ, and I no longer belong to myself. "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," (Matthew 28:19) — because baptism is performed in the name of the Triune God, and it is in Him that your life has been placed.

8) Waters and Spirit: two baptisms, not one

A brief but indispensable distinction, so that you do not confuse what the Bible separates.

Water baptism is what we are dealing with in this lesson: an ordinance, performed once, by immersion, upon profession of faith, a public testimony of union with Christ in His death and resurrection.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is something else: the experience of being clothed with power for witness and service, which we, as a Pentecostal church, believe in and seek, as we have already studied in Mark 11.

They are not the same thing, neither replaces the other, and neither renders the other dispensable. In Acts 8, the Samaritans were baptized in water and only afterward received the Spirit. In Acts 10, at the house of Cornelius, the opposite happened — the Spirit came down first, and Peter commanded them to be baptized in water right after. The order may vary; the necessity of both does not.

9) How we practice baptism at Marcas do Evangelho

• By immersion, always — in faithfulness to the meaning of the word and to the significance of burial.
• In the formula the Lord ordained — in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
• Only upon personal profession of faith, never under emotional pressure. As Mark 4 committed us: we perform baptisms out of doctrinal conviction, not emotional immersion.
• Preceded by the new converts' course. No one goes down into the waters in this house without first having been taught what he or she is doing — which is precisely this lesson you are receiving right now.
• Publicly, before the gathered congregation, because an oath without witnesses is no oath.

Part III — The table: the Lord's Supper

If baptism is the door, the Lord's Supper is the family table. And in this house that table is set every first Sunday of the month.

10) The names of the Table

The New Testament calls this ordinance by several names, and each name reveals a facet of it.

⚓ In the original — five names, five facets

δεῖπνον κυριακόν (deîpnon kyriakón) — "the Lord's Supper" (1 Corinthians 11:20). Deîpnon was the main meal of the day, the evening meal, the one that gathered the family around the table. And kyriakón tells whose table it is: it is not ours, it is the Lord's. We are guests, not hosts.

κλάσις τοῦ ἄρτου (klásis toû ártou) — "the breaking of bread" (Acts 2:42). This is how Luke describes the constant practice of the early church, alongside the apostles' doctrine, fellowship, and prayers. It was not a rare event — it was the rhythm of life of the community.

εὐχαριστήσας (eucharistḗsas) — "having given thanks", the participle used in the accounts of the institution (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24). From this comes the word eucharist. The Table is not a place of morbid sadness: it is thanksgiving. The Lord gave thanks on the night He was betrayed.

κοινωνία (koinōnía) — "fellowship, joint participation". Paul asks: "Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 10:16) Eating from the Table is participating, together with all the brothers and sisters, in what Christ has done.

ἀνάμνησις (anámnēsis) — "memorial, remembrance". It is the word behind the command to do this in remembrance of Him (Luke 22:19). It is not the cold recollection of a distant fact. In the biblical world, a memorial is the act that brings the past into the present — like the Passover, in which every generation of Israel was to say that the Lord had brought them out of Egypt themselves.

11) The night the Table was set

"And He took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body, given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.”" (Luke 22:19-20)

Notice the moment. It was not on a quiet morning of teaching. It was on the night in which He was betrayed, with Judas still at the table, with the cross only a few hours away. The Lord knew exactly what was coming — and He used those final hours to leave His own a sign that would cross twenty centuries.

And it was the Passover. Christ took the meal that for fifteen hundred years had reminded Israel of the slain lamb and the blood on the doorposts, and said: it is I. The lamb was I. The blood is mine. And He instituted, in place of the shadow, the reality.

12) What happens at the Table — neither magic nor theater

Here, new member, there are two historical errors that we reject, and a truth that we embrace.

The first error: the transformation of the substance. There are those who teach that the bread ceases to be bread and the wine ceases to be wine, turning literally and physically into the body and blood of Christ. We do not believe this. The bread in your hand remains bread. When the Lord said that this was His body, He was physically present before the disciples, in His whole body, holding the bread — no one there understood that the bread had turned into the Master.

He was speaking just as He spoke in so many other places when He called Himself the door, the vine, and the way.

The second error: the Table as a mere reminder. And there is the opposite extreme, very common among us Brazilians: treating the Lord's Supper as a mental exercise of recollection, a minute of silence to think about the cross, an appendix to the worship service that is wrapped up quickly so as not to delay leaving. If that were all it was, Paul would not have said that whoever eats unworthily eats judgment to himself. No one falls ill from remembering something poorly.

The truth we embrace. The bread remains bread and the cup remains the cup. Yet the Lord is truly present at His Table — not inside the elements, but in the midst of His people, by the Holy Spirit. And faith receives there what the eyes do not see: spiritual nourishment, renewal of the covenant, forgiveness applied to the conscience, strength for the journey, real fellowship with Christ and with the brothers and sisters.

We do not worship the bread. We do not despise the Table. There the Lord feeds His own — and whoever comes in faith leaves different from how he came in.

13) The four directions of the gaze

I want to give you an image that will help you for your whole life. Every time you approach the Table, your gaze needs to go in four directions.

Direction	What you do	Anchor
Backward	Memory: look to the cross, to the body given, to the blood shed, and say it was for me. Without this, the Table becomes a ritual.	Doing this in remembrance of Him (Luke 22:19)
Inward	Self-examination: look at your own heart before reaching out your hand.	Letting each one examine himself (1 Corinthians 11:28)
Around	Fellowship: look at the brothers and sisters who eat of the same bread and recognize we are one. If there is enmity between you and someone in that room, it needs to be dealt with beforehand.	Because we, being many, are one bread and one body (1 Corinthians 10:17)
Forward	Hope: look to the horizon and remember that this Table is provisional.	Until He comes (1 Corinthians 11:26)

That fourth direction, new member, is the one most often forgotten — and it is the one that brings us the greatest joy. On that same night the Lord said: "I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in My Father’s kingdom." (Matthew 26:29) That is to say: there is a dinner scheduled. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9). And every Lord's Supper we celebrate here is a rehearsal for that one.

We, who believe that the Lord may come at any moment to catch away His Church before the Great Tribulation, have doubly strong reason to celebrate like this. Every first Sunday of the month could be the last one before the meeting. The Table is not only the memory of a cross — it is the eve of a feast.

We do not eat looking only backward. We eat with one eye on Calvary and the other on the open sky.

14) Self-examination and the most misunderstood word in the chapter

Now I need to correct with you a misunderstanding that has kept many sincere and fearful believers away from the Table.

"Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Each one must examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup." (1 Corinthians 11:27-28)

⚓ In the original — the adverb that changes everything

ἀναξίως (anaxíōs) — "unworthily". Notice carefully: it is an adverb, not an adjective. An adverb describes the manner of doing the thing; an adjective would describe the person. Paul did not say "whoever is unworthy must not eat"; he said "whoever eats in an unworthy manner". For a tormented conscience, that difference is the distance between heaven and hell.

δοκιμαζέτω (dokimazétō) — "let him examine himself, prove himself, test himself". It is the verb of the goldsmith who puts the metal to the fire to verify whether it is true gold. It is not self-flagellation, nor is it a list of guilt for a person to sink into. It is an honest examination, done before God, for the purpose of coming to the Table in order — and not fleeing from it.

μὴ διακρίνων τὸ σῶμα (mḕ diakrínōn tò sōma) — "not discerning the Lord's body" (1 Corinthians 11:29). To discern is to distinguish, to give due value, not to confuse with something common. It is the opposite of eating on autopilot.

If the Table were only for the worthy, the Table would be empty forever — including of me, who minister it. No one is worthy. All of us there are sinners saved by grace. What Paul condemns is not the unworthy person who comes in faith; it is the unworthy manner of approaching.

And now hold firmly to both ends of this truth, because whoever lets go of either one makes a grave mistake:

• One end: your sin is not a reason for you to flee from the Table. It is a reason for you to make things right and come. Notice Paul's phrasing: it is not to examine yourself and therefore not eat; it is to examine yourself, and so eat. Fleeing from the Table out of fear is depriving yourself of the very grace that would heal your soul.
• The other end: this is not a license for anything. Whoever examines himself, sees his sin, and decides to continue in it, going to the Table as someone merely going through the motions, is doing the exact thing Paul condemned. The examination is real and the warning is serious. What changes is not the seriousness of sin — it is the remedy.

Do not stay away from the Table because of your sin. Go to the cross because of it, and then come to the Table with clean hands.

15) The sin Paul was correcting

Pay close attention to this, because it changes everything. What was the Corinthians' problem at the Lord's Supper? It was not sexual immorality, it was not heresy, it was not a lack of emotion. It was this:

"For as you eat, each of you goes ahead without sharing his meal. While one remains hungry, another gets drunk. Don’t you have your own homes in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What can I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? No, I will not!" (1 Corinthians 11:21-22)

The sin was division at the table. The rich ate lavishly while the poor of the very same church looked on hungry. There were people with bread to spare and a brother beside them with nothing. And it is because of this, and not because of anything else, that Paul says they were eating unworthily and that for this reason many among them were weak and sick, and a number had died.

In other words: to eat unworthily is to eat the bread that symbolizes the body of Christ while despising the body of Christ sitting beside you. It is celebrating unity with the mouth while keeping division in the heart.

And look how beautiful this is, new member. Our Church Covenant answers this exact point, in the section on fellowship:

"We will supply one another's needs and mutual care as the occasion requires. At the Lord's Supper worship service, we will joyfully bring food to aid the needy."

— Church Covenant of ADME

Do you understand now why we bring food on the Sunday of the Lord's Supper? It is not a charity drive squeezed into just any Sunday. It is direct obedience to 1 Corinthians 11. While we celebrate the broken body of Christ, we care for the body of Christ that is hungry. If the Table of the Lord does not reach the pantry of the needy brother, it has turned into the exact thing Paul condemned in Corinth.

16) Who comes to the Table

The Table is the Lord's, and therefore He is the one who defines the guests. According to the New Testament pattern, the one who sits at the Table meets three conditions: truly believes in Christ, has been baptized in water, and is in fellowship with the church and with the brothers and sisters.

And what about our children, who have not yet believed and have not been baptized? They watch. And this is not exclusion — it is formation. The child who sees father and mother examine themselves, weep, reconcile, and eat in reverence is learning, year after year, the weight of what awaits him or her. The day will come when that child too will ask for the waters, and then will come to the Table with understanding.

As it is written regarding the Passover: "When your children ask you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’" (Exodus 12:26) The child's question is part of God's design.

And if I am in sin, should I stay away from the Table? The biblical answer is not to stay away — it is to make things right. Confess, repent, seek out the brother or sister with whom you are at odds, resolve it — and come. The Table is not a prize for those who have arrived perfect; it is food for those who are walking.

17) How we practice the Lord's Supper at Marcas do Evangelho

Let me present to you the concrete commitments you take on when you sign our Covenant.

• Every first Sunday of the month. The Covenant is direct: "We will commit ourselves to participate in the Lord's Supper worship service. We will avoid scheduling any other appointment for this day, due to the importance of the Lord's Supper." It is not a calendar suggestion. It is a covenant priority.
• With excused absences. The same Covenant warns that consecutive, unexcused absences from the Lord's Supper worship service will be followed up by the council. Not out of bureaucratic rigor — but because whoever systematically absents himself from the family table is absenting himself from the family.
• Preceded by the 5-Hour Journey. Every Saturday preceding the Lord's Supper, from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., the church prays and fasts. There the names of the new members who will be received the next day are presented to the Lord, one by one.
• With self-examination of devotional reading. This is a commitment very much our own: "We will commit ourselves, at the time of the Lord's Supper, to examine our hearts as to whether we are being faithful in our devotional reading of the Bible." The examination of 1 Corinthians 11 also reaches our faithfulness to the Word.
• With food for the needy, for the reasons we have just seen in Corinth.
• And it is within it that we receive new members. The reception ceremony takes place inside the Lord's Supper worship service. Not by chance: you are welcomed into the family at the exact moment the family is at the table.

Part IV — The heritage we have received

18) Twenty centuries keeping the same two things

You are not the first to go down into those waters nor the first to reach out your hand for that bread. It is worth knowing what line you are stepping into.

Already in the second century, the Church prepared candidates for baptism with immense seriousness. A document written around the year 215 records that candidates were instructed for about three years before being fully admitted to the fellowship of the Church. Three years. And the catechetical lectures of the fourth century show the depth of that training — systematic expositions of the faith, accompanied by fasting and prayer by the entire community.

The principle was simple, and we recover it today: baptism is the culmination of a journey of understood faith, not an isolated act.

In the sixteenth-century Reformation, in Geneva, the pastors visited every home in the city once a year before the Lord's Supper — to check on the Christian life, the doctrine, the family prayer, and the relationships of that household. The Table was taken so seriously that the entire family was examined beforehand.

Our own Wesleyan tradition insisted on constant communion — that the believer should approach the Table as frequently as possible, because there the Lord feeds His own in a way that no other means can replace.

And the pioneers who brought the Pentecostal Gospel to Brazil in 1911 added to this heritage the primacy of the Holy Spirit over every human structure. From all of them we have received the same conviction: an open Bible, fervent prayer, fraternal fellowship. That is what is seen in the waters and at the Table.

19) The two doors of a single house

It is worth bringing the two ordinances together, because they tell the same story in two tenses.

	Baptism	The Lord's Supper
How many times	Once in a lifetime	Every first Sunday
What it is	The door	The table of the house
What it does	Declares that you have entered	Sustains you while you walk
Where it looks	To the day you believed	To the day He will return
What it proclaims	The body given and the blood shed	The body given and the blood shed

Birth happens once; meals happen every day. Entry into the family happens once; a seat at the table lasts a whole lifetime.

Two ordinances. One single Gospel. And neither of them is optional for anyone who wants to truly belong.

Christ in the Lesson

✝ The two ordinances do not speak of you. They speak of Him.

It is easy to leave a class like this thinking about what we do: we go down, we eat, we examine ourselves. Yet notice that, in both ordinances, the main subject of the sentence is never the believer.

In the waters, what is enacted is not your decision — it is His death and resurrection. You are buried with Him and raised with Him (Romans 6:3-4). If Christ had not died and risen again, baptism would just be a cold bath in front of people you know.

At the Table, what is proclaimed is not your faithfulness — it is His death, proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes (1 Corinthians 11:26). The bread represents a body that was given for you. The cup represents blood that was shed for you. Neither of the two is about your performance.

That is why these two ordinances are the best remedy against the religion of human effort. The water does not wash you — the blood washed you. The bread does not sustain you — the Christ whom it represents sustains you. And that is also why no one needs to wait to become worthy in order to come: if worthiness were the condition, the Table would be empty and the cross would have been unnecessary.

Twice in this lesson we pass through the very same place. The waters say: He died and rose again, and you are in Him. The Table says: He will return, and you wait for Him by eating. Between those two sentences fits the entire Christian life.

Three questions for you to take from this class

1. Was I baptized in water by immersion, after believing — or do I still owe the Lord this public obedience?
2. When I approach the Table, do I look in all four directions — or do I eat on autopilot, without memory, without self-examination, without seeing my brothers and sisters, and without awaiting His return?
3. Is there today any brother or sister in this house with whom I am at odds and whom I need to seek out before the next first Sunday?

Final word

Beloved new member, I want you to leave this class with a new awareness.

The next time you see someone going down into the waters in this house, you will not see merely a wet brother or sister. You will see a burial and a resurrection enacted before your eyes. You will see a soldier's oath. You will see the Gospel preached without words.

And on the next first Sunday, when that tray passes down your row, you will not be picking up a little piece of bread. You will be reaching out your hand for a memorial that has crossed two thousand years, that the martyrs ate before dying, that the persecuted Church eats today hidden in basements — and that we will eat again, yet new, and with Him, at the table of the Kingdom.

You are going to be received as a member of this house within a Lord's Supper worship service. That is how we decided it, and now you understand why. On that day, the family will be at the table, and the church will make room for you to sit down.

✶ Come prepared. Come examined. Come with your heart in order with God and with your brothers and sisters.

Because the Word that you have been hearing Sunday after Sunday, at that moment, you will finally see.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, Head of Your Church, we thank You because You did not leave us only words. You left water, bread, and the cup, because You know the fragility of our clay and the weakness of our memory. Thank You for thinking of our forgetfulness before it happened.

Father, if there is someone here who has not yet gone down into the waters, give them courage and conviction to obey — and may it not be out of passing emotion, but out of sincere faith in Your Son. May no one go down wet and lost in this house.

Holy Spirit, prepare our heart for the next Supper Sunday. Bring to our memory what needs to be confessed. Show us the brother or sister we need to seek out. Take from us the habit of eating on autopilot, without discerning the Lord's body. And if there is hidden division among us, expose and heal it, so that our table may not be like that of Corinth.

And look, Lord, upon anyone in this class who has stayed away from Your Table out of fear. Upon anyone who passed the tray along thinking they did not deserve it. Teach us that no one there deserves it, that the Table was never a prize for perfect people, and that You called Your own to come examined, and not to stay far away. At the same time, keep us from treating Your Table as a common thing: give us fear without terror and confidence without carelessness.

Teach us to care for the brother or sister who is hungry while we celebrate Your broken body. And fill us with hope, because this table is provisional — You will return, and we will drink with You, anew, in the Father's kingdom.

Keep this house faithful to Your ordinances until the day of Your coming. In Christ. Amen.

"Scripture governs; everything else, on its knees."

Teacher's Guide

Essence of the class

Preaching is the Word that is heard and the ordinances are the Word that is seen: baptism is the door you walk through once, the Supper is the table you sit at for your whole life — and no one needs to be worthy to come, they need to come in the right way.

Map of the class

Time	Stage
0–5 min	Opening (the hook: "how do you see a word?")
5–12 min	Point 1 — What an ordinance is and what it does not do
12–24 min	Point 2 — The waters: why immersion and what baptism means
24–36 min	Point 3 — The Table: the four directions and the adverb that changes everything
36–40 min	Class activity (the two columns)
40–45 min	Wrap-up in Christ + challenge of the week + prayer

Start like this

Arrive and write four words on the board, one below the other: READ · PREACH · SING · PRAY. Say: "These are four things our house has committed to doing with the Word of God. They are in our Covenant. Except there are five, not four. One is missing. Does anyone dare to guess which one it is?"

Let the class try. You will hear "study", "memorize", "obey", "practice" — all good, none is the one in the Covenant. After three or four tries, write the fifth in much larger letters: SEE.

Then ask the question that opens the class: "We hear, read, sing, and pray a word. But how do you see a word?" Let the silence work for a few seconds and answer: "Today we are going to discover that the Lord Jesus left two things in His Church for this exact purpose — and you are going to take part in both."

Point 1 — What an ordinance is (and what it does not do)

• In the class material: the Preamble of the Church Covenant (which already presupposes baptism upon profession of faith) and the section on the Word, with the five actions — including "seeing the Word". Also revisit Mark 4, already studied by the class.
• What to teach: two words name these acts — sacrament (the Roman soldier's oath) and ordinance (what Christ ordained). We prefer "ordinance" because it keeps what is essential: they are not here because the church liked them, but because Christ commanded them. There are two, only two. And then mark the two mistakes that the entire lesson will refuse: on one side automatic salvation ("the water washes away sin"), on the other the empty symbol ("it is just a formality"). The way out is our Wesleyan heritage: they are means of grace — channels, not machines.
• Anchor verse (BSB): "Consequently, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17) — use it to raise the question "then what is the point of getting people wet and breaking bread?".
• Key question: "Why do you think God, when He could have just spoken to us, decided also to give us things to see and touch?"
• Likely answers (+ going deeper): "because we forget", "to make it easier to understand", "because we are physical". All right — build on them and go deeper: "and what else in the Bible did God give to be seen?" Let the class list them: the rainbow, the blood on the doorposts, the bronze serpent, the ark.
• If no one speaks: share the image of the outlet — "the outlet does not manufacture electricity, but whoever does not plug in the appliance stays in the dark complaining about the lack of light" — and ask: "what does this sentence have to do with baptism and the Supper?"

Point 2 — The waters: why immersion and what baptism means

• In the class material: Mark 4 ("baptisms by doctrinal conviction, not by emotional immersion") and the commitment in the Covenant that baptism is upon personal profession of faith.
• What to teach: start with the word. Baptízō is to plunge — and the strong argument is not only what it means, it is what the Holy Spirit did not choose: there were rhantízō (to sprinkle) and ekchéō (to pour out), both exist in the New Testament, and neither of the two was used for baptism. Then show the three narrative texts: Jesus came up immediately from the water (Matthew 3:16), John baptized where there was much water (John 3:23), Philip and the eunuch both went down into the water and then came up out of the water (Acts 8:38, 39). Close with the theological reason: baptism is the reenactment of a burial, and no one buries by sprinkling dirt on the forehead. Then go to the meaning (Romans 6:3, 4) and insist on the sentence that avoids superstition: baptism does not make it happen, baptism announces that it has already happened. If time permits, mark the distinction between water baptism and baptism in the Spirit (Acts 8 and Acts 10 show both orders).
• Anchor verse (BSB): "We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:4)
• Key question: "If baptism is not what saves, why is it not optional?"
• Likely answers (+ going deeper): "because Jesus commanded it", "because it is a testimony", "because it is obedience". Go deeper: "and what if someone says they believe in their heart and do not need to show anyone?" — lead the class to the idea of the oath: an oath without witnesses is no oath.
• If no one speaks: write the sentence from the lesson on the board — "Baptism without faith is a bath. Faith without baptism is half-obedience." — and ask them to explain the two halves, one at a time.

Point 3 — The Table: the four directions and the adverb that changes everything

• In the class material: the fellowship section of the Covenant ("at the Lord's Supper worship service, we will gladly bring food to aid those in need") and the commitments of the Covenant regarding the Lord's Supper worship service — first Sunday, excused absences, self-examination of devotional reading, reception of new members.
• What to teach: this is the pastoral heart of the class, and it is where the teacher helps real people the most. Teach first the four directions of the gaze — backward (memory), inward (self-examination), around (fellowship), forward (hope) — using the table from the Study. Then go into the point that sets people free: ἀναξίως is an adverb, not an adjective. Paul did not write "whoever is unworthy must not eat"; he wrote "whoever eats in an unworthy manner". Spell it out plainly: if the Table were only for the worthy, it would be empty — excluding even you who are teaching the class. And then show what Paul was actually correcting in Corinth, which surprises the whole class: it was neither immorality nor heresy, it was division at the table (1 Corinthians 11:21, 22) — the rich eating while poor brothers and sisters watched hungry. Now hold both ends with equal care: (a) sin is not a reason to flee from the Table, because the text says to examine yourself, and so eat; (b) and that is not a license — whoever examines himself, sees the sin and decides to continue in it is doing the exact thing Paul condemned. The remedy changes; the seriousness of sin does not.
• Anchor verse (BSB): "Each one must examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup." (1 Corinthians 11:28)
• Key question: "Have you ever refrained from taking the Supper because you thought yourself unworthy?"
• Likely answers (+ going deeper): many people will raise their hand or lower their eyes — "yes", "I pass the tray right along", "I thought it better not to". Go deeper gently: "and what did you understand would happen if you ate?" Then show the adverb and ask back: "does it change anything to know that Paul was talking about the way of eating, and not about who eats?" Pastoral care: no one needs to say what the sin was. If someone begins to confess details in front of the class, interrupt kindly — "thank you for trusting us, let's talk after class" — and seek out the leadership that same day.
• If no one speaks: read verse 28 twice. The first time, stop at the instruction for a person to examine himself and ask: "and now, what do you expect to come next?" Let them guess. Then read the second half: and so let him eat. It usually clicks for the whole room.

Class activity

• Goal: to make the class see, all at once, that the two ordinances tell the same story in different tenses — and leave knowing which is which.
• Materials: a board or poster paper and a marker. A glass of water and a piece of bread on the table, in plain sight of everyone, from the start of the class (without touching them until this moment).
• Step by step: divide the board into two columns, WATERS and TABLE. Ask the class to fill them in together, row by row, with these questions: how many times in life? is it a door or is it a table? what does it declare? what day does it look toward? Write down what they say, correcting very little. When both columns are full, take the glass and the bread, put one on each side of the table, and ask: "what do these two columns have in common?" Wait. The answer is the last row, and it is the point of the class: both proclaim the body given and the blood shed. Write that sentence underneath, spanning both columns.
• Wrap-up (back to the text): "Notice that the left column and the right column do not speak of two different things. They speak of the same one. In the waters you are buried with Him and rise with Him. At the Table you feed on Him and proclaim His death until He comes. One looks to the day you believed; the other, to the day He returns. Two ordinances, one single Gospel."

If they ask you this

• Question: "Can I take the Supper without being baptized?" Short answer: The biblical order is to believe, be baptized, and then partake of the Table — in Acts 2 the three thousand first received the word, then were baptized, and only then continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers (Acts 2:42). Baptism is the door; the Supper is the table of the house, and no one sits at the table of a house they have not yet entered. But say this as an invitation, never as a wall: if the person has already believed, the answer is not to wait indefinitely outside — it is to schedule their baptism. And add that watching the Supper in the meantime is not a punishment, it is formation.

• Question: "I was baptized when I was a baby. Do I need to be baptized again?" Short answer: Be careful with your tone here — almost always the one asking has a father and mother involved in that story, and they acted sincerely. Explain that it is not a matter of repeating: from the standpoint of the New Testament, what took place was not the baptism Christ ordained, because it lacked what He requires first — personal faith. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved (Mark 16:16); it is permissible if one believes with all their heart (Acts 8:37). The baby could not believe. So, when the person themselves believes and goes down into the waters, they are not repeating anything: they are obeying for the first time. Close by asking them to do this without resentment toward those who took them to the altar when they could not yet walk.

• Question: "I messed up this week. Can I eat of the bread?" Short answer: This is the question that keeps good people away from the Table the most. The text says that a person must examine himself, and so eat (1 Corinthians 11:28) — the examination exists for the person to come in order, not to run away. So the path is: confess, make things right with whoever needs to be made right with, and come. And immediately hold the other end, in the same answer, or the class will hear what it wants to hear: this is not a license. Whoever examines himself, sees the sin, and decides to stay in it, going to the Table out of habit, does the exact thing Paul condemned. The sentence to leave engraved: do not stay away from the Table because of your sin; go to the cross because of it and then come to the Table with clean hands.

• Question: "What if I do not feel anything?" Short answer: Feeling is not the criterion — what a relief that it is not. The Supper is measured by what it proclaims (proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes, 1 Corinthians 11:26), not by the mood of the one who eats. But do not dismiss the complaint: when the Table becomes automatic, one of the four directions of the gaze is almost always missing. Turn the question back like this: "of the four — memory, examination, fellowship, hope — which one have you not been practicing?" It is usually the third or the fourth.

• Question: "Why doesn't the church baptize infants?" Short answer: It is not out of disregard for the child — this house invests as a priority in children's ministry. It is that baptism requires a personal faith that an infant cannot yet exercise, and the New Testament does not bring a single case of baptism before faith. Regarding the "whole households" in Acts, the text itself answers: of the jailer it is written that he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household (Acts 16:34) — the household believed, and that is why the household was baptized. What we do with children is present them to the Lord, pray for them, and teach them, waiting for the day when they themselves ask for the waters.

• Question: "Are water baptism and baptism in the Holy Spirit the same thing?" Short answer: No, and you cannot trade one for the other. The waters are the ordinance: once, by immersion, upon profession of faith. Baptism in the Spirit is the empowerment for witness and service, which we believe in and seek, as already seen in Mark 11. And show that the Bible itself does not fix a single order: in Acts 8 the Samaritans were baptized in water and afterwards received the Spirit; in Acts 10, in the house of Cornelius, the Spirit came down first and Peter commanded them to be baptized right after. The order varies; the necessity of both does not.

Wrap-up + challenge of the week

• Wrap-up: "Go back to the word that was missing on the board: see. You spent the entire class discovering what it is that we see. In the waters, we see a burial and a resurrection — not your decision, but His death and resurrection, with you inside. At the Table, we see a body given and blood shed, and we proclaim that until He comes. Notice that in neither of the two are you the main subject. If you were, we would have to become worthy before coming — and then the Table would be empty forever, starting with me. The subject is Christ. That is why no one needs to become worthy; we need to come in the right way, with our heart made right with God and with our brothers and sisters. The next time that tray passes down your row, you will no longer pick up a little piece of bread. You will reach out your hand for the Word that can finally be seen."
• Challenge: this week, seek out the person in this house with whom you are at odds — and make things right with them before the next first Sunday. One conversation, face to face or by phone, starting with you. If the disagreement is inside your own home, start there. On Sunday, come back with the story.

Teacher's kit

• Before: read the whole of 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, in one sitting, aloud — the chapter can only be understood as a block, and it is by reading verses 21 and 22 that it clicks as to what the sin of Corinth was. Read also Romans 6:1-11 and Acts 8:26-39. Then open the Church Covenant to the Preamble, to the section on the Word (the five actions), and to the section on fellowship (the food at the Lord's Supper) — those are the three places the class cites. Mark in your Bible: Romans 6:3, 4 · Acts 2:41, 42 · Matthew 28:19 · Luke 22:19, 20 · 1 Corinthians 11:21, 22 · 1 Corinthians 11:26, 27, 28.
• Bring: a Bible, a board or poster paper and a marker, a glass of water and a piece of bread for the class activity. If there is someone in the class who is not yet baptized, also bring the information on the next baptism date of this house — the class will bring this up, and it is frustrating when the teacher does not know how to answer.
• Pray beforehand: pray for anyone in this class who has never taken the Supper because they thought themselves unworthy; may the class open the Table to that person without loosening anything. Pray for anyone who was baptized as a baby and will hear this conversation today — may it be without resentment toward their own family. Pray for anyone who is holding onto a disagreement with someone in the church and will receive the challenge of the week. And pray for yourself: that the class does not end in admiration for the rite, but in Christ.

Homework

Your mission for the week

Seek out, this week, the person in this house with whom you are at odds — and make things right with them before the next first Sunday. Just one conversation, face to face or by phone, starting with you: "I wanted to make something right with you before the Supper". It is not to win the argument or to prove who was right. It is to remove the stone from the path between you and a brother or sister who is going to eat of the same bread as you. If the disagreement is inside your own home — with your spouse, with a child, with your mother — start there: that is where it hurts the most and that is where the most people are watching.

Why

The sin Paul was correcting in Corinth was neither immorality nor heresy — it was division at the table: "For as you eat, each of you goes ahead without sharing his meal. While one remains hungry, another gets drunk." (1 Corinthians 11:21) To eat unworthily is to eat the bread that represents the body of Christ while despising the body of Christ sitting beside you. That is why the third direction of the gaze, "around", is not an ornament: "Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf." (1 Corinthians 10:17) And notice that the remedy in the text is never to flee from the Table: it is "Each one must examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup." (1 Corinthians 11:28) Examining yourself is meant so that you arrive in order — not so that you fail to arrive.

How to know you did it

The conversation happened, and you know the day. If you can say "on Thursday I called her" or "on Saturday I sat down with him", you did it — even if the other person did not react the way you expected, because your part was to reach out. If the answer is "I forgave in my heart" or "I prayed for that person", what stood before God is settled, but the part that was yours is still waiting for a phone call.

On Sunday, come back with the story

The next class begins with those who reached out. Bring what you said and what happened afterwards — including if it went wrong. Do not stay out.