Salvation Challenge

[stilts]

This is a post for Christians, but comments from all are appreciated...
Here's the setting of the passage of scripture in question.....

Jesus has died, been buried, and raised from the dead. He then appears to His disciples for around forty days. While with them he tells His apostles to expect His helper (Holy Spirit) to come. Approximately ten days later, on the day of Pentacost, the Holy Spirit descends on the apostles and Peter gives a sermon to the Jewish crowds.

The sermon can be summarized as this...Jesus, the man you crucified is the Son of God. You nailed him to the cross, but he has risen and is now ascended to be with God. On hearing this the Jews were cut to the heart (believed) then asked Peter "What shall we do?"

Now, as a Christian, if you preached this sermon to someone, and they were to ask you "What should I do?" what would your answer be?
What would your preachers answer be?
Put your response then go read Peter's response when he preached this sermon in Acts 2

 

[Just_me_Mike]

Excellent post. Thought provoking.

I had to re read, because I was looking at the wrong chapter. Well I believe today a preacher would ask those people start bringing your tithes to me! Amen. However what we learn here is that they all communed, and lived lowely in the name of God. Quite different than what we see today in church.

I would tell the person(s) they need to be saved. Baptism was something that was practiced when the church was still being used by God, water baptis that is. However spiritual baptism is something God does. This probably confuses your post, so I apologize if that is the case.


Thanks...

 

[Kathryn]

Well, I was partly right - my gut reaction was that Peter told them to repent and be baptized - and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Reading further on in the chapter we see them make applications to their lives - in this case pooling together their resources in order to accommodate the huge influx of new believers into their midst. This was the first stage of an explosion of growth in the early church.

I see it as a command for all of us to repent and be baptised. The other actions, such as sharing everything communally do not seem like a command in the context of the story, but rather an account of the way they happened to do things - a model that can work well in some situations.

 

[Muffled]

This is a post for Christians, but comments from all are appreciated...
Here's the setting of the passage of scripture in question.....

Jesus has died, been buried, and raised from the dead. He then appears to His disciples for around forty days. While with them he tells His apostles to expect His helper (Holy Spirit) to come. Approximately ten days later, on the day of Pentacost, the Holy Spirit descends on the apostles and Peter gives a sermon to the Jewish crowds.

The sermon can be summarized as this...Jesus, the man you crucified is the Son of God. You nailed him to the cross, but he has risen and is now ascended to be with God. On hearing this the Jews were cut to the heart (believed) then asked Peter "What shall we do?"

Now, as a Christian, if you preached this sermon to someone, and they were to ask you "What should I do?" what would your answer be?
What would your preachers answer be?
Put your response then go read Peter's response when he preached this sermon in Acts 2

If I remember right when I worked as a counselor for CBN, a tract would be sent out titled "What do I do next?" and the way I remember it was: to attend church and read the Bible. Perhaps this is due to the fact that different churches have different approaches to baptism that are not inherently dependant on salvation. In any event the church would then be the operative unit that would determine if baptism were necessary and how it would be done.

When I worked for the Billy Graham crusade as a counselor, we were instructed to make sure the person understood the decision he was making and to get contact information for followup to connect a person either to a church or a Bible study.

 

[Imagist]

This is a post for Christians, but comments from all are appreciated...
Here's the setting of the passage of scripture in question.....

Jesus has died, been buried, and raised from the dead. He then appears to His disciples for around forty days. While with them he tells His apostles to expect His helper (Holy Spirit) to come. Approximately ten days later, on the day of Pentacost, the Holy Spirit descends on the apostles and Peter gives a sermon to the Jewish crowds.

The sermon can be summarized as this...Jesus, the man you crucified is the Son of God. You nailed him to the cross, but he has risen and is now ascended to be with God. On hearing this the Jews were cut to the heart (believed) then asked Peter "What shall we do?"

Now, as a Christian, if you preached this sermon to someone, and they were to ask you "What should I do?" what would your answer be?
What would your preachers answer be?
Put your response then go read Peter's response when he preached this sermon in Acts 2

Well, the only way I could conceivably have preached such a sermon would be as a joke. So my response would have to be:

"Wow. I am surprised you actually believed what I said. Haha! Gotcha!"

 

[ChristineES]

To be forgiven, one must repent- that is a given. Then the person should be baptized, as even Jesus was. I would suppose that to be baptized, you must find a Church building to do that (I personally prefer full body baptism rather than sprinkling). It isn't the baptism, going to Church services, and all that to be saved. It is accepting Jesus, having a union with God.

 

[smitten508]

I would say repent and be baptized and receive the holy spirit by the laying on of hands...