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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Baptism is confronted with evangelism in 1 Cor. 1.17: ‘Christ did not send me to baptise but to evangelise.’ This text seems to contradict the close connexion between both in Matt. 28.19: ‘Make all gentiles disciples, baptising … and teaching them.’ But certainly, both passages tend to say, like other baptism texts of the New Testament, that baptism is inferior to evangelism, serves evangelism, and will be performed wherever the Gospel is preached in obedience to Jesus Christ. Baptism is related to mission work and preaching as John the Baptist to Jesus Christ, or as the servant to the master. After Jesus Christ has come, the position of the servant is always and only behind and after the master. So baptism cannot rule, begin or replace evangelism, but it has a necessary function in its service.