Jamestown's Church

            The first permanent English colony established in the New World is found in Jamestown, VA. Touring the James Fort, you visit the church building there. Citizens were required to attend church twice a day. If you didn't "go to church", you didn't eat. Strong motivation for going to worship!

            I asked our tour guide if the remade-building followed the same pattern as the original building. He said it did. I asked the question because, as I looked around the building, I noticed that along with the (unsurprising) Ten Commandments and Lord's Prayer on the wall, there was also a plaque with another Bible verse on it.

            It was Acts 2:38: "Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

            It would be interesting to know what the colonists believed about that verse. Unfortunately, today, few churches would put Acts 2:38 on their wall. Their theology has no room for Acts 2:38.

            If we want to be the Christians God wants us to be, we need to restore Acts 2:38, not just to the wall of our church building, but to our doctrinal structure of our churches.

            What about yours?

-        Your fellow-servant in Christ,

-        Paul

Veritas non verba magistri