10 February 2026
Peter's sermon at Pentecost lands like a blow — the crowd is "cut to the heart" and cries out, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Peter's answer, simple on the surface, opens onto some of the deepest questions in the Christian life: what does it actually mean to repent, and why does baptism matter so much that the New Testament seems to know no such thing as an unbaptised believer? Harry's session traces both threads back through the Old Testament and forward through the whole book of Acts.
Editor's note: This article is a written summary based on the substance of Harry's Bible study on this passage. It is not a verbatim transcript, and while it aims to reflect the heart of the teaching faithfully, it cannot fully convey the warmth, care, and encouragement of the class itself.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your word and for the privilege of gathering together in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ. As we open the Scriptures today, we ask that your Holy Spirit would illuminate our minds and soften our hearts, that we might hear your voice, grow in the knowledge of you, and be equipped to live and speak for Christ. We commit this time of study into your hands, in Jesus' Name, Amen.
Harry set the scene: thousands of Jews and converts to Judaism had travelled to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost, held fifty days after Passover and known in the Old Testament as the Feast of Weeks, in keeping with the instruction of Leviticus 23:15–21 to "count fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath" and present an offering to the Lord. Into that crowd, Peter preaches, and Harry traced the build-up to this moment through Luke's writings. John the Baptist had promised one coming after him who would "baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire" (Luke 3:16–17). The risen Jesus had told His disciples that "repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" and that they should "stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:47–49). At His ascension He repeated the promise: "you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Peter now explains to the Pentecost crowd that this is exactly what they are witnessing: "God has raised this Jesus to life... Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear" (Acts 2:32–33). The people are cut to the heart and ask what they should do. Peter's reply becomes the hinge of the whole passage: "Repent and be baptised, 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" (Acts 2:38).
Harry reminded the group that repentance, discussed the previous week, is itself a gift from God, citing Acts 11:18: "even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life." He unpacked the word itself — literally a change of mind, a change in the inner being, a turning in direction. We are, by nature, going our own way, even the devil's way, often without realising it; repentance is turning to go Jesus' way instead. Harry noted this is one of Luke's favourite terms for how a person responds to the offer of forgiveness, and that Luke repeatedly connects repentance to forgiveness, pointing to the pattern running through Acts 3:19, 5:31, 8:22, 26:18 and 20, as well as Luke 3:3 and 24:47. Harry stressed that repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin, and that the proof of genuine repentance is the deeds that follow it — "produce fruit in keeping with repentance" (Luke 3:8). As Jesus taught, by their fruits you will know them.
Turning to "be baptised," Harry was clear that baptism is not a human invention but God's own instruction, beginning with John the Baptist, who appeared "preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4), to which "the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out," confessing their sins as they were baptised in the Jordan (Mark 1:5). John testified that he recognised Jesus when he saw "the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him" (John 1:32), and Luke locates John's ministry precisely in history — under Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod, and the high priests Annas and Caiaphas (Luke 3:1–3) — before he went out "preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."
Harry then traced the roots of this imagery into the Old Testament, where water is repeatedly tied to purification. The Mosaic law prescribed ceremonial washings to cleanse impurity (Leviticus 14:8; Numbers 19), and the prophets used water as an image of spiritual cleansing and renewal — Ezekiel's promise that "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean... I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you" (Ezekiel 36:25–26), and Isaiah's call to "wash and make yourselves clean... stop doing wrong" (Isaiah 1:16). Harry was emphatic, though, that outward washing was never enough on its own — there had to be an inner cleansing, a genuine turning from sin alongside the receiving of the Spirit, which is precisely why John rebuked the Pharisees who came to be baptised without having first had their hearts cleansed.
Drawing on Paul Beasley-Murray's Radical Believers, Harry gave three reasons why believers are encouraged to be baptised. The first is the command of Christ: in the Great Commission, Jesus declared "all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" and instructed the disciples to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:18–20), a commission that runs to the very end of the age. Harry likened objecting to baptism on the grounds of not "feeling right" about it to objecting to paying car tax because one doesn't feel right about it — obedience to a legitimate authority is not dependent on feelings, and if we love Jesus we will want to obey Him, echoing His words, "You are my friends if you do what I command" (John 15:14). Baptism, Harry said, is a necessary part of the discipleship process; from a New Testament standpoint we are not truly committed to Jesus until we have committed ourselves to Him in the waters of baptism.
The second reason is the example of Christ, who was Himself baptised (Matthew 3:13–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–22), even though John initially objected that he should be baptised by Jesus rather than the reverse. Jesus insisted it was necessary "to fulfil all righteousness" — something His Father required of Him. Harry drew out the contrast this creates: in being baptised, the sinless Jesus took His first step toward the cross by identifying Himself with us in our sinfulness, while in our own baptism we identify with Him in His sinlessness, a point Harry supported with a string of texts describing Christ's sinlessness — 1 Peter 1:19, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 4:15, Hebrews 9:14, 1 Peter 2:22 and 1 John 3:5.
The third reason is the practice of the early church. Harry showed that the apostles took the Great Commission seriously from the very first day, with baptism becoming an integral, expected part of conversion throughout Acts. He walked through the pattern: the Samaritans who believed Philip's preaching were baptised, men and women alike (Acts 8:12); the Ethiopian official, reading Isaiah 53, was baptised by Philip the moment he believed (Acts 8:35–38); Paul himself was baptised by Ananias after meeting Jesus on the Damascus road (Acts 9:10–19; 22:12–16); Cornelius and his household were baptised by Peter after receiving the Spirit, since "no one can stand in the way of their being baptised with water" once they had received the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:47); Lydia and her household were baptised in Philippi (Acts 16:14–15); the Philippian jailer and his whole household were baptised the very night he believed (Acts 16:30–34); and Crispus and many Corinthians believed and were baptised under Paul's ministry (Acts 18:8). Paul later baptised disciples of John at Ephesus once they came to a clearer understanding of Jesus (Acts 19:1–7). Harry's conclusion from this survey was striking: it is no exaggeration to say that in New Testament times there was no such person as an unbaptised Christian, as Paul could simply say to the Corinthians, "We were all baptised" (1 Corinthians 12:13) — with the sole exception, Harry noted in passing, of the thief on the cross.
Harry addressed why Peter specified baptism "in the name of Jesus Christ" — this distinguished the new baptism from John's, a distinction that still caused confusion in some circles, as seen later in Acts when Paul meets disciples in Ephesus who knew only John's baptism of repentance and had "not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit" (Acts 19:2–3); once told to believe in the one John pointed to, they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus, and the Spirit came on them (Acts 19:5–6). Harry noted that some churches insist on baptising only in the name of Jesus, but that the church instead follows Jesus' own instruction to baptise "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19), since being baptised this way means identifying ourselves with the whole Trinity — belonging to the Father, saved by the Son, indwelt by the Spirit. Harry offered a picture of the phases of a believer's spiritual maturity moving from a focus on "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," to "Spirit, Spirit, Spirit," to "Father, Father, Father," and finally arriving at a settled grasp of Father, Son and Holy Spirit together, closing this section with Colossians 3:16's call to let the message of Christ dwell richly among believers as they teach and admonish one another through psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
Harry's real aim in this session was to strip away any sense that baptism is a private preference, a symbolic add-on, or something to opt into only once it "feels right." He wanted the group to see repentance and baptism as inseparable from what it actually means to belong to Jesus — not a badge earned after faith has already done its work, but part of the very process by which a person becomes His disciple, commanded by Christ, modelled by Christ, and practised without exception by everyone who came to faith in the book of Acts. The invitation at the end of the session, to have people share their own baptism story, was Harry's way of moving the teaching from history and doctrine into personal testimony — pressing the class to recognise that Peter's Pentecost call, "Repent and be baptised, every one of you," was never meant to stop with the three thousand at Jerusalem, but was addressed, just as directly, to them.
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you that we are gathered here in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Father, by the power of your Holy Spirit, open up our hearts and our minds that we might understand your words in the Scriptures and get to know you more, that we might live holy lives, and that we might share the Good News about Jesus in the power of your Spirit, for the building of your Church and the extending of your Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven, in and through Jesus Christ, Amen.
