Jesus' great commission to his apostles after his resurrection was to go into all the world to preach, teach, and baptize in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. From the very beginning, baptism has been understood as the doorway into this new kind of family.

The assigned gospel lessons in this book will help us sort out what Jesus expects of this new family that finds its origin and purpose in him. The baptized are called into a new life of faith that will require a certain way of being. We will begin on a more practical level with the passages from Matthew, but as the book progresses, we will see shining examples of faith when we turn to the Gospel of John. My prayer is that this book will be a helpful resource to those seeking the sacrament of baptism, or those who want to explore its meaning further. Though we will spend most of our time looking at each passage in-depth, baptismal living is a core theme that undergirds the whole work.