I was baptized shortly after I made what has always seemed like an inevitible decision in my life to accept the salvation of Christ (I was raised in a Protestant Christian home and was taught Christianity and the Bible from the very beginning of my life), I was about 8 years old at the time.

There was no sudden change that came over me or anything. I was, by the way, baptized by immersion as is the custom in the Baptist church.

For me, and I am certian for almost all Southern Baptists, baptizm is a symbolic thing. It is a public display of our commitment to Christ and a symbolic immage of the new life in Christ. The burrial of our old self, sin, etc, with Christ, and the resurrection in a new life.

I also see baptizm as a command given to us by Christ - the Great Commission in the 28th chapter of Matthew, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I command you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."