Source: Bible Journey, Study 5: Acts & Paul’s Epistles, Course 4: 1 & 2 Corinthians, Lesson 5: Author & Audience, In | A Pre-Pauline Baptismal Formula [Bonus]
In 1 Corinthians, we find a statement associated with baptism that surfaces in a similar form in two other letters:
For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
1 Corinthians 12:13 (NIV)
Similar passages in Galatians and Colossians look like this:
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:27-28 (NIV)
(You) have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Colossians 3:10-11 (NIV)
If we place these statements side by side, their similarity becomes especially obvious.
| 1 Corinthians 12:13 (NIV) | Galatians 3:27-28 (NIV) | Colossians 3:10-11 (NIV) |
| For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body | For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. | (You) have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. |
| whether Jews or Gentiles, | There is neither Jew nor Gentile, | Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, |
| slave or free | neither slave nor free | slave or free, |
| nor is there male and female | ||
| and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. | for you are all one in Christ Jesus. | but Christ is all, and is in all. |
Table quoted from: Antoinette Clark Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets, 1995, pp. 123-124.