The First Christians Didn’t Say the Sinner’s Prayer

Most people think you become a Christian by praying a prayer. Admit you’re a sinner, believe Jesus died for you, ask him into your heart. It feels ancient, like the oldest thing in the faith. It isn’t. For roughly eighteen centuries, nobody prayed it, because becoming a Christian meant something slower and far more costly, and it ended in a pool of water before dawn. This episode traces how a three-year process became a thirty-second prayer, why a preacher and a piece of furniture in 1830 changed everything, and what quietly got traded along the way.