Bear Grylls was once an elite SAS commando for the United Kingdom, but that journey in his career came to an abrupt end when he shattered three vertebrae after his parachute failed to open during a training mission in Kenya. He then managed to recover, became an explorer, and went on to get into the entertainment industry. Now, in the latest update for Grylls, he is newly baptized, having recently fulfilled his “dream” of being baptized in the Holy Land’s Jordan River.
Grylls is most famous for his role on “Man vs. Wild,” in which he showed viewers how to survive in the wild if ever stranded far from the reaches of civilization. He build shelters, forded rivers, ate whatever he could find, and was generally an entertaining resource for those interested in the topic. He is now a host for National Geographic.
But outside of his career, Grylls is important because he’s a Christian who has used his large platform to show his faith, as he did so recently in a post on X. He wrote, “It had always been a dream of mine to get in the water that Jesus was baptised in by my hero John the Baptist. The story is so amazing, & it seems wherever Jesus went, that new birth, new life, a new vision followed. Luke (in the bible) was probably a Syrian doctor before he met Jesus. He writes a reliable, poignant account of his life. It’s short. I like it. #adventure #life #nevergiveup”
It had always been a dream of mine to get in the water that Jesus was baptised in by my hero John the Baptist. The story is so amazing, & it seems wherever Jesus went, that new birth, new life, a new vision followed. Luke (in the bible) was probably a Syrian doctor before he met… pic.twitter.com/YwcEwL1ewh
— Bear Grylls OBE (@BearGrylls) October 2, 2023
This isn’t the first time Grylls has made his faith public. He spoke about his Christian faith as well in a 2022 interview, saying, “As I kid, I had a really natural faith, I always believed in some higher power, I could feel there was something around and then I went to school, and we all had to go church and they all wore white cassocks and spoke Latin. It’s been a life journey to unwind all of that and realize that actually the little me had it right.”
He continued, “Faith is in your heart, knowing that you are not alone. There’s something bigger than us out there and therefore that power is for us and not against us and despite my doubts, I’m going to put my trust in that and try to have love at the center of all we do, and live empowered and go for things and not be driven by fear.”
Grylls, a member of the UK’s Anglican Church, also commented in a January of 2023 interview on the problems he sees with modern churches, saying, “I think Jesus would really struggle with 99% of churches nowadays. Our job in life is to stay close to Christ and drop the religious, drop the fluff, drop the church if you need to because that means so many different things to different people anyway. Keep the bit of church which is about community and friends and honesty and faith and love. All the masks, performances, music and worship bands and all of that sort of stuff—I don’t think Christ would recognize a lot of that.”
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Featured image credit: Bear Grylls X