To baptize or to teach ... ????

It is a both/and command, not an either/or suggestion.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matt 28:18-20 (ESV)

Baptism is the foundation God lays and teaching the Scriptures is the building that God erects upon the foundation that Himself has laid. The one who is baptized has received the right and responsibility of discipleship. For the one who is baptized IS into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
To be baptized in the name of the Father gives to the baptized, God as He above all else desires to be and give everything that God as Father can be and give to one created in His image.
To be baptized in the name of God the Son gives to the baptized, the life, the death, and the resurrection of God the Son, Jesus Christ and all the blessings He has won for all by His incarnation through to His ascension.
To be baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit gives to the baptized all the works of God’s Spirit by which the baptized is called, sanctified, and kept in one true faith through the Word of God, until such time as the Holy Spirit shall present the baptized holy and righteous at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
While the blessings of baptism and the name of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit that is placed upon us are rarely apparent to the human eye, this is no proof that the Word of God and the water of baptism have failed to give and work the works of the Triune God upon the baptized.
What is to become of those who having been blessed with baptism and have been denied the teaching that must follow upon the blessed gift of baptism due to apathy and neglect on their part or that of their parents? How shall they be kept from growing up in the spirit of this world and its ungodliness.
What a blessed gift of God in baptism that though the baptized may fall away from the Lord, the Lord’s promises to not fall away from the baptized. These promises are secure because they are made and kept by God and not the baptized. When the baptized do fall away, they become again a lost child to the Father. The prodigal son could never have gone back to a home where he was not once a child. May the Lord work a blessed remembrance of their baptism in the hearts and minds of all the baptized that have fallen away so that a blessed return may be easier and more quickly accomplished for all.

“Baptized into Your name most holy,
O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
I claim a place, though weak and lowly.” LSB 590

- pmwl