Luke 3:1-20 NASB
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
‘Make ready the way of the Lord,
make His paths straight. ‘Every ravine will be filled,
and every mountain and hill will be brought low;
The crooked will become straight,
And the rough roads smooth; And all flesh will see the salvation of God.’"
So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? "Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. "Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."
And the crowds were questioning him, saying, "Then what shall we do?" And he would answer and say to them, "The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise." And some tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, "Teacher, what shall we do?" And he said to them, "Collect no more than what you have been ordered to." Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, "And what about us, what shall we do?" And he said to them, "Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages."
Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ, John answered and said to them all, "As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. "His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
So with many other exhortations he preached the gospel to the people. But when Herod the tetrarch was reprimanded by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done, Herod also added this to them all: he locked John up in prison.
My thoughts -
There are prophets and there are priests, and John was a prophet. Would any church accept a pastor who lived in the woods, ate locusts and wild honey, and dressed in burlap? Would any church accept a pastor who addressed the congregation as "you brood of vipors" and chastised them for attending service?
We must, at a fundamental level, really need to hear the word of God, because people traveled from all over to hear this man speak it. Word got out that there was a prophet and they flooded to him. And it certainly wasn't because of John's pleasant demeanor, uplifting message, polished service, and beautiful music.
The people wanted to know how to be saved. They wanted to know how to live in God's will. They needed to know how to live reconciled lives with God, and John prepared them. John's message to the people in anticipating Jesus's ministry seems to be a simple one with varying specifics. John is telling them not to abuse their power.
Remember a few days ago when we went over how God, through Jesus, turned the way we view power upside down? John here is participating in this ministry. He is preparing the people to receive Jesus by telling them not to abuse their power. Look what he says,
He tells the tax collector not to collect more than he is owed. It may not seem like much to tell someone not to steal but what if this theft is common practice? What if this is just the way they do business? To be a tax collector you would, in this culture, become socially ostracized. The benefit, though, would be that you could enrich yourself. An honest tax collector then would be something of an oxymoron. And yet this is what John demands.
From the soldiers he demands also that they do not abuse their power. They are to not take money by force. They could view themselves as entitled to what their own might can provide for them but this would not be a godly outlook.
And from everyone he demands generosity. If you have two coats, give one of them to someone who doesn't have any. You are not entitled to have excess while others go without. Again, from a human perspective you may be entitled to all that you can acquire. We do this. We trust in ourselves, our own strengths, our own abilities, and our own power. We get what we can. We look out for ourselves. We lift ourselves up and look down on those who are less fortunate as being leeches on us and the "hard earned" fruits of our labor.
But John, in preparing the people for Jesus, is not interested in the fruits of labor. He is interested in the fruits of repentance. All of the people he is addressing have sought him out. All of the people he is addressing want to be reconciled to God. All of the people he is addressing have been baptized in repentance. And now they want to know how to live lives in that repentance. And so he tells them these things.
We have these strange notions about Jesus and a personal relationship and sometimes what that means to us is that in Jesus we are all good. We get to do whatever we want. We get to live however we want. We have forgiveness. We have reconciliation. When we die we get to go to heaven. It's all good.
But repentance was necessary to prepare for Jesus. This is the entirety of John's ministry. And John demands here that those who are preparing for Jesus live lives reflecting this repentance. They turn from their old ways. They turn from their selfish sin. They turn from reliance on their own power at the expense of others and they learn to live in and rely on God.
John spoke God's truth plainly. He spoke a hard message to hear. He was a prophet. And we people eventually kill prophets. So when John spoke God's truth to the powerful he eventually lost his freedom and then his head. But he was not concerned with human power except to get us to repent of it and to stop abusing it.
It seems odd to me that we who follow Jesus, whose ministry was preceded by John and whose purpose was to overturn human ideas of power (see the details of his birth in a manger to an unwed working class couple, interactions with the Pharisees and other powerful religious people, and his relationship with his own disciples including the foot washing incident with Peter as well as the teaching that to lead is to serve and to be great is to be last) seem to be keen to acquire so much human, political power. I may never understand this.
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
‘Make ready the way of the Lord,
make His paths straight. ‘Every ravine will be filled,
and every mountain and hill will be brought low;
The crooked will become straight,
And the rough roads smooth; And all flesh will see the salvation of God.’"
So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? "Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. "Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."
And the crowds were questioning him, saying, "Then what shall we do?" And he would answer and say to them, "The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise." And some tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, "Teacher, what shall we do?" And he said to them, "Collect no more than what you have been ordered to." Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, "And what about us, what shall we do?" And he said to them, "Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages."
Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ, John answered and said to them all, "As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. "His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
So with many other exhortations he preached the gospel to the people. But when Herod the tetrarch was reprimanded by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done, Herod also added this to them all: he locked John up in prison.
My thoughts -
There are prophets and there are priests, and John was a prophet. Would any church accept a pastor who lived in the woods, ate locusts and wild honey, and dressed in burlap? Would any church accept a pastor who addressed the congregation as "you brood of vipors" and chastised them for attending service?
We must, at a fundamental level, really need to hear the word of God, because people traveled from all over to hear this man speak it. Word got out that there was a prophet and they flooded to him. And it certainly wasn't because of John's pleasant demeanor, uplifting message, polished service, and beautiful music.
The people wanted to know how to be saved. They wanted to know how to live in God's will. They needed to know how to live reconciled lives with God, and John prepared them. John's message to the people in anticipating Jesus's ministry seems to be a simple one with varying specifics. John is telling them not to abuse their power.
Remember a few days ago when we went over how God, through Jesus, turned the way we view power upside down? John here is participating in this ministry. He is preparing the people to receive Jesus by telling them not to abuse their power. Look what he says,
He tells the tax collector not to collect more than he is owed. It may not seem like much to tell someone not to steal but what if this theft is common practice? What if this is just the way they do business? To be a tax collector you would, in this culture, become socially ostracized. The benefit, though, would be that you could enrich yourself. An honest tax collector then would be something of an oxymoron. And yet this is what John demands.
From the soldiers he demands also that they do not abuse their power. They are to not take money by force. They could view themselves as entitled to what their own might can provide for them but this would not be a godly outlook.
And from everyone he demands generosity. If you have two coats, give one of them to someone who doesn't have any. You are not entitled to have excess while others go without. Again, from a human perspective you may be entitled to all that you can acquire. We do this. We trust in ourselves, our own strengths, our own abilities, and our own power. We get what we can. We look out for ourselves. We lift ourselves up and look down on those who are less fortunate as being leeches on us and the "hard earned" fruits of our labor.
But John, in preparing the people for Jesus, is not interested in the fruits of labor. He is interested in the fruits of repentance. All of the people he is addressing have sought him out. All of the people he is addressing want to be reconciled to God. All of the people he is addressing have been baptized in repentance. And now they want to know how to live lives in that repentance. And so he tells them these things.
We have these strange notions about Jesus and a personal relationship and sometimes what that means to us is that in Jesus we are all good. We get to do whatever we want. We get to live however we want. We have forgiveness. We have reconciliation. When we die we get to go to heaven. It's all good.
But repentance was necessary to prepare for Jesus. This is the entirety of John's ministry. And John demands here that those who are preparing for Jesus live lives reflecting this repentance. They turn from their old ways. They turn from their selfish sin. They turn from reliance on their own power at the expense of others and they learn to live in and rely on God.
John spoke God's truth plainly. He spoke a hard message to hear. He was a prophet. And we people eventually kill prophets. So when John spoke God's truth to the powerful he eventually lost his freedom and then his head. But he was not concerned with human power except to get us to repent of it and to stop abusing it.
It seems odd to me that we who follow Jesus, whose ministry was preceded by John and whose purpose was to overturn human ideas of power (see the details of his birth in a manger to an unwed working class couple, interactions with the Pharisees and other powerful religious people, and his relationship with his own disciples including the foot washing incident with Peter as well as the teaching that to lead is to serve and to be great is to be last) seem to be keen to acquire so much human, political power. I may never understand this.
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