Reflective Bible Study

As we continue into the gospels this year, we transition out of the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth, and now come to the introduction of Jesus’ forerunner in ministry, John the Baptist. While the gospel writers focus heavily on Jesus in their books, which we want and expect them to do, all four gospels give a little focus towards John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus to step into His public ministry.

The gospel of Luke, chapter 3, sets the scene and identifies the point in history this all happened. Let’s read what Luke shares as he makes the transition from talking about Jesus’ birth and childhood onto John the Baptist’s public ministry. We’ll be reading from Luke, chapter 3, starting in verse 1 from the New Living Translation:

¹ It was now the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, the Roman emperor. Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea; Herod Antipas was ruler over Galilee; his brother Philip was ruler over Iturea and Traconitis; Lysanias was ruler over Abilene. ² Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests. At this time a message from God came to John son of Zechariah, who was living in the wilderness. ³ Then John went from place to place on both sides of the Jordan River, preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven.

Let’s pause reading here because I want to draw our attention onto something that might be very easy to miss. If we look at how Luke sets the stage and how he words the first verses of this chapter, it reads more like a historical stage than a fictitious stage. In other words, Luke draws our attention onto a specific point in history, which lends credibility that he wrote his gospel to document history, despite what critics might say or think.

Luke also draws our attention to the detail that John gets the nickname of “Baptist” or “Baptizer” because his message was one of repentance and he stressed that those who wanted to show they had repented should be baptized in a public setting.

Continuing on, Luke also describes how John the Baptist was prophesied about in the Old Testament. Picking back up in verse 4, we learn that:

⁴ Isaiah had spoken of John when he said,

“He is a voice shouting in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming!
    Clear the road for him!
⁵ The valleys will be filled,
    and the mountains and hills made level.
The curves will be straightened,
    and the rough places made smooth.
⁶ And then all people will see
    the salvation sent from God.’”

Pausing briefly again, I wonder if John had read this prophecy about himself and felt a little overwhelmed. Imagine for a moment this message described you. How might you live your life if you knew you were helping to prepare the way for the Lord’s coming?

How did John do this? Luke then describes how John framed his message and what he challenged those who came to listen to him to do with their lives.

Continuing our reading in verse 7, we learn that:

⁷ When the crowds came to John for baptism, he said, “You brood of snakes! Who warned you to flee the coming wrath? ⁸ Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones. ⁹ Even now the ax of God’s judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire.”

¹⁰ The crowds asked, “What should we do?”

¹¹ John replied, “If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.”

¹² Even corrupt tax collectors came to be baptized and asked, “Teacher, what should we do?”

¹³ He replied, “Collect no more taxes than the government requires.”

¹⁴ “What should we do?” asked some soldiers.

John replied, “Don’t extort money or make false accusations. And be content with your pay.”

If you ever wondered if God or Jesus would have a message for us living today about how we should live, we can take what John says and pull out some big themes.

John challenged those in the first century to “Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God” and I believe this could be a challenge for all of us living today as well. The best decision you can make is putting your belief, faith, and trust in Jesus to save you from your sins, but the way you make your decision public is by repenting, which is a fancy religious word for choosing to intentionally not do a particular bad action anymore and instead replace it with a good habit and action.

John challenges Christians throughout time that our lives are our greatest witness to others whether we have truly accepted Jesus into our hearts.

John challenges us to not rest on our past ancestry, our past choices, or even our past accomplishments. Instead, he challenges us to live our repentance each day we want Jesus in our lives.

John challenges believers to be generous, to be honest, and to be kind to each other. While this sounds incredibly simple, it is actually one of the hardest challenges for each of us to live out each day. While there are some people who can love others effortlessly, others, such as myself, must intentionally choose to love in this way because there are some people who don’t make loving them easy.

John’s message cut to the heart of the people living in the first century, and Luke draws our attention to another interesting detail. Continuing in verse 15, we learn that:

¹⁵ Everyone was expecting the Messiah to come soon, and they were eager to know whether John might be the Messiah. ¹⁶ John answered their questions by saying, “I baptize you with water; but someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not even worthy to be his slave and untie the straps of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ¹⁷ He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.” ¹⁸ John used many such warnings as he announced the Good News to the people.

While I might not think that John’s warnings sound like “Good News”, we can see from the anticipation in John’s message that he believed Jesus would come and usher in a new age of the world. Some people living today believe this to be the case. All the Old Testament prophecies seemed to point to the Messiah coming and setting things straight, but we might wonder why things are still messed up. Is the urgency in John’s message misplaced?

Should we give our message about Jesus a sense of urgency similar to John, or would that be misplaced too?

I don’t believe any message about Jesus is wrong to have a sense of urgency applied to it. Every time we share Jesus with others, we should include a sense of urgency because of two things.

First, there will be a time that the world will end and Jesus will come back. Each day brings us one day closer to this event.

Secondly, with rare exceptions, each of us don’t know when our lives will end, and if our lives end before Jesus returns, then it doesn’t really matter when Jesus comes back for us specifically. If you or I only have a week or year to live, this makes our decision for Jesus urgent for us. Since we don’t know the day we will die, it’s safest to live every day with the sense of urgency that either Jesus will return today, or that our lives might end today leading to the next thing we see being Jesus.

John challenged those present in the first century to be ready for Jesus’ first coming, and all of us in the 21st century should focus on preparing ourselves for Jesus’ second coming!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always start by challenging you, intentionally seek God first in your life. Live your life with a sense of urgency, and with an intentional purpose of growing closer to God. While we don’t know when our lives will end or when exactly Jesus will return, we do know that only one decision matters in the end, and that is whether we have placed Jesus first, repented, and intentionally chosen to put our focus, faith, trust, and belief on Jesus.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do in one way or another, as we move forward in life and history, be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself so you will be able to know and understand what God and Jesus are really like. The better we know the God of the Bible, and Jesus who came showing us a picture of God, the better we will be able to recognize Jesus when He returns.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or fall away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As I read Jesus’ birth story from the gospel of Matthew, I am continually amazed at just how foreshadowed this event was. There was so much foreshadowed about it, that it is really surprising to me how the priests and religious leaders missed it.

First off, to set our passage up, there was a cosmic event of some kind. Some say that there was a specific shift in the constellations that the wise men saw that prompted them to begin their journey, while others say that angels shone in the night sky like stars, and it caught the wise men’s attention.

Either way, it is likely that the star and/or angels would have been visible to everyone who was paying attention, though it would seem as though the only ones paying attention were far away from the event. This is the first sign that should have been seen by the religious leaders – especially as this was just a few months after John the Baptist’s miraculous birth that we looked at in the previous episode.

When we then turn our eyes onto the passage for this episode, we see four places where Matthew directly states that an event happened to fulfill prophecy. While I might normally read the full passage, pausing periodically to insert comments, for this episode, we’ll just focus on the four specific places Matthew tells us prophecy was fulfilled.

The first prophecy in our passage to be fulfilled is found in Matthew, chapter 2, verses 5 and 6. Reading from the Contemporary English Version, Matthew tells us:

“They [the religious leaders] told him [Herod], ‘He will be born in Bethlehem, just as the prophet wrote,

 “Bethlehem in the land
    of Judea,
you are very important
    among the towns of Judea.
From your town
    will come a leader,
who will be like a shepherd
    for my people Israel.”’”

The Jewish leaders knew exactly where the Messiah would be born. It’s difficult to say if they were reluctant to share this knowledge with Herod, or if they freely shared the details when asked. Either way, they should have taken note of Herod’s question and perhaps paid a little closer attention to what was happening around them.

The next prophecy to be fulfilled is just a few verses later in verse 15, where we read, “So the Lord’s promise came true, just as the prophet had said, ‘I called my son out of Egypt.’”

It is interesting that Joseph, Mary, and their family would flee to Egypt. This event happening makes the beginning of Jesus’ life a prophetic representation of the children of Israel, who began in the promised land, before moving to Egypt during the great famine we read about in the last chapters of Genesis.

God then called the Israelites out of Egypt, and this prophecy echoes this event by saying that God will also call His Son out of Egypt as well. I’m not sure if any other aspects of Jesus’ life were representative of the nation of Israel, but there is a very clear prophetic parallel within this event at the beginning of Jesus’ life on earth.

The third prophecy that is fulfilled in Jesus’ birth event happens back in Judea. Matthew draws our attention to it when he quotes it in verses 17 and 18 by saying:

“So the Lord’s promise came true, just as the prophet Jeremiah had said,

‘In Ramah a voice was heard
    crying and weeping loudly.
Rachel was mourning
    for her children,
and she refused
to be comforted,
    because they were dead.’”

The Jewish leaders may have given up looking for the promised Messiah after Herod went and slaughtered all the baby boys that were 2 years or younger there. Perhaps Jesus was only months old when this happened, but Herod was the sort of person to be extra thorough in his methods. 

However, if the religious leaders stopped looking for the Messiah because of Herod’s mass killing here, then it shows how little faith they had in God – specifically in God’s ability to protect the Messiah that He promised to send. This event may have shifted the focus of some of the Jewish leaders at the time.

The last prophecy that Matthew points out to be fulfilled in our passage for this episode comes right at the end, at the close of verse 23, where it says, “So the Lord’s promise came true, just as the prophet had said, ‘He will be called a Nazarene.’”

When the leaders push back at a Messiah coming from Nazareth, I wonder where this prophecy was in their minds. Matthew draws our attention to the significance of where Joseph and Mary return to when they move back to the area, but it would seem as though there was a prophecy in place that the leaders either were not aware of, or one they discounted or dismissed. In a quick search of the Old Testament, I see no mention of the word Nazareth or Nazarene anywhere in it, so this makes me wonder what prophet Matthew is referring to.

Perhaps this was a prophecy that John the Baptist shared that is not included in the Bible, or maybe it is something included in one of the other ancient writings that was not included in the Bible. What we do know is that while Matthew draws our attention to this prophecy fulfilled, it is likely that the validity of the prophet or prophecy itself was debated at the time of Jesus.

All this comes together to point us to a significant truth that we might easily miss:

Knowledge is a poor substitute for attention, and if we are not paying attention, no amount of knowledge will keep us from drifting away from God.

Both nature and history pointed the Jewish leaders to pay attention to Jesus’ birth, but if they were not interested or looking for the Messiah to arrive, then there was no way for them to see it coming. Herod, who is known for being a little paranoid about people challenging his rule, clearly saw the sign of the wise men, and in this regard, he was more observant than the religious leaders.

Like Matthew did when writing his gospel, it is much easier to see how God has moved when looking back on the events that happened. Seeing the outcomes make it easier to see how God has moved and directed. This truth then leads us to a challenge when living our lives over 2,000 years later: Will we take our past and the evidence God has moved within it and use it as evidence to trust Him with the challenges we face in the present?

Today will become the past tomorrow, and while we might not clearly see God working in today’s challenges, that doesn’t mean He is absent. It may simply mean that we are looking from the wrong perspective.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open these challenges by saying, intentionally seek God first in your life and push yourself to look for God moving in your present circumstances. If you doubt God, look for evidence of His love, protection, and guidance from your past and use that to stand on to face your present challenges.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do in one way or another, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself, so you will better be able to recognize God in the present. While other people have ideas about God, look to the Bible to discover what God is really like, so you can recognize Him more clearly when He is moving in the present.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue into Luke’s gospel, we come to what might be the most Christmas-themed passage in the whole Bible. However, just because many of us have read or heard it as recently as last month, doesn’t mean that there aren’t truths tucked in it that are relevant for us regardless of what time of year we are in.

Let’s start reading this passage, and pause when we get to an interesting point or idea. We’ll be reading from Luke’s gospel, chapter 2, using the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 1, we read:

¹ Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. ² This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. ⁴ Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, ⁵ in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. ⁶ While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

When I read this passage, I’m not sure if it is the traditional Christmas story that makes me think this, or if it is my mind that wants to condense the time frame. I don’t know how long Roman registration took for each person when they were doing a census, but in my mind, I always imagined that Jesus was born sometime during the night they arrived. But nothing in this passage hints at this idea, or even that the manger Jesus was laid in was out in a stable or cave with animals.

By the time the wise men arrive in Matthew’s gospel, which was actually a separate event from the shepherds, Matthew describes them going to a house, which might indicate that Jesus was born in the house of an unknown person.

I wonder if because there was no room in the inn, one of Joseph’s relatives offered to let them stay with them, or perhaps a friend of the innkeeper. However, this homeowner didn’t have anything prepared for a newborn, so this couple went out and got a manger from their stable so that the newborn could have a safe place to lay.

Let’s keep reading and see if we can see any other interesting details surrounding this event. Picking back up in verse 8, we learn that:

⁸ In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; ¹¹ for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 
¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest, 
And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

Let’s pause reading again here because two ideas stood out to me. The first thing I’ll draw our attention to is how the angelic choir praised God. Most of us are probably familiar with the King James Version of this message, but the NASB gives the last phrase a different angle. While the King James reads, “And on earth peace, goodwill toward men,” the NASB describes this message as, “And on earth peace among men with whom He [God] is pleased.”

This is a fascinating distinction because as I read and compare the various translations, most translations read more similarly to the New American Standard Bible than the King James. This means, at least to me, that God wishes there to be peace among those with whom He is pleased, and if we desire to be pleased by God, we probably should desire His peace to fill our lives. It also might imply that God dislikes those who disrupt peace, whether this be in a society, a faith community, or between countries.

The other thing I noticed while reading this is in the first angel’s message. The original angel messenger begins his message by saying, “I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people”. This stands out in my mind because the good news about Jesus is good news for everyone, not just one particular race or group of people. Jesus came for everyone, and while there are those who reject Him and those who hate Him, Jesus entering the world as a human is great news for everyone because even though Jesus isn’t accepted by everyone, most everyone would agree that something needs to change with the world we live in.

Jesus came the first time to give us a way to benefit from His coming the second time. God has promised that our current earth, with all its issues and problems, is only temporary. God has promised a recreated “new heaven and new earth” with all the flaws of our current world fixed. The only way any of us can experience this is because of Jesus’ first coming, and while there might be an exception or two, even most of those who reject Jesus would not want the current flawed world we live in to continue forever.

The first coming of Jesus is good news of great joy for all people, and the shepherds wanted to know more. Picking back up in verse 15, we discover that:

¹⁵ When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, “Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. ¹⁸ And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.

When the shepherds find Jesus, we don’t have any indication about where they found the young couple. It could have been a house, a stable, or simply near a tent and a fire to stay warm. The details surrounding where Jesus was born are less relevant than we might think. What truly matters is why Jesus came, that Jesus came, and what we will do in our own lives because Jesus came.

Our current world won’t continue forever. God has promised us a place in the new heaven and new earth and we can accept this gift and promise by choosing to accept and believe in Jesus. Looking at life from the big picture, this should be our highest goal each and every day of the year. Will you intentionally choose Jesus every day along with me?

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to place Him first each day of your life. While life can get busy and distractions are guaranteed, intentionally make God first in your life, because from the perspective of eternity, a relationship with God is the most important thing we can have!

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do, place God first by intentionally spending time with Him each day in prayer and by personally reading your Bible. Don’t take a pastor or podcaster’s word for it. Discover what the Bible says for yourself by opening up the Bible and reading it for yourself!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As I read the opening of Jesus’ story from the gospel of Luke, I am amazed at a number of things he includes. In this episode’s passage specifically, several key parts stood out as I read it in preparation for this episode.

This passage is one of the few that come before Jesus was alive, and it focuses in on Jesus’ relatives and the birth of John the Baptizer. As the passage opens, John has just turned eight days old, and he is taken to be circumcised and named. Let’s read what happened. Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 1, and we will read from the New International Reader’s Version. Starting in verse 59, Luke tells us that:

⁵⁹ On the eighth day, they came to have the child circumcised. They were going to name him Zechariah, like his father. ⁶⁰ But his mother spoke up. “No!” she said. “He must be called John.”

⁶¹ They said to her, “No one among your relatives has that name.”

⁶² Then they motioned to his father. They wanted to find out what he would like to name the child. ⁶³ He asked for something to write on. Then he wrote, “His name is John.” Everyone was amazed. ⁶⁴ Right away Zechariah could speak again. Right away he praised God. ⁶⁵ All his neighbors were filled with fear and wonder. Throughout Judea’s hill country, people were talking about all these things. ⁶⁶ Everyone who heard this wondered about it. And because the Lord was with John, they asked, “What is this child going to be?”

Prior to this passage, some pretty miraculous things had already happened. When the angel came to Zechariah, he took the elderly priest’s voice away because Zechariah did not have faith in God’s promise.

This begins a string of extra-ordinary events that lead up to John’s birth. For somewhere between 9 and 12 months, depending on how quickly Elizabeth became pregnant, we have a mute priest, and this in itself draws attention to John the Baptizer and who he would become.

The first thing that really jumps out at me is how the relatives were pushing to name the child Zechariah, after his father. This speaks to how the relatives felt about Zechariah, and specifically that they wanted to honor him. By proposing the name Zechariah, it is like these relatives wanted to remember the father when looking at the son.

However, what happens next is also interesting. Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth spoke up and she told the relatives the name that Zechariah had shared with her. Not only is this an example of a woman speaking up for God’s plan in the Bible, it is also an example of good communication between spouses in the Bible as well – especially in a situation where communication would be a little more challenging.

Zechariah would have had to have written out what happened, and write out that the angel wanted the child’s name to be John. It may have been a very challenging time in their marriage, but coming out on the other side, after John’s birth shows us that Zechariah and his wife were united. In this event, they are among the first to have a firsthand look at God stepping back into the forefront of “His-Story”. We tend to think of wise men or shepherds being the first to know, but aside from Mary and Joseph, Zechariah and Elizabeth knew that Mary’s baby would be special even earlier.

To bring even more confirmation to John’s extra-ordinary entrance into the world, immediately after he was named by his father in writing, note the legal tone in this event, his voice was immediately restored, and the first thing he did was praise God. Zechariah lost his voice questioning God, and he praises God when his voice is restored. All this drew attention onto John the Baptizer, and what his life would become.

And this leads us to a statement in this passage that inspires me.

In the middle of verse 66, we read the phrase, “The Lord was with John”. This phrase inspires and challenges me because it prompts me to ask myself, “What would I do if I knew that God was with me?”

If I knew 100% that God was with me, would that change any of my actions or my current direction?

Because of the events that surround this phrase about God being with John, I wonder if the silence and muteness of Zechariah could be compared with how God is often times by our side.

It is not as if Zechariah could not communicate. He could — it was just through nontraditional means. Zechariah likely had to write everything out that He wanted to share with others.

In a similar way, rarely does God verbally communicate with us. Instead, there are things that He inspires people to write down, and events where we can look and see His leading and direction in. God seems to communicate more through us looking at the evidence than He does directly, verbally, and/or visually.

Everyone in Zechariah and Elizabeth’s story were forced to look at the evidence. While Zechariah received the angel’s visit and message, everyone else was forced to simply view the evidence of his muteness and let it give weight and authenticity to his story. The evidence drew attention to the event, and it makes me wonder if Zechariah had not questioned, and not been struck mute, if people would have paid more or less attention to this extra-ordinary birth.

All this is to help us understand that sometimes God chooses to communicate silently, through the evidence that we can see if we pay attention, instead of visibly and audibly stepping into view. Perhaps He knows that most people are not ready to see Him, and that is why He is more “subtle” in His methods.

As we come to the end of this podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and keep your eyes open to looking for evidence of God’s communication. He wants us to find Him, and that will only happen if we are actively looking.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn more of what God is like and how He has revealed Himself in the past.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or get distracted away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!