Reflective Bible Study

As we continue our journey into John’s gospel, John the author of this gospel turns his attention onto John the Baptist, who was Jesus’ forerunner in ministry. While the other gospel writers include details about John the Baptist, John the author includes some unique details we don’t see in the other gospels.

In my mind’s eye, the passage we will look at happens after Jesus was baptized, tempted in the wilderness, and as He is returning to society. However, I suspect that this passage begins during the time when Jesus was at the end of fasting in the wilderness and actively being tempted by Satan.

Let’s read about what happened. Our passage is found in John’s gospel, chapter 1, and we will read from the New American Standard Bible. Starting in verse 19, John the author tells us about John the Baptist, saying:

¹⁹ This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” ²⁰ And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” ²¹ They asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” ²² Then they said to him, “Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” ²³ He said, “I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”

²⁴ Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. ²⁵ They asked him, and said to him, “Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” ²⁶ John answered them saying, “I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. ²⁷ It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” ²⁸ These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

Pausing our reading briefly, I want to draw our attention onto a couple of details before continuing.

While in other gospels, we read about Jesus saying that John the Baptist fulfilled the role of Elijah who was to come before Him, John the Baptist himself denies that title or role. Only a misquoted, out-of-context verse could make people believe John the Baptist was literally Elijah back from heaven. I have seen people claim that Jesus supported reincarnation because of one misquoted, out-of-context verse, but ironically, the claim is about someone returning who never actually died. Second Kings, chapter 2 tells us the story of Elijah being taken to heaven in a chariot of fire and a whirlwind.

But regardless of all of this, John the Baptist makes no claim about being Elijah, even if others make that claim for him. Instead, John the Baptist focuses on a mission that was foreshadowed by Isaiah. John the Baptist didn’t focus on who he was; he focused on the mission he was sent to accomplish.

John the Baptist’s mission was pointing people to Jesus, and he does so very clearly in this passage.

Let’s continue reading and discover what John the author tells us next. Picking back up in verse 29:

²⁹ The next day he [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’ ³¹ I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water.” ³² John testified saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. ³³ I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴ I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

In my mind, I suspect that this was when Jesus was coming back from being tempted. It is also possible that after Jesus returned from the wilderness, that he spent a few days listening to John the Baptist’s teaching before John openly declares the truth about Him.

John the Baptist doesn’t proclaim who Jesus is with any unclear language. He declares that Jesus is the Son of God in verse 34 by saying, “I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

John the Baptist focused on what happened during Jesus’ baptism for the evidence to firmly proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. It was at Jesus’ baptism when Heaven opened and the Spirit descended onto Jesus. I suspect this was more a sign for John the Baptist’s benefit than for Jesus. I am confident that Jesus had the Holy Spirit before this point, but that Jesus and the Spirit knew that the time wasn’t right before that point.

We can learn a lot from John the Baptist in this event. Not only can we learn that John did not see himself as Elijah or as a prophet, we see through how John described himself that he was focused on mission rather than on role. It’s possible John the Baptist could have known or claimed the roles of Elijah or the Prophet, since other people were likely speculating this. John the Baptist might have known he was fulfilling the role of Elijah, but he also knew that it is better to focus on mission than on roles. If John the Baptist focused on the role of Elijah, the focus would have been placed on himself. By placing the focus on the mission, John the Baptist is clearly directing the attention onto Jesus who would come after him.

Not only that, but we also discover that John the Baptist clearly tells those present who Jesus was in no uncertain terms. Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and the only One who is able to redeem us from sin.

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, continue seeking God first in your life and choose to focus on the mission God has called you to instead of any role or position He may have placed you in. If you are uncertain of what God’s mission for your life is, the best mission to fall back on is simply telling people about Jesus. Choose to proclaim Jesus to those God brings into your life and tell others what Jesus has done for you personally.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn, grow, and discover more about Jesus and God in your own life. While pastors, speakers, authors, or even podcasters can give you ideas to think about, filter everything you read, hear, or see through the pages and truth of the Bible to discover how the world’s ideas fit within God’s plan. You may be surprised to discover how much of the worlds ideas are simply not compatible with God’s ideal. When faced with the choice, always lean on God, because His way leads into eternity.

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 avoid where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we begin looking through the gospels for the parables and visual illustrations Jesus used when teaching the crowds, we don’t have to look very far. One of the first visual illustrations Jesus uses can be found in Mark’s gospel very early on in Jesus’ ministry.

In this event, which happens shortly after Jesus invited Matthew to be a disciple, some people come to Jesus with a question. Let’s read what happened from Mark’s gospel, chapter 2, using the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 18, Mark tells us that:

¹⁸ John’s disciples [referring to John the Baptist’s disciples] and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came to Jesus and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but your disciples don’t?”

¹⁹ Jesus replied, “Can wedding guests fast while the groom is still with them? As long as they have the groom with them, they cannot fast. ²⁰ But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast.

²¹ “No one patches an old coat with a new piece of cloth that will shrink. Otherwise, the new patch will shrink and rip away some of the old cloth, and the tear will become worse. ²² People don’t pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the wine will make the skins burst, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine is to be poured into fresh skins.”

In this short event, we see Jesus use two similar visual illustrations and on the surface, these illustrations seem disconnected from the context of what was written before. It is as though Jesus is talking about fasting and then immediately shifts focus to talking about new and old cloth and new and old wineskins.

While preparing for this episode, I wondered if I should leave out this first portion of the passage since it doesn’t seem to relate to the set of parable-illustrations Jesus shared.

However, when choosing which gospel to use for this episode, I noticed that each of the three gospels that include these parables all lead into the parables talking about the question on fasting. Whether it appears to us as coincidence or not, the gospel writers connected Jesus talking about fasting with His talking about cloth and wineskins, and because of this, we’ll include these first verses for context.

By including these verses, it was fascinating in my mind to see the foreshadowing of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and return to heaven so early in the gospels. Verse 20 is the transition verse between fasting and patching cloth, and this verse has Jesus tell those present that “But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast.”

Jesus knew early on that He would be leaving His followers and returning to heaven, and immediately after hinting this, we see two similar illustrations.

The first illustration is about patching an old coat. Jesus shares in verse 21, “No one patches an old coat with a new piece of cloth that will shrink. Otherwise, the new patch will shrink and rip away some of the old cloth, and the tear will become worse.”

The second illustration is similar, but focused on storing wine. Jesus shares in verse 22, “People don’t pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the wine will make the skins burst, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine is to be poured into fresh skins.”

When reading these parables, I get the impression that Jesus selected the disciples that He did because He wanted to minimize the hurdle of tradition when trying to teach them about God’s kingdom. Sometimes, our habits and ways of viewing the world are a bigger obstacle to growing closer to God than it is if we begin while we are young.

Some of the religious leaders might have thought it odd for Jesus to have chosen the least religious people possible to start a religious movement, but Jesus knew something they did not – Jesus knew that strongly held preconceived ideas about the Messiah would not benefit the mission Jesus came to accomplish. The more religious the student, the more likely they would have preconceived ideas from what the religious culture taught. Jesus picked some of the least qualified people because they would have the least to unlearn before learning what Jesus wanted to teach them.

Those of us living over 2,000 years later are just as susceptible of falling into the rut that the first century religious culture faced. Those in the first century ultimately missed accepting the Messiah they were looking for because they had let tradition replace their focus on the prophecies. While we might think ourselves superior because we didn’t miss Jesus, we have just as easy of a trap we can fall into, and in our case, it isn’t simply one trap that causes us to miss Jesus. We actually face two traps in our spiritual walk.

Those of us living today must balance between two easy to fall into ditches on our spiritual walk. The first ditch we can fall into is believing we must have an open mind and accept every idea as equally credible. This is spiritual suicide because in spite of what others might say, not all spiritual ideas can coexist with one another. We can and should live peacefully with those who believe differently from us, but that doesn’t mean that we must align our beliefs. We should be open to working with others and keeping communication open, but we shouldn’t automatically surrender our beliefs just because others disagree. The more open-minded an individual is, the less grounded they will be, and they less certain they are about what truth actually is.

The other ditch we can fall into is becoming completely closed-minded and rejecting every idea that runs counter to our established belief system. While very little is truly new in the realm of spirituality and beliefs, when we present a closed-minded attitude towards someone else, we close off communication, and this ultimately will isolate ourselves. The more closed-minded an individual becomes, the more hostile towards others they will be.

The same is true for a culture. The more closed-minded a culture becomes, the more hostile it becomes towards others. The first century religious culture ultimately was hostile towards Jesus because they had become closed-minded towards other beliefs.

Jesus knew His ministry would challenge and change history, and He knew, like He describes in these parables, that trying to transform the old into the new will only result in greater trouble and conflict than it was worth. Instead, as Jesus began His ministry, He illustrates how He is going to start something new, and while this new doesn’t invalidate the old, starting fresh is needed to shed the layers of baggage known as tradition.

Some people think that we are due for a new start in Christianity in order to shed the baggage of tradition that has crept into Christianity over the centuries. On one hand I agree, however, I also add the caution that when we discard tradition, we must be very intentional that we are moving towards the truth that God has taught through His Word. Discarding tradition for error leads nowhere positive. If you choose to discard tradition in your own life, choose to discard tradition in favor of a truth that is clearly visible in God’s Word the Bible!

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 in one way or another, be sure to continue to seek God first and place Him first in your life. Intentionally decide today that you will move towards Him and discard any tradition in your life that runs counter to the truth you find in His Word.

How do we know what is in God’s word? The easiest way to learn and know is by praying and studying the Bible for yourself. By personally getting into the Bible, you will learn firsthand what God wants to teach you, and you will grow a personal relationship with God. While other people can have interesting things to say about the Bible, never let someone get in the middle of your relationship with God.

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 walk away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!