I prefer a soft approach to preaching and witnessing. I want to love people into a relationship with Jesus. I want the church to move toward being a community that has so much health and vitality in it that other people want to become part of it. When I first considered being a pastor, one of the images I had to put behind me was the hellfire and brimstone preacher. If that is preaching, then I could never preach. Yet, I have another confession to make. Such an approach will not always reach people. People like me need to remember that the grace and love of God toward all persons does not mean God is indifferent to what we do. God is not morally neutral. God has a will and purpose for our individual lives and for humanity that moves toward a future that Christians have seen in Jesus of Nazareth. None of us has a right to smug self-confidence that we think we deserve because of our heritage. What we need today is to bear fruit consistent with showing the love and grace of God in the world. I find that when my life falls short of bearing worthy fruit, I do experience judgment. The consequences of my behavior will come back upon me and overtake me. I think the world would become a better place if all of us took the call to bear worthy fruit more seriously and urgently than we do.
Luke presents three samples of the preaching of John, involving eschatological, ethical, and messianic sayings.
The first sample comes in material Luke and Matthew share. 7 John said to the crowds, a group sometimes presented sympathetically (e.g., Matthew 9:36; 14:14, 19; 21:9, 11, 46; Luke 9:11; etc.) and other times negatively, as here. In conjunction with John the Baptist, Jesus questioned the motivation of the crowds (Luke 7:24), as well as the reason his crowds had increased (Luke 11:29). In the Passion Narratives, the crowd is portrayed largely as excessively biddable, being led to call for Jesus’ execution at the instigation of the chief priests and elders (e.g., Matthew 27:20). John’s vituperation against the crowds in this passage is uniquely harsh.[2] The crowds came out for him to baptize them. John is a prophetic voice with authority that shines out in this text. John the Baptist, having only just begun to practice his "call" from God, wastes no time in getting to the rotten heart of the actions and attitudes that run throughout the crowds gathering to hear him preach. In fact, it seems odd that Luke and Matthew depict John the Baptist uttering such harsh invectives to a crowd that has voluntarily gathered to receive his "baptism of repentance" (Luke 3:7b‑9, Matthew 3:7b‑10). Those in the crowd seem to have already felt the tug of truth in John's message. Why else would they have come seeking a fresh start in this baptism of the repentant? These harsh words do not seem to mesh with the openness of the crowds to the words and baptism of John. Sincere repentance may not have motivated all of those who came seeking baptism. Thus, some in the crowds may have sought “insurance" against the "wrath to come.” Their unworthy motives may have inspired John's harsh words. We now have an eschatological saying, calling for moral reform before the coming wrath. The form is that of a prophetic oracle. John the Baptist said, “You brood or offspring of vipers (ἐχιδνῶν)! Of the more than 30 species of snakes found in Israel, more than half a dozen of them are venomous, and six of these are in the class of vipers. All can deliver fatal bites, which is one of the principal reasons for their appearance in the biblical text as metaphors for surprising treachery and danger (e.g., Genesis 49:17; Job 20:16; Psalm 140:3; Isaiah 30:6; 59:5; Matthew 12:34; 23:33). In only one instance (Acts 28:3), does the word viper appear in its literal zoological sense. The image may make several rhetorical points simultaneously. He emphasizes the collective nature of the opposition to John’s ministry and, with that collectivity, he points to the strength that comes in numbers; he points to the colluding nature of the opposition parties; and he points forward to the idea of offspring. Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Instead of sinners seeking repentance, the Baptist portrays the rigorously righteous as a slither of snakes trying to slip out of a blazing field or a fiery future. 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. To John the Baptist, this is only way to avoid the coming judgment. John clearly expected some type of visible change to adhere to those who underwent his baptism. He is not after a cheap success. He discourages baptism, rather than cheapen it. What matters is not the list of do's and don'ts, but a life that takes God seriously. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Their status as the people of God will have no merit. Many scholars read the negative comments concerning the benefits of an Abrahamic genealogy as an indictment of the entire temple/cultus tradition. Some scholars suggest it is a negative comment concerning the bankruptcy of Torah observance. John removes false securities. An attempt to constrain God by magic, ritual, amulets, sacraments, or Law, is what religion tries to do. In the minds of many Jewish people, God guaranteed the covenantal blessings through Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” No matter what one's pedigree, or how conscientious, "by‑the‑book," one's behavior, without "fruits," God's wrath is sure and God's judgment is imminent. The judgment process has already actually begun. Thus, instead of boasting about your family tree, John preaches, look to the tips of your own branches. Do you see good fruit there? Is your life producing something useful? Does your life nourish others with its fruits? If not, John insists, no matter how deep and impressive the root system, no matter how lofty the lineage, a non-producing tree can look forward to only one fate: cut down and burned in a fire. God's judgment has overtaken those who feel secure. Nevertheless, how are they to know salvation? He has shattered illusions. Yet, what are the proper fruit of salvation? Clearly, this is no time to sit back and observe. The idea of divine judgment — the “wrath to come” — has firm roots in the religion of Israel and is pervasive throughout the Hebrew Bible. The idea rests on the premise that the God of Israel was impartial yet actively concerned. “The Judge of all the earth” (Genesis 18:25) has a will for that earth and its inhabitants which is not morally neutral: “Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you” (Amos 5:14). From its earliest days, Israel understood itself to be a religious and social community constituted and maintained by the gracious favor of its God, whose will for righteous behavior placed Israel, no less than are any of its neighbors, under divine judgment. The poles of divine favor and divine judgment played alternating prominent roles in Israel’s history, and John’s attack on the people’s smug self-confidence in their birthright has the intent of challenging the excessive importance some members of the religious community had attached to their election as heirs of the promise made to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; 17:4-8; 22:18). III Isaiah, writing during the Persian Exile, had already challenged the idea of exclusive privilege being the prerogative of those capable of participating through biological reproduction in the religious community. In a famous oracle addressed to eunuchs and foreigners (Isaiah 56:1-8), the prophet declared that those incapable of passing on the promise through physical progeny were nonetheless welcome members of the religious community based on their obedience to the commandments. Such a radical change in perception in Israelite religion played a major role in laying the foundation for such groups as the Essenes and early Christians, whose views on marriage and reproduction were in stark contrast to the dominant Pharisaic view (see, e.g., Matthew 19:12; 22:30; Acts 8:27-39). The qualified importance attached to children by the time of John is evident in this passage.
The second sample of the preaching of John the Baptist comes from material unique to Luke. We now turn to a set of questions between people in the crowd and John. It contains ethical reflections related to repentance. The advice offered is toward the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers. 10 In addition, the crowds asked him, considering that there is no safe base from God's wrath in claiming an Abrahamic heritage, “What then should we do?” We now turn to ethical says that Luke (and Matthew) clearly considers good advice for Christians. We can see that the form is Christian catechism, even if it represents some of the ethical teaching of John. We are getting examples of the fruits worthy of repentance. 11 In reply, he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Apparently, offering the essentials of life to each other, such as food and clothing, are part of the fruits. Yet, could we not expect this behavior from any pious individual? To give away half of one’s clothing and food doubtless shocked John’s original hearers as much as the idea strikes contemporary readers as extreme. 12 Even tax collectors, an implicit criticism that religious leaders were not part of the crowd but identifying them as part of the brood of vipers,came to receive baptism, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Tax collectors were private citizens under contract to the Roman Empire that occupied Israel. The Jewish people considered them traitors. Jesus will say that tax collectors will go into the rule of God ahead of religious leaders (Matthew 21:31). Such advice is less radical than that given to the crowds. Yet, John offers specific economic advice on how to bear fruit in their corrupt lives. Yet, his advice is not surprising or self-sacrificing. 14 Soldiers, part of the brood of vipers, also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” The advice is economic. It contains nothing surprising or self-sacrificing A word of caution is in order. “Repentance” proclaimed by John is a tree which at once brings forth fruits and extends to the performance of very concrete acts in practical alteration of a prior human attitude. However, such repentance cannot exhaust itself in the performance of those or any other acts.[3]
The third sample of the preaching of John the Baptist comes from material in common between Matthew and Luke. We have a messianic saying, containing the only implicit denial of messiahship by John in the Synoptic Gospels. 15 As expectation filled the people, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah. In the final verses, the focus shifts from content of message to identity of messenger. In response to the crowd's surmising, John himself speaks up to clarify his mission and his identity. John's focus was John's successor. In both Luke and John, the crowds that have come to listen and receive John's baptism ask the specific question, "Are you the Messiah?" This was the most crucial moment in John's ministry. Could he proclaim preparation for the One who is to come, while resisting the temptation to elevate his own message of what is to come? John the Baptist's words dispel any lingering notions about his possible messianic identity. John lists three crucial distinctions between his own role and the ministry the Messiah will incarnate. 16 John answered all of them by saying,[4] First, “I baptize[5] you with[6] water;[7]second, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. This Hebraism refers to tasks a lowly, unskilled slave would do for a master. According to John, not even the disparity between master and slave is great enough to imply the vast expanse that lays between the Messiah and his advance agent, John the Baptist. Once again, John animates his message with a poignant moving picture. Instead of waxing eloquent about the greatness of the One to come, John invokes the image of a relationship familiar to his listeners. In the first-century world of master-teachers, revered rabbis and their schools of loyal students and disciples, a seriously devoted student would dog his teacher's steps, following him wherever he went. Every aspect of a great rabbi's life was worthy of observation and emulation by a truly dedicated student. However, a well-known rabbinical saying drew a distinct line in the sand between the actions expected of a zealous disciple and the labors accorded to a common body slave. This saying proscribed that "every work which a slave performs for his lord, a disciple must do for his teacher, except loosening his shoe." John, of course, promptly capitalizes on that very distinction. Third, he will baptize you[8] with the Holy Spirit and fire.[9] The Messiah differs from John by bringing not just a warning, but actual judgment. The idea of baptism “with the Holy Spirit” plays a minor role in the gospels (appearing only in this passage and its parallels and John 1:33). However, spiritual baptism played a significant role in the early Christian church, with baptism with water was the outward sign of this prior spiritual change (i.e., repentance), e.g., Peter’s question concerning the Gentile converts in Acts 10:47: “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” The book of Acts is also the only place outside the gospels that refers explicitly to baptism with the Holy Spirit (1:5; 8:16 [by negative inference]; 11:16; compare I Corinthians 12:13). The preaching of John the Baptist proclaimed that the coming Son of Man would baptize with the Spirit and with fire, showing that the work of the Spirit stands related to the executing of judgment. As noted, baptism with the Spirit contrasts with the baptism of John himself, which is with water.[10] 17 His winnowing fork (πτύον, the winnowing shovel used to gather the piles of wheat and chaff that workers have separated and left on the threshing room floor. A thrinaz, or true winnowing fork, would have been used previously -- lifting the wheat and chaff high into the air to let the worthless chaff fall free while holding on to the precious stalks of wheat.[11]) is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” John takes an unremarkable image - the familiar rural Palestinian scene of a farmer scrupulously winnowing out the chaff from his wheat harvest and burning up that worthless residue - and couples it with a harrowing image of divine judgment that practices the same winnowing technique on the lives of both obedient and willful men and women. In threshing, the threshers toss the grain into the air. The heavier kernels fall to the ground while the wind blows the chaff away. This is judgment. "The fire that never goes out" (Isaiah 34:10, 66:29) fits the last judgment. The reader is to fear the possibility of being chaff. Although the combination of a fierce (and burning) anger and chaff is not unknown in the Hebrew Bible (being found in Zephaniah 2:2), the usual imagery of chaff does not involve burning, as here; it usually involves being blown away by the wind (e.g., Job 13:25; 21:18; Psalm 1:4; 35:5; 83:13; Isaiah 17:13; 29:5; Jeremiah 13:24; etc.). This is the only passage in the New Testament in which chaff appears. The contrasting image of the wheat destined for safe storage with the chaff burned up in the fire is so graphic that we are apt to miss some of the subtlety of this text. First, we should note that the threshing floor is the object of the cleansing John describes -- not the wheat or the chaff. If the floor of the granary is the focus of the Messiah's attention, he has already separated the wheat and chaff. The image suggested by the winnowing shovel is that claiming or rejecting the Baptist’s prior message of repentance has already designated his listeners as "wheat" or "chaff." The Messiah's task, as he clears the threshing floor, is to offer judgment (the all-consuming fire) or salvation (the haven of the granary) to those who stand before him. There was another One yet to come. To the listeners of John the Baptist, this reference meant eschatology, promising a time of both cleansing salvation and fiery judgment. The spirit of burning and judgment will cleanse Zion. The Lord will visit Israel like the flame of a devouring fire, their enemies becoming like small dust and flying chaff. The tongue of the Lord is like a devouring fire to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction.[12] In the context of Luke's work, this reference to fire also clearly points to the drama of the Spirit and tongues as of fire at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). John's use of apocalyptic images has led some scholars to suspect John may have expected at this point a fiery "Day of the Lord" as had the prophet Malachi.
Luke 3:15-17 have a concern for identity. We can see this as the focus shifts from the content of the message of John the Baptist to who John the Baptist is. He needed to clarify for the people his mission and identity. The people who came to hear him had grand expectations. Sometimes, we are fortunate enough to have expectations fulfilled. Many times, our expectations are in the wrong direction, or may even find fulfillment in unexpected ways. In this case, the people wondered if John might be the anticipated Jewish Messiah. He made it clear that he is not. As he stresses, John only baptizes with water, but the one to come will baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire." The work of the Spirit has a relationship with judgment. Luke stresses this by his reference to the winnowing fork and the threshing floor. People are already either wheat or chaff. The task of the Messiah is to offer judgment or salvation. A point we must not forget, however, is that John said he was not worthy to untie his sandals, the task of a slave. He knew that his identity was not in himself, but in the one to come.
Luke summarizes the ministry of John. 18 Therefore, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. Note the lack of preaching about the kingdom. For Luke, Jesus is the kingdom preacher. Despite the ominous tone, Luke concludes this text by declaring these and other messages of John to be "good news." This "gospel" reference clearly works as a Lukan literary connection between the ministry of John the Baptist and the ministry of Jesus. For Luke, the connection between these two figures is so strong that John's work of "preparing the way" includes spreading good news, not just words of warning.
John the Baptist does not want anyone to miss the significance of Jesus, as he points his listeners to him.
There is a story about a group of tourists visiting the Vatican. Their tour guide had told them about the famed Sistine Chapel: the place where the College of Cardinals meets to choose a new pope, the room whose ornate painted ceiling is Michelangelo's masterpiece. One aspect of the Sistine Chapel comes as a surprise to most first-time visitors: its size. It is a small room. One young man was so eager to see Michelangelo's painted ceiling, he dashed in one end of the Sistine Chapel and out the other. He mistook the Chapel for an antechamber. The tour guide had to chase after him, saying, "Come back, you missed it -- and this time, remember to look up!"
The function of John the Baptist, like that of the prophets before him, was to expose, unmask, and tell the truth. Truth-tellers are not often welcome but can irritate until you just want to get rid of them. When Pope Leo heard how Martin Luther was unmasking corruption in the churches of Europe, he said, "A wild boar has invaded my vineyard!"
John cried "Repent!" - in his native Aramaic tongue, "shub!" - make a 180-degree turn. You are going the wrong way! The Greek term for repentance, metanoia, means a change of mind. However, repentance is never just mental, never merely an apology to get out of hot water. John's goal is not feelings of guilt. John wants us to turn around, to refocus our thinking, change our minds, and correct our vision. He wants his listeners to change their way of life. Jesus is coming, John says, not so you can feel different but so you can be different.
As Callicles laments, after Socrates cornered him:
"If you are serious and what you say is true, then surely the life of us mortals must be turned upside down, and apparently we are everywhere doing the opposite of what we should." (Plato, Gorgias, c.481).
Socrates, I am sure, would agree, for he thought that if he could change what you believe, he could change the way you lived in the world.
Preachers like John are challenging. If we accept what he says, it may well change our interaction with this world. Here is what I think John is saying.
First, John preached a message that said God is coming. How can that message change your life? Things do not just go on endlessly. We are accountable for the lives we lead. We are accountable to each other, of course, but we are accountable to God, who is coming. The ax, the judge, the fire, the flood! I warned you! Yes, God is a consuming fire. God alone can refine us like gold. God alone can separate us from the slag and dross of our selfish individualities to fuse us into the wholeness of the unity that will reflect the divine life of the Trinity. If we do not permit such love to consume us entirely and to unite us in God, the rock and dirt will hide the gold within each of us, keeping us alienated from our true self and from others.[13]
Wow. In the church today, we talk much about seeker-sensitive services. I have been to them and enjoyed them. John is not being seeker-sensitive here.
Fred Craddock reminds us of an old movie, The High and the Mighty. On a flight over the ocean, the pilot’s voice announces to the cabin, “There is a problem. We cannot correct it. We are not going to make it. I tell you this so that you might prepare yourselves for the inevitable.” An elegantly dressed woman begins to remove the diamond broach from her neck and the large ring from her finger. She peels off her false eyelashes, wipes the makeup from her face. A large scar is now visible on her forehead that the makeup had always concealed. She is preparing herself for the end. She will go there as she really is. The pilot somehow saved the flight, as it turns out. They make it to the airport. However, the woman has changed. The situation offered her an opportunity of honesty and she took it, gladly. She took off the mask, and she became whom she really was.
If we live with the idea that God is coming, that we are accountable to God, we can also take off the mask. Struggling to present an image to others that is not true, struggling to live up to the image others have of you, is a burden you do not need to carry. God wants us to be real, authentic, with each other.
Second, John preached that you could change. How could that message change your life? You will accept responsibility for who you have become, what you have done, and look honestly at yourself. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” he thunders (v. 8). Turn yourself around and get yourself in line with the righteousness of God. Changing our lives is difficult. Some of us have beaten ourselves down for so long that we do not need to hear what he says. However, many of us have an inflated notion of how good we are. We have little right to the snobbery in which we often engage. We can talk about criminals as if they were apes in the forest. We need to have enough self-knowledge to realize how bad we are or might be. We need to get rid of all the dirty self-deception of talking about how certain groups or classes of people are lower than we are. We need to squeeze out the oil of self-righteousness.[14] We will not change if we do not feel the pressure to change. The self-righteous does not change because he or she sees no need. They are fine as they are. We may need to look at ourselves, not harshly, but truly. Where does God want us to change?
We have another problem. The culture keeps changing what it considers unethical behavior. Thus, comedians whom we thought were funny a few years ago suddenly become racist, bigots, and homophobic. We live in a weird moral climate where Fifty Shades of Gray can become a hit, but people take offense at the Dean Martin song, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” We live in a political climate where it is okay for “anti-fascists” to adopt fascist, brown-shirt behavior, intimidating people from expressing legitimate political difference. We are losing the ability to listen calmly to the views of the other and make our judgments. Of course, such an approach would require a degree of humility that self-righteousness and arrogance does not allow. We seem comfortable with explaining away and making normal behavior that a healthy society long ago would have labeled deviant.[15]
Someone once told a parable about a man sitting by the side of a river. He notices a body floating in the water. The victim is alive, but just barely. He pulls the unfortunate soul out and administers first aid. Then, he sees another bedraggled, half-drowned soul, and then another. He pulls each of them out of the water, saving their lives. But more drowning people just keep floating down the river. How long must this go on — the author of this little parable wonders — before the man decides to hike upstream and do something about whoever is throwing people into the river?
As the culture keeps shifting its ethical concerns, it will lead people down a path of self-destructive behavior. Followers of Jesus need to have the courage to point to those unleashing this misleading advice regarding values. If we value the wrong thing, it will lead to behavior that will lead to your drowning.
Martin Luther King Jr. makes a similar point, reflecting on Jesus’ famous parable of the good Samaritan:
“On the one hand, we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.”[16]
How might the world be different if we started to think about repentance and repented of what is hurtful, harmful, and hateful? Of what is petty, demeaning and belittling? We see this on the political scene so much today. Instead of taking seriously the positions of others, we demean and ridicule, instead of engaging in direct debate over the issues before us. What would happen if today were the day, we start to think and act differently? Repentance has an intimate connection with the hope contained in change. More particularly, it invites us to consider changed relationships. Repentance acknowledges failure in the context of grace. It trusts that no breakdown or severance of understanding and contact is disastrous. It trusts that our attitudes of greed, envy, malice, manipulation, and distrust are not forever in us in such a way as to ruin our lives. The distorted relationship game of oppressor, victim, and rescuer is not perpetual. Repentance is our willingness to open our ears and hearts to the other. Repentance is our confession that we cannot live without the other. Actual reconciliation is not a guarantee, but repentance means we turn to the other with our hands and hearts open. Our repentance, our turning around, has introduced something fresh in the possibility of grace. It allows us room to change.[17]
The call to repentance did not end with John the Baptist. It continues to this day. I read about a strange friendship between the former head of the NAACP and the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. They met debating each other, many years ago. The Klansman taunted the black man and called him names. The black man responded that nothing the Klansman could do would make him hate him. He responded instead with love. Over a period of many years, the Klansman would call the black man and say, “Hello, nigger.” Nevertheless, in 1991, he called and said, “Hello, brother.” He went on to tell his friend that he had left the Klan, had accepted Christ, that God had called him to preach the gospel, and that his conversion was due to the example of the black man returning hatred with love. Today, they share a pulpit and together preach God’s love. That is repentance.[18]
Third, John introduces his audience to the center of the universe. How will that message change your life? John admits that he is only preparing the way for the one to come, the Messiah. If we meet Christ, we will change our way of thinking and behaving. We will find a new source of power.
I wonder how many of them realized how important this proclamation was. It could have been a time to think differently. It could have become an aha moment. New ideas. New worlds. New possibilities. New territory. Yet, I am sure that for many on that day, what John said did not compute.
Heaven knows terrible things happen to people in this world. The good die young, and the wicked prosper, and in any one town, anywhere, there is grief enough to freeze the blood. However, from deep within whatever the hidden spring is that life wells up from, there wells up into our lives, even at their darkest and especially then, a power to heal, to breathe new life into us. In the thick of joy or pain is a power out of the depths of life that emerges to bless. In this regard, most of us are mystics. John the Baptist promises that the Messiah will baptize with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is that “mystical” power to which we must open our minds and hearts and to receive. The Spirit is God with us in our experience. We need to allow ourselves to let the Spirit encounter us, address us, and then we need to respond to the address. We need to move in the direction the Spirit bids us. The Spirits bids us into deeper communion with Christ and with others. The Spirit that engages us from the depths of our souls, and is indeed the source of our lives, seeks to shape us into the image of Christ. However, and this is important, if we do not respond to this invitation, it will be a form of grace that the fire of the Spirit consume (destroy?) us.[19]
In John Steinbeck's story, "The Wayward Bus" a dilapidated old bus takes a cross-country shortcut on its journey to Los Angeles. It gets stuck in the mud. While the drivers go for assistance, the passengers take refuge in a cave. It is a curious company of people, and it is obvious that the author is attempting to get across the point that these people are lost spiritually as well as literally. As they enter into this cave, the author calls the reader’s attention to the fact that as they enter, they must pass a word someone has scrawled with paint over the entrance. The word is repent. Although Steinbeck calls that to the reader’s attention it is interesting that none of the passengers pay any attention to it whatsoever.
Turn your life toward this one called Messiah. Break the chains that hold you back. Get ready. God is coming. You can change. Connect to the center of the universe. John preached that. He still does. By God’s grace, you will.
[1] It consists of material from Q in verses 7-9 and 15-18, the few differences with Matthew 3:7-10 almost certainly being stylistic improvements by Luke, and material unique to Luke in verses 10-14. This is a major agreement of Matthew and Luke against Mark. The point here is whether Mark and Luke gave priority to Q at this point or whether Luke is following Matthew.
[2] It is possible that a more specific referent, such as the religious leaders, was original to the narrative. In fact, in Matthew’s account, the object of John’s outburst is the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 3:7). Now, if Luke had Matthew in front of him, why did he change the object of these words of John to the crowds? One might argue, I suppose, that Luke, writing to a Gentile audience, did not have the same interest in focusing upon Jewish religious leaders as Matthew did. Another explanation is that Matthew had Q in front of him. Matthew seems motivated by the desire to make the enemies of John the Baptist and Jesus the same. Jesus refers to his opposition as a brood of vipers as well. Thus, the most reasonable explanation is that Matthew and Luke have a common source, Q, which had these words directed to the crowds, and Matthew changed it religious leaders for his theological purposes. Although Mark and John do not include this incident, John includes an encounter between John and a “delegation” that includes Pharisees, mentioned explicitly (John 1:24). It is quite possible, even likely, that the same incident is behind the divergent accounts in Matthew, Luke and John. In the present context, “the crowds” stand for the people in general, but whose composition Luke will spell out by representative groups (e.g., tax collectors and soldiers) in subsequent verses.
[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [60.4], 564.
[4] Matthew 3.11b-12 and Luke 3.16b-17 both extend the second part of the sermon of John the baptist by some 28 (Matthew) or 27 (Luke) words, of which 25 are verbatim between them. The theme is the separation of the wheat from the chaff, the gathering of the former into the barn, and the burning of the latter. A major agreement. The issue in scholarship is whether this agreement arises due to Luke having Matthew in front of him or whether they had a common document, Q.
[5] Matthew 3.11 and Luke 3.16 agree in the present tense βαπτιζω against the Marcan aorist εβαπτισα.
[6] Matthew 3.11 and Luke 3.16 each have μεν; Mark 1.7 lacks it.
[7] Both Matthew 3.11 and Luke 3.16 have John the baptist speak of his own baptismal rite in water before speaking of the one to come; Mark 1.7-8 has him speak of the one to come before describing his own baptismal rite in water.
[8] Matthew 3.11 and Luke 3.16 have υμας βαπτισει instead of the Marcan βαπτισει υμας.
[9] Scholars wonder whether the reference to the Holy Spirit in verse 16 could be from John. Matthew and Luke add “and fire” to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which Mark omits, suggesting that the phrase was from the common source on which Matthew and Luke drew in the composition of their gospels. The phrase may be an infiltration from the “unquenchable fire” in the following verse, which is also from Q.
[10] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 623.
[11] (For more on this distinction, see Robert L. Webb, "The Activity of John the Baptist's Expected Figure at the Threshing Floor," Matthew 3:12, Luke 3:17," Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 43, 1991, 103-111.)
[12] Isaiah 4:4
4 once the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion
and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment
and by a spirit of burning.
Isaiah 29:5-6
5 But the multitude of your foes shall be like small dust,
and the multitude of tyrants like flying chaff.
And in an instant, suddenly,
6 you will be visited by the Lord of hosts
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
Isaiah 30:27-28
27 See, the name of the Lord comes from far away,
burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke;
his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue is like a devouring fire;
28 his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck—
to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,
and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads them astray.
[13] "God is a consuming Fire. He alone can refine us like gold, and separate us from the slag and dross of our selfish individualities to fuse us into this wholeness of perfect unity that will reflect His own Triune Life. As long as we do not permit His love to consume us entirely and to unite us in Himself, the gold that is in us will be hidden by the rock and dirt which keep us separate from one another." - Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, W. W. Norton & Co., 1974, p. 70
[14] Inspired by G. K. Chesterton.
[15] Inspired by Charles Krauthammer in the New Republic, referring to Senator Patrick Daniel Moynihan.
[16] —Martin Luther King Jr., in a speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence”
[17] Rowan Williams, The Truce of God, 1983
[18] —Robert M. Bowman, “A call to repentance,” December 20-21, 1997, United Catholic Church Home page, Rmbowman.com/catholic/s971220h.htm.
[19] Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat (Chatto & Windus, 1967), 114.
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