Be sure to watch this excellent video, released about a week ago, by Lance Mosher on why John the Baptist baptized people during his ministry. He goes on to explain the various baptisms in the New Testament and which is the one baptism of Ephesians 4. It’s well explained and presented.
Be sure to visit Lance’s website, TopicalBibleStudies.com.
Everybody has doubts. The question is what to do with them. John the Immersor did the correct thing.
And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
Luke 7:18b-19 ESV Continue reading
Jesus knows better than I do. I have my ideas and think that one should act in a certain way. But the Lord goes forward with the Father’s will.
So Jesus replied to him, “Let it happen now, for it is right for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John yielded to him.
Matthew 3:15 NET
John tried to prevent Jesus from being baptized by him, but when the Lord insisted, he gave up his idea and accepted what Jesus wanted him to do.
May I do like John.
First some slightly technical stuff, then applications below the fold.
Using italics to indicate words not in the original text (not generally a good practice, to my mind), our deceased brother Harold Littrell shows a missing word in his translation of Luke 3:18, “Also with many other things he admonished while preaching to the people” (ESB). This verse gave me pause, because a Portuguese version (Edição Pastoral, for the curious) gave it another twist. My translation: “John announced the Good News to the people by many other means.”
The translation reminded me of 1 Cor. 9:22b, “I have become all things to all people, so that by all means I may save some” (NET; emphasis mine). But there doesn’t appear to be much of a connection between the two texts. Most versions take Littrell’s “things” to be “words” (NIV, McCord) or join it to the idea of exhortations (NET, NASB, NRSV; “warnings,” NLT) also found in the verse. Most other Portuguese translations also go this route as well (CNBB, A21, ARA, NVI, TEB, BJ, BA).
So John was a wordy fellow. Continue reading
