Journey Through Matthew: John the Baptist and Jesus
Jan 16 in General
In the third chapter of Matthew Jesus is brought before us again as one who was prophesied about. This time by John the Baptist. And it is a double-barrelled prophecy because John himself had been spoken about by Isaiah.
You can read the chapter by following this link.
Matthew builds up a from a voice in the wilderness, to the voice of God from heaven.
There are a number of other things to notice in the chapter such as fruit, or the winnowing-fork and threshing floor. These images are very vivid – Matthew writes of fruit some 13 times and has a number of agricultural references.
But for now we are focusing on what Matthew is saying about Jesus.
Jesus will baptize with the ‘Holy Spirit and with fire’, he is the one who is coming to bring something new, something special. Matthew skillfully weaves the Holy Spirit into his gospel, laying the ground for our understanding of the Holy Trinity.
Jesus is obedient – following the ‘proper’ way as he says. This is a way in which Jesus gives us an example of how we might live, following the path that God has laid out for us.
Jesus is revealed as a person of the Holy Trinity. As mentioned above, this chapter draws Father, Son and Holy Spirit together in a very powerful way.
Is there something else about Jesus that you see in this chapter?
What is Matthew asking us to think about?
What is Jesus’ relationship with the prophesies of the Old Testament? Remember that these were not from the Old Testament in Matthew’s time, they were simply from the scriptures, the gathered writings that spoke of God’s dealings over very many years.
What do we think of ourselves? Are we people who will take the call to repentance seriously or will we rest on a legalistic or hypocritical understanding of faith? Matthew speaks of the Pharisees in this way a number of times.
These are only two things – is there something that you feel that Matthew is asking you to think?
NEXT/PREVIOUS:
Journey Through Matthew: Epiphany »
Journey Through Matthew: The First Disciples «