Jesus & John the Baptist

Before reading this commentary, I encourage you to first read the text of Matthew chapter three.

Jesus Christ and John the Baptist are cousins because Mary and Elizabeth were related. But even before he was born, john the Baptist knew that Jesus was the messiah. The bible says in Luke chapter 1,

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. (Luke 1:41)

Mary, at that time was pregnant with Jesus.

Verses 1-2
At the beginning of chapter 3, Jesus and John are now adults and in those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea saying “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.

But what a coincidence, that’s the exact same thing that Jesus is going say. As a matter of fact, the very first words that Jesus preaches at the start of his ministry, after he returns from fasting in the desert, are “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

So what do we make of that? When both the greatest profit who has ever lived and Jesus the Messiah are both saying repent, it’s probably pretty important, So let’s examine this and understand what they’re talking about.

But before we do, let me give you a reminder; how do we get into the kingdom of heaven? Is it by being a good person? No; because we can not earn salvation. If salvation could be earned, people would have something to brag about. They would be inclined to stand before God and say, “Look at how great I was”.

But Ephesians 2:8-9 states;

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

So we can not earn our salvation by being good or by doing good works. Salvation is by faith. Then what is the purpose of repentance? Why are both Jesus and John, these two cousins, telling everyone to repent?

First of all, what does repent even mean?

I don’t like arguing with strangers on the internet, but sometimes I find myself doing so over the doctrines of Christianity. It was just recently that a Christian made a post stating that Jesus never said “Repent”. I entered into the conversation with my disagreement and the discourse quickly devolved into this stranger arguing with me over the meaning of the word repentance.

This commentary is very intentionally, not meant to be scholarly in nature. Its purpose is to be read by the ordinary Joe and the average Sue. It was not my intent to dive head first into Greek words, root words and forms of verbs that often make bible commentaries a burden to read. However, on this occasion I think it’s necessary if we want to understand what Jesus and John are proclaiming.

And to the ordinary Joe and average Sue, despite what I just said, if you have any interest in Bible study, I would encourage you to consider acquiring a Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Anytime you read something in the Bible, and wonder what it means, a concordance can be a valuable tool to help you understand the passage.

Just be aware that Strong’s was written exclusively for the King James. If you read a different version of the Bible, there will be occasions that you’ll need to convert the passage in your bible, into the King James translation in order to look up in the Strong’s concordance, the exact word that was used in the bible. That in turn will allow you to identity the original Greek or Hebrew words.

The conversion is a simple process, just type your scripture reference into the internet followed by the letters KJV and you’ll instantly receive the way the verse was written in the King James. Then you’ll be able to know what word to look up in your Strong’s concordance. They do make concordances for some of the other bible translations; However, the Strong’s concordance is the most common and easiest to find. I got this one at a thrift store and probably paid a couple of dollars for it. You can probably do the same.

So, when we look up the word Repent, we find this Greek word μετανοέω, which means To think differently. To reconsider. To morally feel guilt after doing something bad. As we proceed further into the book of Matthew, we’re going to see that Jesus wants us to love God and to love other people. In John 14 Jesus it says;

If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot receive Him (The Holy Spirit), because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. (John 14:15-17a)

If Jesus Christ, asks you to do something, you can not just give him the big middle finger. You can’t reject Christ, and love Christ at the same time. Now we all stumble into sin, we all make mistakes and errors, but to look to Jesus and say, “I’m not going to do what you say!” is a rejection of Jesus.

Again, if Jesus asks you to do something and you refuse, that is an act of rejecting Christ. We can not reject Christ and enter into the kingdom heaven. Fortunately, however, as long as you are alive, Jesus’s instruction, and John’s instruction, are still relevant. repent. In other words, as long as you are still living, you are still under God’s grace and there is still time available to you, to accept Christ and to put your faith and trust in Jesus. But the moment you depart from your body, that’s the cut off. Time’s up.

What Jesus wants us to do is to turn from, that is, to think differently about our sins. He wants us instead to follow him and put our trust and reliance upon him. That is, in and of itself, the very definition of faith. You are putting your trust in Jesus Christ, Thus, when Jesus Christ says, “don’t do that, instead do this”, you are able to trust him and are willing to do what he has asked of you.

If Jesus asks you to do something, and you don’t do it, you are rejecting what he asked you to do. You are rejecting Christ.

Again, I want to emphasize, that I’m not referring to the stumbling into sin. We live in a dark and fallen world, and stumbles, trips and falls are unavoidable. But I’m talking about the very deliberate and intentional rejection of Christ’s commands and teachings. That, in and of itself, is a rejection of Christ.

Verses 3-6

John ate grasshoppers. To me, that’s disgusting. Why does the bible mention this? I think it may be to show John’s humbleness and to compare him to Elijah. John doesn’t wear fancy clothes and eat fine foods. He’s like a homeless person. He’s out in the wilderness, rather than in the city. He wears camel hair clothing and eats insects. I suspect that if you and I encountered john the Baptist today, we might be inclined to avoid him, a man at the river wearing rags and eating bugs. But many people in Israel heard about what he was doing, and went out there to see him and be baptized by him.

Verses 7-10

But when John saw the Pharisees showing up at his location, he scolded them and ridiculed them by asking, “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?”

Coming Wrath? What’s he talking about? Our culture today would proclaim that Jesus loves everyone. That he’s an all loving God, and doesn’t send anyone to hell. There’s even an American pastor who wrote a book claiming hell is empty. So what is this talk about God’s coming wrath?

Many people today, both Christians and non-Christian alike, view Jesus as only the meek, mild, loving, compassionate person that came 2,000 years ago. But they never consider the Jesus that is coming back.

Our all loving Jesus is a God of Justice. And when He comes back, that period of Grace will be over. That’s when he will pour out justice and wrath.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. (Romans 1:18)

Jesus put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and slipped away. When the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the weeds also appeared.

The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. So the servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘if you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat into my barn.’ (Matthew 13:24-30)

And when Jesus explained this parable to his disciples he said;

“The One who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed represents the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

As the weeds are collected and burned in the fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom every cause of sin and all who practice lawlessness. And they will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. (Matthew 13:37-43)

Verse 11

John says that the one who is coming is more powerful than he is. John is referring to Jesus, the Messiah. John has been described in the bible (Luke 7:24-35), as the greatest of all prophets, but John says he’s not worthy to even untie the sandals of Jesus. This tells us that Jesus is more than a profit, he’s more than a good teacher, and as we continue into this New Testament Commentary, we’re going to see that Jesus is not only a mighty man, but that he is God himself.

Verse 12

Jesus’s winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

This is exactly what was just discussed a moment ago from the parable of the weeds and the wheat. But first notice that John says the winnowing fork is already in his hand. That was spoken 2,000 years ago. How much closer are we today to that moment when Jesus clears the threshing floor?

Verse 13

Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. Jesus said regarding baptism, “It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness”

Is baptism required for salvation?

The Christian walk takes an entire lifetime. It’s not necessary for us to know every answer before we can follow Jesus Christ in Faith. I myself, am 53 years old and have been following Jesus since my twenties. And I don’t yet have all the answers.

Here’s what I know. Salvation is by faith. The thief on the cross was not baptized. However, Peter said, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Again I say! It’s not necessary for you to be a theologian in order to follow Jesus! Just go get baptized, follow Jesus and then don’t worry about it. I’m not going to have consternation over a theological debate. Just get baptized, and afterwards give praise to Jesus. It’s not necessary to fully understand every theological discussion before you can have faith.

So then what’s the answer? Is baptism required for salvation? The answer is, “I don’t know”. But I’m not going to worry about it because I’ve been baptized and I’ve put my faith in Jesus. You should do the same.

Verse 16

As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. Suddenly the heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and resting on Him.

What is that about? That’s the Holy Spirit. As we proceed through the gospels and The New Testament as a whole, we’re going to see the value and importance of having the Holy Spirit in you. So if you have never received the Holy Spirit before, know this:

Matthew 7:7-8 says;

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

So if you ask for the Holy Spirit, if you seek the Holy Spirit, If you knock he will answer. Because what did it say there in verse 8? “For everyone who asks receives”.

What then does that look like? How does one ask? Very Simple….”Lord, may I have the Holy Spirit.”

Ask that, and keep asking it until you receive the Holy Spirit. Remember that verse said Seek after it, and The Holy Spirit will be given to you.

The post Commentary Matthew 3 first appeared on Gary Eugene Howell.

I find the story of the Magi from the east following a star until it stood over the place where Jesus had been born to be fascinating. Were they the only ones who could see this star? One would think that such a sight would bring out all of Jerusalem if everyone was able to see this traveling star. And the fact that the star “stood” over the place where Jesus was, causes me to suspect that this star was something far greater than a distant twinkling object in outer space. I suspect that this star was actually an angel which they described as being like a star in the night sky, but not a distant object high in the sky, but actually leading them and finally standing directly on top of the location where Jesus was.

The king James, the ESV and the NLT versions of the Bible describe these as Wise Men, However, it seems, at least from our position of hindsight, that they may have been displaying a bit of naivete in the fact that the first person they go to see upon arriving in Jerusalem in order to inquire about the new King, is the current King. Did they not consider that he might be unwilling to give up his power, and might be inclined to do harm to a political rival? The wise men came to King Herod wrongly assuming that he would be as equally excited as they about finding a new King.

On the other hand, we know from history that King Herod was around 73 years old when Jesus was born. Herod is obviously approaching the end of his life and Jesus is a new born baby, just beginning his life. It should have been obvious to King Herod that there wasn’t going to be any overlap between their two kingships. And maybe that’s what the Magi were thinking when they sought out King Herod. But as it turns out, King Herod was so fearful of losing his power that he was willing to send orders that every boy under the age of two in Bethlehem be killed. What also perplexes me about this story is that the soldiers under King Herod’s command were willing to obey the king’s orders to go and kill every boy under the age of two in Bethlehem. What sort of cowardice, barbaric, heathen would obey such an order? But yet they did.

But this is a familiar story. Remember what happened in Exodus Chapter 1?

Then Pharaoh commanded all his people: “Every son born to the Hebrews you must throw into the Nile…(Exodus 1:22a)

Pharaoh ordered that all baby boys be thrown into the Nile river where they were presumably eaten by crocodiles.

Remember, Moses was the one who, through God’s intervention, lead the Israelites out of the bondage of slavery. Moses represents Jesus bringing us out of the bondage of sin.

So when Moses was born, Satan persuaded the government (meaning pharaoh), to kill babies. This was Satan, trying in vain to thwart God’s plans. Then when the Messiah was coming into the world, Satan again persuaded the government, (this time King Herod), to kill the babies in Bethlehem.

Where do we see today, a government passing laws to kill babies? Why is that happening? Satan is trying, still to this day, to thwart God’s plans. In the United States of America today, one million babies a year die in abortion. Why? What’s going on?

Acts 2:17 says:

In the last days, God says, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. (Acts 2:17)

Did you see that? Sons and daughters will prophesy and young men will see visions when God pours out his spirit in the last days. These are the last days; and so we see Satan doing the same thing again. When God wants to do a work through someone who was prophesied about in scripture, Satan comes along and tries to kill them when they’re a baby.

Verses 13-15 and 19-23

Joseph was warned in dream to flee. “Get out of here”. And Joseph got up in the middle of the night, gathered Mary and Jesus and left Bethlehem traveling all the way to Egypt in order to hide from King Herod. Sometime later, after Herod dies, they returned to Israel and again, being warned in a dream, Jesus’s parents settled in Nazareth, which fulfilled the prophecy that said “He will be called a Nazarene.”

And later when Jesus is grown and begins his ministry, Nathanael, one of the twelve disciples is going to ask, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” which further reveals to us Jesus’s humble origins.

The post Commentary Matthew 2 first appeared on Gary Eugene Howell.

Abraham, King David and Jesus

Before reading this commentary, I encourage you to first read the text of Matthew chapter one

Verse one states that Jesus Christ is the son of David, and the son of Abraham. This, of course, fulfilled prophecy that the Messiah would be from the line of David. And this is also the reason why it is not possible for “the messiah” to come today. Many of the Jewish people are still looking for the coming messiah. However, because the Jewish people were scattered across the globe for more than a thousand years up until the 20th century and then nearly 40% of the world’s Jewish population was wiped out in the Holocaust, the Jewish people today have lost the ability to trace their ancestry back to the original 12 tribes of Israel. This means that no person claiming to be the messiah today could fulfill the prophecy of being from the line of David because no Jewish person today knows their ancestry that far back. Jesus Christ is the only person in human history who fulfills all the prophecies about a coming Messiah.

Verses two through sixteen identify the names of each person in Jesus’s genealogy from Abraham all the way to Joseph and Mary. I believe it would be a fascinating topical Bible study to specifically seek out where each of these people appear in the Bible and to read their stories one right after another, having at the forefront of our mind that this is Jesus’s “great, great, great, great grandfather”, or “great, great, grandmother”. These thoughts really draw to mind the fact that Jesus was fully man, and yet simultaneously fully God.

Verse seventeen summaries the genealogy emphasizing that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham and David.

When I read the genealogy of Jesus, I’m reminded that the accounts in Matthew and Luke differ. One might be inclined to conclude there is some sort of error, however, we must recall what is written in 2 Timothy chapter 3 in which it states, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

If we are to operate our lives in faith, we can not go around nit-picking the Word of God claiming this or that is wrong. The moment you conclude that something in the Bible is an error, then any time you come across something you don’t like, you’ll be inclined to label it an error.

Some people have referred to the differences in these two accounts of Jesus’s genealogy as being a contradiction. However, anytime we see something in scripture that appears to be a contradiction we must conclude that the error must be our own and not that of God’s. We can also be rest assured that over the past few hundred years, scholars, more brilliant than ourselves have already examined and addressed these concerns. Therefore, anytime we see what appears to be a contradiction in the Bible, all we need to do is a brief online search to read about how others have already addressed, researched and resolved the issue. But even if one can not find a reasonable explanation online, one can still maintain that the error is in their own lack of understanding. They can then move on from it, knowing they’ll come back to it at some future time. Not having an immediate answer should not hinder one’s faith. The Christian walk covers an entire lifetime. You don’t need to have all the answers today.

Verses eighteen through twenty-five discuss the pregnancy of Mary, and Joseph’s reaction. In verse twenty an angel of the lord appears to Joseph in his dream. It should be noted that throughout the text of the Bible, God spoke to 14 different people through their dreams. It’s a valid form of communication for God and we would do well to recognize the possibility that God could speak to us through our dreams as well.

Today, it’s estimated that 1 out every 10 Muslims has had a dream about Jesus. Why? I suspect that in locations where few missionaries travel, Jesus goes there himself. I knew a Muslim who told me that he had a dream in which he was walking through a middle eastern city and came to a mosque. There were dozens of people outside, all of them on their knees with their faces to the ground. But none of them were facing east, as their religious tradition insists. Instead they were all facing toward a man standing in the doorway of the mosque. He was dressed in a robe that was whiter than snow. When the man having the dream, approached the man in the doorway and asked “who are you”, the man answered, “I am Jesus”. Then the man dreaming woke up. He fully understood what the dream meant. He knew that Jesus was God. That very day he gave his life to Christ.

In the last days, God says, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. (Acts 2:17)

If you have an extremely vivid dream that is filled with memorable details, the first thing to do after you wake up is to write it down and then pray to the lord Jesus, asking if perhaps the dream was from Him, and if so, what it meant. However, one should be cautious and recognize that our minds are constantly stirred up throughout the night with images from our previous day’s events as well as our worries and concerns. Not every dream is from the Lord. Most probably are not.

In verse 20 the angel is instructing Joseph that he is to give the child the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. Sin is what separates us from God. So how do we become reunited with God unto salvation; allowing us to enter into the Kingdom of heaven? It is through Jesus Christ. As we continue this commentary through the book of Matthew and the New Testament, we’re going to see exactly how it is that Jesus saves us, and how we are able to go to heaven.

The post Commentary Matthew 1 first appeared on Gary Eugene Howell.