Luke 3

The Bible never tells us why John the Baptist did not follow in his father’s footsteps and become a priest in the Jerusalem Temple. He would have had a comfortable life then. But he chose the lonely life of an isolationist, self-sacrificing prophet who lived in the Judean badlands. We can only guess why he did this. What would you guess?

John’s idea of baptizing people seems to come from out of nowhere. Perhaps the closest thing to that are the Jewish cleansing rituals that required people to take a bath to purify themselves before they went to worship at the Temple. These baths washed away impurities caused by such things as menstruation, bleeding after childbirth, or touching a corpse. Do you think baptism is anything like that—a ritual that washes away our impurities?

Luke quotes Isaiah, a prophet who lived 700 years before the time of Jesus, and he applies the quotation to John the Baptist. Old Testament experts say the section of Isaiah that Luke quoted was written for Jews exiled in Babylon, in what is now Iraq. That is why the chapter begins with “Comfort my people with compassion” (Isaiah 40:1). Do you think Isaiah had any idea that someone would take his words out of context and apply them to someone else centuries later? And why do you think Luke did this?

Starting a sermon by telling the people they are “children of poisonous snakes” (Luke 3:7) seems a bit much. What do you think John was trying to do with that?

When people asked John how they should live their life after they repented and got baptized, John doesn’t tell them to obey the Jewish laws. He tells them to help people and stop cheating them. Who are some other people in the Bible you can think of who teach that kind of thing?

Herod would later order John beheaded. A Jewish historian named Josephus, who was born about 10 years after that execution, confirmed the story. He wrote that after Herod lost a battle to some Arabians, the Jews concluded God was punishing him “for what he did to John, who was called the Baptist. Herod killed him, a good man who commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both in righteousness to one another and in piety to God, and in this spirit to be baptized.” It’s rare that Bible characters show up in ancient writings like this. What do you think about that—the fact that it is rare, but that it does happen from time to time?

What’s the point of the family tree of Jesus? Matthew traced the family tree of Jesus back to Abraham, father of the Jews. But for some reason, Luke decided to trace the family tree of Jesus all the way back to Adam, the son of God. Why did Luke do that?

LIFE APPLICATION. John the Baptist was the odd man out. A lone voice with a unique point of view. Fortunately, people listened to him. Unfortunately, it got him killed. When have you or someone you know taken a lonely stand for something you knew was right?

LIFE APPLICATION. Family trees were important to the Jews. For example, Jews came back from a generation of exile in what is now Iraq some 500 years before Jesus. But if men who said they were priests couldn’t prove they were descended from Jacob’s son Levi, they weren’t allowed to serve in the Temple (Ezra 2:59). What good are genealogies today?