3:4,5
The description here is reminiscent of Elijah the prophet. It was quite normal for desert folk to eat insects, and locusts were a clean food. “People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea”. John the Baptist was not “seeker-friendly”, yet he attracted large numbers of people. As we will see shortly, his message was even less seeker-friendly. We need to be very careful in how we “attract” people. We should not be as obnoxious as we can, but nor must we seek to be “welcoming” at the expense of the truth. We need to understand that the “success” of outreach is dependent upon God. It is He who changes men’s hearts, and a change of heart is qhat is required to bring someone into the kingdom.
3:6
They confessed their sins and were baptised in the Jordan. Baptism was normally reserved only for converts to Judaism, and was then carried out by the person themself. This was quite different. First, the Jews needed to be baptised! This was a fundamental issue with Jesus, the recognition that Israel and the people of Israel needed to have their own sin dealt with. The failure of the religious leaders in particular to see that they too were sinners was the prime source of conflict between them and Jesus. Secondly, the baptism was carried out by someone else.
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