Hey everybody, I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. And I just want to say a huge thank you for being willing to hang out with me and talk about the Bible. I don't know if you've heard this or not, but politics and religion are like the two things that you're not supposed to talk about because people melt down and freak out. But you don't. You're up for it. And I know the majority of people listening to this don't agree with me on a ton of stuff. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the whole world who thinks the exact permutation of things that I think. And so what that means is we are overcoming the spirit of the age, which is burn anybody down who doesn't agree with you on anything just simply by the act of having this conversation together. And I just love you for it. Here's exactly what we're doing. We're starting on Matthew chapter three, and Matthew chapter three introduces us to a new character in this story, and that is John the Baptist. John the Baptist is the cousin of Jesus who lived like a crazy wild man out in the desert and prepared the way for Jesus' arrival. What exactly does that mean? We'll get to that in future conversations. But the dude has Baptist in his name, and the whole baptism thing is something that people tend to get a little bit chippy about or have strong opinions about. So we got to break that thing down and frame it up first. Number one, baptism is a super old Christian tradition, Christian practice that dates all the way back to the very, very, very beginning of Christianity. As we're going to talk about in more detail, it looks like it was sort of an innovation. There are some rough corollaries outside of Christianity that predate this a little bit, but not much. This is something that is pretty specifically Christian. And Jesus affirms it, and Jesus himself is baptized, as we're going to see here in a little bit, getting into Matthew chapter 3. But there's disagreement about exactly how to do it and what it does. Some Christians believe that baptism is required for salvation, or rather, is the moment of salvation, the moment at which someone becomes a part of the church. The church is the arbiter of salvation, and by being a part of the church, the church then has the relationship with God, and you are therefore in the body of Christ and a Christian upon this initiation right. Because of that, groups that believe this way will be more likely to baptize an infant, even though that kid can't make a decision about whether or not they want to be a Christian or a part of the church. What they're doing is effectively bringing that kid into a Christian upbringing, but also under the umbrella of the priestly role of the church as the arbiter between God and men and the arbiter of salvation, or at least partial arbiter of salvation. Understand, all of this is very rough because I'm having to go fast, not trying to pick a fight with anybody who sees this one a little bit differently, trying to just speak in general terms. Then you got these other groups that would say that baptism is not required for salvation, but that baptism is an outward expression of obedience to Jesus, who commanded baptism, that comes after a relationship between the individual and God has already happened. So these groups would not baptize babies because they would say a baby can't pick that, and they would not have any fear of, you know, an infant mortality situation precluding that baby from going to heaven. They would look at that and say, no, God who's gracious can figure that out, even if we don't have a category for it. So the difference between the question of baptism and where it fits in the Christian walk really has a lot to do with how you view the role of the church. Protestants and low church types who would say that salvation is between God and man and not based on any works whatsoever, are gonna say, well, baptism doesn't initiate you into the church, and being initiated into the church isn't what makes you a Christian anyway. So they're gonna really push this. Someone becomes a Christian and wants to demonstrate their faith in an act of obedience to everybody and let everybody know where they stand. So then they do baptism, they're gonna push that kind of thing. Whereas the Catholics, the Orthodox types, and a few others in between are going to want that baptism to happen up front. So a whole lot about how you do it, what style you do it, whether you dunk somebody underwater, whether you sprinkle water on their head, dump water on their head, have them stand in half a pool of water and dump a little more water on their head, all of these little debates really flow out of a whole lot of other theology, which really gets me to thing number two that I want to cover on the front end here. That being this passage really isn't a fight about baptism at all. And so if we come into this passage feeling a little bit burned or chafed by other people's views of baptisms or some stupid baptism fight we just got done having at a holiday meal or whatever, we're probably gonna come at this wrong and hear it not like the original audience would have heard it. Remember, these people didn't have much of any preconceived notion about baptism. They didn't fight about whether or not kids should be baptized. They didn't argue about how much water it took to be properly baptized. Those were not the questions the original audience was asking. And therefore, those are not the questions that Matthew is trying to address. If we come at a passage like this that deals with kind of a hot button issue, with that hot button issue in mind, we're screwing up before we even crack open the document because we're not gonna read it right. We're gonna read it looking for ammunition or details that we might use to better make our case next time around. And what we're gonna miss in this case is something huge. Because what we're about to get into in Matthew chapter three is our first glimpse at adult Jesus. It's our first glimpse at the significance of Jesus' role and our first really overt, I wouldn't even call it hint, but confirmation of who Jesus actually is, and therefore whether he might have the credibility to deliver on this stuff that the original audience would have heard swirling around in rumors that Jesus had promised or suggested he could deliver on. We're also going to get answers that the original audience would have been dying to get answers to regarding who John is and where he fits. They all would have known who John was and the awful fate that John ended up facing. They all would have known who the Pharisees and Sadducees and religious leaders of the day were, and they all would have heard about Jesus and his execution. And so the original audience would have wanted to know what the hubbub was about and how all of these parts fit together. I think it would be the question that would be most natural to ask after the first two chapters. Like, okay, yeah, Matthew, that's this is super interesting. And okay, we see what you're trying to do here. Do we, you know, the jury's out on that? Maybe you can convince us, maybe you can't. But I have a question. Hand in the air, hand in the air, holding my hand up. Question, question. Uh, yes, person, bald guy with the hand in the air. Yeah, my question is I've heard about all these characters and stuff, but I'm not quite sure who's on which team or who fits with what. And it seems like there's still kind of this cult of John the Baptist that's going around. Is that a different religion than Jesus, or is Jesus and John the Baptist on the same side? And are the Pharisees and Sadducees, are they like a third team, or do they more side with one of these two teams? Thank you in advance for answering my question. I'll just hang up and listen to your reply. So I really think that in terms of this exercise that we're going for, where we try to track with the original audience, this is a very important pivotal moment. And again, I'm telling you, you're gonna blow it, or we're gonna screw the whole thing up if we're all worried about baptism and all that stuff. Okay, here's what we're about to walk into. A whole bunch of time has elapsed. Jesus is now an adult, and a religious movement has sprung up that is based around a dude who's a very similar age to Jesus, this being John the Baptist. And now these two characters are about to encounter each other for the first time on screen that we're aware of biblically, since they were both little babies waiting to be born, and the one got excited about the other being present. That's over in Luke. We'll talk about that as we get further into it. And so something as simple as a guy going and dunking people in the water for religious reasons, and another guy walking up and getting dunked in the water for religious reasons is actually going to have massive connotations in terms of who Jesus is and what's actually going down here. And that, like I said, is what we're going to be chewing through over the next several, probably several, several episodes. So, hey, before we hit pause, I want to say thank you to those of you who've taken the time to go and actually review this podcast. That is a huge deal, and I'm better understanding how much that actually helps in terms of getting this in front of people. So thank you, one, for just the incredibly kind words, and two, thank you for helping to advance what I'm trying to accomplish here. That's awesome of you. Um, I was reading through some of these. There's some nice stuff. Nissan 03 says a bunch of nice stuff, and then I really I appreciated this phrase. Matt takes the time to place into context his subject. It may seem like a lot of beating around the bush, but it is so purposeful for it all to make sense. Well done. Okay, thank you for getting it and for that comment. And everybody who just heard that, and you're like, why don't we just get right after the stuff? This is what getting right after the stuff looks like. And so I appreciate that you get it. And I I think probably most of you get what we're going for here. Um, creativity for higher. This review is, again, awesome and generous and humbling. Um, I like this phrase. TMBH makes me think, take a step back, and then think some more. Thank you. And again, I think you get what I'm going for. I understand that what we talk about here is probably gonna take a little bit longer than 10 minutes to really game out in your brain, you know. But if I can kind of prime the pump a little bit and give you something to chew on, then I feel like I've played my part. And frankly, probably it's way better for you to think all of that through for yourself apart from me anyway. Okay, let's do one more. Here we go. Cebur Mom, here a couple weeks ago, wrote, uh, yeah, he, that being me, really emphasizes the historical background of the Bible and that makes it easier to understand. So for a third time, I will say thank you for getting what I'm going for. If we read this document like it's some fairy tale that happened out of time and out of space, apart from real people, then we can just inflict on it whatever we want. And frankly, some really ugly stuff has happened historically when people do that. And I'm hoping that even though it might mean we end up not agreeing on every single thing, I'm hoping that we at least arrive where we arrive based on this thing actually happening in actual time and an actual place and in a context that we're all capable of understanding. I'm talking too much. Here's the point those are all really nice things that you said, and a ton of you have showed up to do ratings and reviews. I would welcome more of that. It is a huge help, but whether you want to go and take the time to do that or not, I'm just so stinking grateful you're here and that we're doing this together. And I'm really pumped to get deeper into Matthew chapter three. We'll get after that next time around. I'm Matt, this is a 10 minute Bible hour. Catch you soon.