Hey my friends, it's Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. And I've been doing this thing. I put this uh this app on my phone that helps me keep track of habits I want to develop because I've been finding that I've got like 10 things that I want to do every day. That's an ideal day of health, you know, taking vitamins and stuff that I want to do, different kinds of stretching, workout, cardio stuff, stuff I want to read, study, meditate on. I got this list, right? Well, I was finding that I was putting together these days where I'd do like four of them. And instead of being happy that I got four of the 10 things I want to do done, I'd be kicking myself because I didn't get around to the other six. So I found this app. It's great. I don't remember what the app is called. It's like habit something or whatever. There's probably a billion of them out there. And it just reminds me throughout the day, did you do the thing? And then it keeps track of streaks and stuff. It's been awesome. And so I've just been nailing my workouts. I'm training for tennis right now. I'd like to get better at tennis. And so I was thinking about a contrast here. If I were to say the following phrase, I like to work out in the evenings, but many other people like to work out in the morning. You can just tell that the contrast is going to be between, well, I do it this way, but others do it this way. What would be a weird turn of a phrase, catch your attention and make you scratch your head, is if I said, I like to work out in the evenings, but that guy over there is way better at lifting weights than me, and I could never be as good as him. They're kind of related. They both are about lifting weights and getting in shape, but it's almost like with that second example, I'm just saying, who cares about when I like to lift weights? Look at that dude. Likewise, that's kind of what we're getting here in John 1, when John the Baptist answers this question that the Pharisees are asking of him about baptism. It seems like we're gonna get a comparison between two different means of baptism. It seems like that because of the way John turns the phrase, and it also seems like that because of how this exchange went in the first three Gospels. But what we get instead is a contrast more like the second one that I threw out, where people come to John and they're like, Well, like, what's the deal with your baptizing? And John's like, I baptize with water, but look at that guy. He is, I'm not even, I shouldn't even be in the same set that guy, that's way better. So there's an interesting contrast here, and it has interesting consequences for what we do with our understanding of baptism. And now I'm going to read you the passage and then we're gonna talk about it, and we're gonna have a lovely time today. Here we go. Now, some Pharisees, John 1:24, who had been sent, questioned him: Why do you baptize if you're not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? I baptize with water, John replied. But among you stands one who you do not know. He's the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. Now, in my example about weightlifting, I like to work out in the afternoons, but whoa, look at that guy! That I'll net nobody will ever be that good. That he's amazing. The point of such a statement would be to distract from the importance of the question of when exactly the weightlifting should occur, and instead to say, like that guy kind of just embodies what weightlifting is about. My goodness, pay attention to that. That's the bigger question. And to me, it seems that we're getting the same kind of contrast here. Now, I mentioned a minute ago that this exchange about baptism that we're getting here with between John the Baptist and the Pharisees, is it highlights a different part of the conversation than what's highlighted in the previous three Gospels. I brought a Bible to the conversation, so I'm gonna turn and I'm gonna read that. Look at the contrast in Matthew chapter three, when the the both the Pharisees and the Sadducees show up to find out what the deal is with John. And in Matthew's account, Matthew highlights that John the Baptist kind of snaps at him and calls him out for being frauds. He already knows that they're here for the wrong reasons. He tells them to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And then he says, I baptize you with water for repentance, but after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I'm not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. So there it's it's more like there's an aside occurring where John is saying, I work out in the afternoon. Look at that guy. That's how weightlifting's supposed to be. And he works out in the morning. And since he's better at it, you know, what he does with his morning workouts, that's probably the better time to do it. We get the same basic rhythm here in the same account in Mark. It says in chapter 1, verse 7. And this was John the Baptist's message. After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, contrast, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Luke gives us the same deal in chapter three and verse sixteen. John the Baptist answered them all, I baptize you with water, but one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. So it's really interesting here that in John's Gospel, written probably a few decades after Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written, John the evangelist, the gospel author, wants to really emphasize to his audience that the baptizing is not first and foremost the point. The baptizing is not the end game. Obviously, it's it's a big deal, but Jesus is the end game. Jesus is the point. I work out in the evening, but whoa, look at that guy. That's how weightlifting is supposed to be. I baptize with water, but look at that guy. I'm not, I shouldn't even be in the same sentence. That is that's that's the whole point of it. That guy right there. That's what you need to be paying attention to. John the evangelist gives us this account of the exchange between the Pharisees and John the Baptist so as to put that emphasis solidly on Christ. Maybe, just maybe in the interim between the first three Gospels and the time that John was written at the end of the first century, some confusion about baptism had crept in. Maybe people were imagining somehow that the whole point of the religion was just this ceremony. You do the ceremony, and well, that's your thing. There, you you did the thing. I don't know that for sure. I've got a gigantic book here behind me. Let me see if I can reach it from where I'm sitting. Uh it's just a little too far away. Just a second, I want to read you the actual title because I'm teasing this. It's there's a huge book, one of the biggest books I've ever read ever. It's called Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. It's by Everett Ferguson, and I want you to hear this thing land on a desk. Let me make some room. I don't want to break anything. I just listen to this. That's a book, my friends. How many pages is this thing? I we're pushing a thousand. This is just shy of a thousand pages of book. Good heavens. Of course, there was a lot. I mean, just the thickness of this book is a testimony to how big a deal baptism was rightly understood to be by early Christians, and also how much it was misunderstood. Like no matter what you think Christians should think about baptism, or no matter how you interpret the Bible regarding baptism, or no matter who you think is really wrong about I'm putting it back. I'm putting it back, I don't want to lose it. However, wrong you think a certain other group might be about baptism, just the sheer volume of conversation about it supports my theory that there was confusion, there was debate, there was discussion, that the obsession about baptizing, in John's estimation, was maybe detracting from the correct obsession, which is what John the Baptist had been saying all along, which is that guy is what working out is all about. I baptize with water, but Jesus is the point of everything. John may have also been taking into account that the other three Gospels have plenty of conversation about what that baptism looks like and what John the Baptist said about that specifically. Now, look, there's no getting around it. Even today, Christians disagree about what exactly baptism is and what exactly it does. We're going to have more opportunities to talk about that as we get further into the season. But the gist is this theoretically, every historic Christian Orthodox group would agree with John the Baptist here that Jesus is the point, and that John the Baptist was obviously baptizing with water. I mean, that's kind of part and parcel with how that works. And if you go and you look at how different Christian groups think about baptism today, and you do so while trying to give them the benefit of the doubt with our defensiveness lowered and our you have to be wrong in order for me to be right in securities lowered a little bit. If you try to give the benefit of the doubt to each of these groups that aren't you, you know, I think you can see that they would all say that Jesus is the point of the activity, even though they frame it very differently. Confessional Lutherans, for example, would say that baptism is a means of grace, and that it's the actual delivery method for forgiveness and the new life in the Holy Spirit, and that it's it's efficacious, there's actual power in baptism, that that baptism is valid for infants and adults. I think the Lutheran position is that faith is necessary, but baptism can initiate, it can create that faith. That sounds very foreign to you if you aren't a Lutheran. But even if you aren't a Lutheran or not a big fan of Lutheranism, you gotta admit their position is that Jesus, not baptism, is the point. And their position is that baptism is not the end game. Okay, well, let's go with another reformed Reformation era group, the Calvinists, the Presbyterians, the Reformed types. They would say that baptism is a symbol of the covenant of grace, and that it does not make someone a Christian, but rather it's a sign, it's an outside expression that an individual is now a part of this new community of faith, the new family of faith within this covenant of grace. So that could be a kid, that could be an adult. They see sort of a follow-through on the imagery of circumcision in the Old Testament as like that's a thing that would happen the young men to symbolize that they are in the community of faith. And they would say that it's a sign, and that what it is a sign of regenerative work of the Holy Spirit, you know, by the work of Christ. Okay, you might look at that and say, yeah, well, why are we baptizing babies, though? I mean, if it's a sign, why wouldn't that? But what you can't criticize that group for is imagining that baptism is the point and not Jesus. Baptism isn't the end game. Catholic, same deal. They've got a very high view of baptism. They would say that baptism is just efficacious because it is. If the priest who administers it is legit, then it counts and it's real and it cleanses the individual from original sin. The first wave of grace hits an infant when they receive baptism, even though they're too young to pick any of that for themselves. They would say that baptism is an absolute necessity for salvation. The Catholics have a very high view of their mediating role as an institution in administering the grace of Christ. I don't agree with how much emphasis they place on their church's role in doing that. If I did, I would be Catholic. Instead, I tip my cap to them from a distance and try to understand and give the benefit of the doubt. And here I can. The benefit of the doubt understanding of Catholic and for that matter Orthodox teaching on baptism is that baptism is not the end game. It is the initiation of something that is ultimately about Christ. Christ is the point, Christ is the end game. My branch of the Christian family tree teaches that baptism is an outward-facing expression of an inward transformation brought on by the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. Baptism only happens for people who are already Christians, and then baptism should very immediately follow that profession of faith as an act of obedience to Jesus, because again, the baptism and the outward expression isn't the point. Jesus is the point, and baptism is an expression of that point. Now you'll notice the exercise here was not me trying to solve once and for all, uh, in what do we take, like five minutes on that? Which Christian group is completely right on this thing? And I would really like for this to be a place where we can hang out and try to give each other the benefit of the doubt on this stuff. I know that there are I I just spoke about things that you are a part of. And some of you are like, no, you should have said that better. Hey, uh, thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt, though. I did my best to succinctly say what my understanding is of what you believe in charitable terms and to steal man your position. The point is this historic lowercase O Orthodox Christians are in agreement with John the Baptist that if obsession with the water and the rite and ritual of baptism overshadows Jesus, you are missing the point. The point of this thing that John was doing that had become quite the sensation was always about what it pointed toward in the life of the individual and also in the larger movement that John the Baptist was at the head of out here in the desert. It all points to Jesus, this one who is to come. And John has such a humble view of himself and such a high view of Jesus that John won't even say his own name. I'm just a voice of one calling out in the wilderness, man. This is this is who it's about. This is what it's about. This dude, right now, who I just baptized. Yeah, that that baptism was about this one whose sandals I'm not worthy to stoop and untie. My whole getup, my birth story, everything, all of it points to him. And indeed, that's how it's going to play out as we work further through John. All right, that's good for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again today.