Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Study of all 4 Gospels at the Same Time - Baptism of Jesus - Matthew 3: 13 - 17; Mark 1: 9 - 11; Luke 3: 21 - 22 - Post 17

Matthew's account of the Baptism of Jesus says that John the Baptist was hesitant to Baptize Jesus, because John knew Who Jesus was (even though he was related to Jesus); the Baptist felt he was not worthy to perform the Baptism of Jesus.  We have to understand why Jesus told John it is right that John Baptize Him.  God is a God of order, and it was right that the Baptist Baptize Jesus.  God instituted the Tabernacle and the Temple worship.  But the Levites who were in charge of the Temple started worshiping God, according to their own understanding, instead of following the way God had set up.  This is very interesting, because we are doing this same thing in our "Christian" Churches today.  The Jews were only going through the motions of Worship, but not engaging God in their worship.  God wanted the Jews to be "hearers, but also doers" of His Word.  The attendance of our Church Services show that we don't even want to be hearers, much less doers.  The religious leaders at the time of Christ, did not even recognize Jesus as their Messiah, that shows how far they had fallen.  Since the conventional religious system did not recognize Jesus it made God have to go a different way to reach the people and draw them back to Him.  The Prophets in the Old Testament, were raised up by God in order to try to bring the people back to a personal relationship with Him.

Look at the account in Matthew, about what happened after John finished baptizing Jesus, the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming on Him.  And a voice from heaven said, "This is my one dear Son; in Him I am well pleased."  This is very unconventional indeed.  Think if this happened in your Church, would you go about your business like nothing happened?

Mark's account is very similar to what Matthew said.   Luke's account says that Jesus waited until all the other people who came to baptized to finish before  He came to John.

All of these accounts are similar, with Matthew and Luke providing the most information.

Matthew's account should have a lot of detail, because he wrote to the Jews, to prove to them that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah as foretold by the Prophets in the Old Testament.
If you are a believer do you have a personal relationship with Christ??  You have to be a doer beside a hearer of the Word.  

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