SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/29/2016
2:11 PM
My Worship Time Focus: John the Baptist and the End of the Old Age
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 3:25-30
Message of
the verses: “25 Therefore there arose a discussion on the
part of John’s disciples with
a Jew about purification. 26 And they came to John and said to him,
"Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified,
behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him." 27 John answered and
said, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.
28 “You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ’I am not the Christ,’ but, ’I have been sent ahead of Him.’
29 “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom,
who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice.
So this joy of mine has been made full. 30 “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
What we first want to look at here is that there was
a discussion between a Jew and John the Baptist’s disciples over the ritual of
purification. “Now there were six stone
waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or
thirty gallons each (John 2:6).” This
verse speaks of this ritual that these men were talking about. Now it is unclear if this Jew was a follower
of Jesus or not, however the reaction between John’s disciples and this man
brings up a conversation that is important for us to understand, I suppose it
is fair that this was a dispute between them.
The dispute was that John’s disciples seem to be jealous over the fact
that after John baptized Jesus that Jesus began to minister in the region of
Judah and John moves on to Samaria to continue his work of telling people that
the Messiah has arrived and to baptize those who were willing to repent and
comment their lives to the Messiah. We
have mentioned in our last SD that John the Baptist was a very humble man who
was doing what he was told to do when the Lord spoke to him, that is follow
what Isaiah prophesied to do “A voice is calling, "Clear the way for the
LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God (Isaiah
40:3).” We have also mentioned that John
wrote from verse 24: “for John had not
yet been thrown into prison,” showing that for a short time of perhaps six
months that the ministry of John and Jesus were both going on. John the apostle wrote this some sixty years
after the event and the other three gospels had already been written and so
that is why we see verse 24 in John’s text.
Now the discussion or dispute was that Jesus was
baptizing more followers that John was and this bothered John’s disciples and
so the spoke to him about this.
MacArthur writes “Apparently unwilling even to name Jesus, John’s
envious disciples saw Jesus as a competitor, who was gaining popularity at
their masters expense (their exaggerated use of ‘all’ reveals the extent of
their bias). Incredibly, they also
missed the purpose of John’s ministry, which was to point the nation to the
Messiah (cf. 1:19ff).”
This did not concern John in any way as he says “A
man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.” John was saying that what he was doing was
given to him from heaven and that is what he was going to do, therefore he was
just going to do his job and not be jealous of what Jesus was doing. Not only was he not concerned of it he
actually admired the job that he was given to do, that is to announce the
coming of the Messiah. John had
something that I wish that I had all of the time and that is he had great
contentment.
John goes on to tell his envious disciples “You
yourselves are my witness that I said, ‘I am not the Christ’ (cf. 1:8, 20),
but, ‘I have been sent ahead of Him.”
From this statement we can be assured that nothing that John had ever
said would have shown his disciples anything that they were disputing about as
far as who was the most popular.
MacArthur writes “The measure of success for any
ministry is not how many people follow the minister, but how many people follow
Christ through the minister. The
factious Corinthians proudly lined up under the banners of their spiritual
heroes—Paul, Apollos, Cephas (Peter), and the super pious under Christ.
John illustrates his role by speaking of a wedding
stating that in this illustration that Jesus was the Bridegroom, and he was the
best man. This friend of the bridegroom
oversaw many of the details of the wedding, serving as the master of ceremonies
writes John MacArthur who goes on to say that “(in a Judean wedding; weddings
in Galilee were somewhat different [D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991),
211]). He was even responsible for
bringing the bride to the bridegroom to begin the wedding ceremony. Having done that, his task was completed; the
focus now rightfully shifted from him to the bridegroom.” We wrote more about the wedding ceremony when
we studied the book of Revelation.
What we are seeing here is that the ministry of John
the Baptist was phasing out and the ministry of Jesus Christ the Messiah was
beginning and John had no problem of that.
This portion of John the Baptist’s ministry is only seen in the book of
John as in the other gospels they go from the baptism of Jesus by John to later
on talking about the imprisonment of John to his death by execution having his
head cut off.
Leon Morris writes the following about the last
statement in the section we are studying today that is “He must increase, but I must decrease.” “It is not particularly easy in this world to
gather followers about one for a serious purpose. But when they are gathered it is infinitely
harder to detach them and firmly insist that they go after another. It is the message of John’s greatness that he
did just that.”
MacArthur writes about the word “must.” Must speaks of divine necessity. It was God’s will for John to give way to
Jesus; there was no reason for the crowds to hang around the herald once the
king had arrived. Because he understood
this, John the Baptist joyously accepted God’s plan for his ministry.”
This type of attitude should be the attitude of
everyone who names the name of Jesus Christ, as He must increase and we must
decrease, that is we must show all we are around the love of Jesus and to give
honor and glory to Him. This is
especially true of ministers, for if they are bringing glory to themselves
there church will decline. Ministers are
to lift up the name of Jesus, not themselves.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Continue to believe that what I do should
bring glory to Christ.
My Steps of Faith for Today: He must increase, I must decrease.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Psalm 117—2 verses.”
Today’s Bible
question: “During the Passover what was
to be eaten by the children of Israel?”
Answer in our next SD.
1/29/2016 3:00 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment