“Personalizing” (Luke 3:19)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/28/2026 8:43 PM

My Worship Time                                                                                      Focus:  “Personalizing”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                  Reference:  “Luke 3:19”

            Message of the verse:  “But when Herod the tetrarch was reprimanded by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done,”

            As we been looking at John’s preaching we can see that his bold preaching has been directed to large audiences, but also to separate individuals.  Even Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee and also Pera, where John was ministering, did not escape being reprimanded by him.  Antipas was a son of Herod the Great.  His long reign from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39 encompassed the entire ministry of Jesus Christ. Now with the exception of the birth narratives seen in Matthew 2:1-19; and Luke 1:5, Antipas is the Herod who appears in the gospel accounts.  He was actually not a Jew; his father, Herod the Great, was an Idumean (Edomite) and his mother, Malthace, was a Samaritan.  That he was descended from the despised Edomites and Samaritans did not endear Antipas to his Jewish subjects as the did not like either of them.  Neither did his actions as ruler, in particular building Tiberias, his capital city, on the site of a Jewish cemetery.  Now because they considered the site to be defiled, Antipas had a hard time persuading any Jews to settle there.  It was Herod Antipas’s father who was really a ruthless man who if memory serves me correctly killed many of his son because he thought that they would take over his kingdom.  Bad blood line for sure!

            One might thing that it would be wrong to rebuke a ruler of Herod’s status, John was not deterred.  MacArthur writes “The verb translated reprimanded is a present passive participle, indicating continuous action.  John continually challenged the moral character of this ruler because of all the wicked things which Herod had done.”  Now as we have been looking at the different challenges that John the Baptist has been speaking to different people groups, it is no wonder that he challenged Herod on this matter.

            MacArthur goes on to write “Of all of Herod’s sins, one glaring one stood out publicly: his illicit marriage toe Herodias, his brother’s wife.  This sordid story was nothing less than a first-century soap opera.  Marital problems were nothing new to the Herod’s; Antipas’s father, Herod the Great, for example, had ten wives.  Antipas had married the daughter of Aretas, the king of Nabates, a region located just south of Perea.  While on a journey to Rome, Antipas visited his half brother Philip (Not Philip the tetrarch mentioned in 3:1).  While staying with him, Antipas became infatuated with Philip’s wife Herodias (who was also Antipas’s niece, the daughter of another of his half brothers).  The ambitious Herodias was eager to be wife of a tetrarch (Her husband, Philip, was a private citizen) and agreed to marry Antipas on the condition that he divorce Aretas’s daughter. Aretas was outraged over his insult, and his smoldering resentment later led to war between him and Antipas.  Antipas was defeated by Aretas and saved from disaster only by Romen intervention.

            “Herodias would ultimately prove to be Herod’s downfall.   After Emperor Caligula granted Herodias’s brother Agrippa I (Acts 12:1) the title of king, she demanded that Herod go to Rome and obtain the same title.  (The gospel references to him as king [Matt. 14:9; Mark 6:14, 22] reflect informal popular usage of the term.)  But before Herod and Herodias reached Rome, a messenger from Agrippa accused Herod of wrong-doing.  As a result, Caligula deposed Herod who, accompanied by Herodias. Was banished  permanently to a city in what is now France. 

            “Antipas and Herodias are reminiscent of another ill-fated couple, Ahab and Jezebel.  ‘Like Ahab,’ writes D. A. Carson, ‘Antipas was wicked but weak, and Herodias, like Jezebel, wicked and ruthless’ (Matthew, in Frank E. Gaebelein, ed., The Expositor’s Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984], 8:338).  Antipas’s weakness coupled with Herodias’s ruthlessness ensured that eventually their sins could only bring disastrous consequences.”  There is an old saying that many times comes true:  “What goes around comes around” and this is certainly true in this case.

4/28/2026 9:20 PM