Good Wednesday morning! A nice cool and breezy morning with the sun shining over the plains. Every new thing in my life seems to bring the need for more learning. What if someone ran up to me and demanded what right I had to make such a dramatic change in my profession? What if someone demanded of you what right you had to work where you do now? Any of us may face questioning of that type at any time. John the Baptist was asked what right he had to do what he was well known for: baptism.
John 1:25 - [and the Pharisees] asked him, "If you aren't the Messiah or Elijah or the Prophet, what right do you have to baptize?"
We are accustomed to baptism in many churches, but according to my Bible footnotes, the Jews were not baptized; only when a Gentile was converted to Judaism was baptism performed on a person. The Jews, as all the Pharisees would have been, wanted to know why John baptized Jews as if they were Gentiles. This was one of those things the Pharisees got all insulted about. Racial, religious, and even national pride came into play in their taking offense at this. You might see their question as more of a "how dare you!" kind of demand.
As we know, John was sent by higher authority to do exactly as he did. The Bible doesn't say that John ever suffered doubts while out in the wilderness, and I think from Jesus' own words we can infer that he did not have any doubts about his mission. We know that later John will suffer some doubts in prison, but until Jesus came, John had a mission and no band of junior Pharisees was going to stop him.
We need to develop a devotion to our duty much like John had. This doesn't mean that we are rude or obnoxious about it, but we do need a boldness about our faith. Tomorrow we will read about John's answer to the question asked today. What right do we have to talk about Jesus? Perhaps John will give us some help in his own answer.
Have a wonderful Wednesday!
Bucky
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