A Question for You

“He must increase, I must decrease.”²

Matthew 11 relates the story of the imprisoned John sending two of his disciples to Jesus with this question: “Are you the Expected One?” (Matthew 11:2-3) They see some of Jesus’ miracles, receive a prophecy-based word of encouragement for John, and they then depart (vv. 3-7a).

Jesus then turns to the crowds and launches into an unfolding of John’s ministry and its importance. Do you remember Jesus’ final statement regarding John in this passage?

In that phrase “Elijah who was to come,” Jesus is referring to [continue reading…]

Matthew 11:12 —
A Thorny Translation Challenge

“He must increase, I must decrease.”²

As we have seen, Matthew 11:1-19 is that wonderful passage in which Jesus teaches about John the Baptist.³ First, He sends a message of encouragement to the imprisoned John. Then Jesus uses the opportunity to point the crowd to John’s fulfillment of the prophecies in Malachi 3:1 and 4:5-6 (the latter being the “Elijah prophecy”).

Matthew’s account of the events and teaching that day is very clear — except for one verse that has proven to be something of a thorny challenge to translate and interpret. That verse is Matthew 11:12—

“From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.”

What makes it “thorny”? Because [continue reading…]

“He must increase, I must decrease.”²

Two Prophecies,
Two Readings

Please let me share Mark 1:1-3 from two translations, the King James Version and the New American Standard Bible:

As we can see, Mark introduces “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” by immediately [continue reading…]

5 April 2022

Answered Prayer for the Honduras Trip!

Dear Friend,

The La Joya church-plant worship band warming up on Sunday evening, 13 March¹

Consider this communique a praise report! While you were praying for last month’s Honduras trip, God was answering and blessing. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been Covid-restricted in my travel for two years, but it really seems like this trip took the prize for the number of God-timed and God-ordained arrangements.

Plus, the Lord kept me in the best of health, and He preserved us on the road — we witnessed (but didn’t participate in!) two head-on collisions. All thanks to God and many thanks to you all for your prayers.

I fired off many pages of narrative to my wife Denise while I was gone — way too much to condense here.

Perhaps the story can best be [continue reading…]

“He must increase, I must decrease.”³

In a footnote in chapter 4 (Jesus Reveals John in Malachi), we mentioned that the unanimous testimony of the Early Church Fathers was that Mark’s Gospel is the faithful recounting of the preaching of the Apostle Peter.

Peter’s Favorite Adverb

Adding weight to this historical testimony is the energetic brevity of the accounts in Mark’s Gospel, and Mark’s frequent use of the adverb εὐθύς (eu-thús). The word appears in the New Testament 59 times; of those occurrences, it functions 51 times as an adverb, and is rendered (depending on your translation) as immediately or as soon as. Mark (or Peter, if you prefer) uses εὐθύς / euthús adverbially 41 of those 51 times, and it seems like we can almost listen through Mark’s ears to Peter’s animated and [continue reading…]

“He must increase, I must decrease.”³

In the first Deeper Dive we introduced the “Mnemonic Trigger Principle.”⁴ We saw that for ancient peoples, educated through the discipline of rote memorization, the quotation of a line of text could elicit the entire context of the quote from memory. But our familiarity with Scripture, the Old Testament in particular, is not as great. Thus to grasp the full contextual message of an Old Testament quotation, we need to free ourselves of our verse-and-chapter shackles, return to the original passage, and ask, [continue reading…]

Cellmates in Solitary

“He must increase, I must decrease.”²

John the Baptist was finding that even a man in solitary confinement has cellmates. For months, he had been the “guest” of Herod Antipas, Tetrarch³ of Galilee and Perea, in the latter’s hot, dusty desert fortress of Machaerus. Perched atop a Perean mountain over 3,500 feet above sea level, the palace of Machaerus had a breathtaking view to the west of the expanse of the Sea of Tiberius (what you and I know as the Sea of Galilee). Not so John’s dark, windowless cell. No, at this point, all John could see were his four cellmates [continue reading…]

John’s Self-Identification: John 1:19-24

“He must increase, I must decrease.”²

They had to know. The Judean leadership of the Pharisees wanted to get to the bottom of the phenomenon going on in the Jordan River Valley. Thousands of people were flocking to this man called John, listening to his preaching and teaching, and confessing their sins — publicly! In front of the crowds! How unseemly. And thousands of these penitents were being baptized by this… this… well, they didn’t have a category in which to pigeonhole him.

So these Bible-believing, historical-miracle-affirming, resurrection-professing Pharisees (they did have some of their doctrines right, whatever their overall spiritual reputation) sent [continue reading…]

“He must increase, I must decrease.”²

Christian, have you paid attention to how important John the Baptist really is? And have you considered why the vital importance of his ministry and message should matter to you?

Why is it that the story of Jesus can’t be told without including the enigmatic, camel-skin-clad, long-haired Nazirite prophet called John the Baptist? Stop and consider just a minute. There aren’t a lot of events or messages from the life of Jesus which appear in all four Gospels. All the Gospels include the Last Supper, the trial, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. Only two include anything of the Birth account of Jesus. Only two have some version of the Sermon on the Mount. How many miracles (not counting the Resurrection) appear in all four accounts? Answer: not many. But all four inspired Gospel writers — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — are compelled by the Spirit to include events and teaching from the life and ministry of John the Baptist.

Why is that?

For that matter, John the Baptist and his influence keep popping up in [continue reading…]

“He must increase, I must decrease.”²

How ironic! The guiding prophecy concerning John the Baptist and his ministry was that he was to “prepare the way of the Lord” in the hearts of God’s First-Century people. Everyone knows that, and there’s no irony there. No, the irony is that this book seeks to prepare hearts of God’s Twenty-First Century leaders in the same way. We need to seriously consider, study, assimilate, and employ John’s message for the same end: to prepare the way of the Lord in the hearts of men and women — this time before Jesus returns in glory and judgment.

Our mentality, mission, message, and methods need to be revolutionized by a “John the Baptist Experience.” But what is that experience, exactly?

I can answer that question far more easily if [continue reading…]

A joyous Christmas to all!¹

Every year the number of our Finest of the Wheat Christmas-related posts grows. Here, all in one place, is a quick list of what is available on our site at the moment.

Our resources consist primarily of Bible studies focused on various aspects of the story of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, as well as poems, hymns, and carols celebrating Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.

Christmas Bible Studies

by Percy Gutteridge

• Holiness: Preparation for His Coming
• This Shall Be a Sign unto You

by Jim Kerwin

from the manuscript of
The Curious [continue reading…]

Copyright © 2021

from the manuscript of
The Curious Corners of Christmas

by
Jim Kerwin

Popping the Wig

Would you have done as well as Matthew?¹

Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to introduce readers to the glorious Christmas Incarnation story (never mind starting the entire New Testament!) with a genealogy? A genealogy! Really? It’s like putting a pre-converted, bah-humbugging Ebenezer Scrooge in charge of Christmas party activities, like putting the Grinch, still pinched with “a heart two sizes too small,” in charge of gift distribution.

Who thought it was a good idea to start with a genealogy? Well, the Apostle Matthew did, for one. And he did so under the Divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so God thought [continue reading…]

Public Domain (with exceptions)¹

Isaiah Reid

Have you not gone oftentimes to the post office or waited anxiously for the postman, and failed to get the letter you anticipated? Your heart could not quit its sighing for hours. Perhaps this has lengthened out into weeks, till hope dropped exhausted, and the heart grew dazed and dead. Unexpected, undesired silence is awful. We can bear many other grievances better than silence where we expected speech. “She would not speak to me!” My! How the very thought wrenches the heart strings! How the very feet drag along the way, and the hands forget their skill²—so quickly does the physical respond to the spiritual.

The cold lips in [continue reading…]