Didn’t sound too pleased with them.
Matthew 3.7-10 • Luke 3.7-9 • John 1.19-23
In Matthew and Luke’s parallel stories, John the baptist comes across a bit hostile towards the religious folks who come to check him out.
Matthew 3.7-10 KWL - 7 Seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, John told them,
- “You viper-spawn! Who warned you to escape the wrath of God?
- 8 Fine then: Produce worthy fruit, from repentant people.
- 9 Don’t presume to tell yourselves, ‘We have a father in Abraham’:
- From these rocks, I tell you, God can raise up children for Abraham.
- 10 The axe lays at the root of the tree right now.
- So every tree not producing good fruit is cut down and thrown into fire.”
Luke 3.7-9 KWL - 7 John said this to the crowds coming to be baptized by him:
- “You viper-spawn! Who warned you to escape the wrath of God?
- 8 Fine then: Produce worthy fruits, from repentant people.
- Don’t start to tell yourselves, ‘We have a father in Abraham’:
- From these rocks, I tell you, God can raise up children for Abraham.
- 9 Plus, the axe lays at the root of the tree right now.
- So every tree not producing good fruit is cut down and thrown into fire.”
In John, not so much, but then again they’re not there to prejudge him, but find out just who he claims to be.
John 1.19-23 KWL - 19 This is John’s testimony when the Judeans sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem
- so they could ask him, “Who are you?”
- 20 He conferred with them, and didn’t refuse to answer: “I’m not Messiah.”
- 21 They questioned John: “Then what? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I’m not.”
- “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.”
- 22 So they told him, “Then what?—so we can give an answer to those who sent us.
- What do you say about yourself?”
- 23 John said, “I’m the voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Straighten the Master’s road!’
Is 40.3 - like the prophet Isaiah said.”
These folks would be:
- Pharisees, whom I dealt with elsewhere. These are the religious Jews, as opposed to the irreligious, secular Jews. Many were actually trying to follow God. And same as us Christians, many were hypocrites, faking it for social and political acceptance. Jesus sparred with the hypocrites a lot, but don’t get the wrong idea all Pharisees were that way.
- Sadducees. Our present-day equivalent would be those pagans who call themselves “spiritual but not religious”—they believe in God, but not religion. Freakishly, these are the folks who ran the religion: The head priest, his family, and the leading families of Jerusalem, were in this camp. They believed in God and the Law, but not the supernatural: No angels, miracles, afterlife, End Times, resurrection, or prophets beyond Moses. Just God.
- Levites. You may have heard Israel had 12 tribes. They actually had 13, and Levi was the weird 13th tribe which had no land, lived in cities, and took turns serving in temple. Only Levites could be priests, and John was a Levite himself. Some were Pharisees, some Sadducees, some in other denominations. But all were involved in temple.
- “The crowds.” In Luke John is hostile to everybody, not just religious folks. Everybody gets slammed with his preaching. No exceptions. But it’s fair to say most of them were Pharisees, which I’ll explain in a bit.
John’s reaction to them was essentially, “What’re you doing here? Aren’t you saved already?”