Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Matthew 3:7-12
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (ESV)
by Jo Anne Kandel
The Jewish leaders must have thought that John the Baptist was a very strange individual indeed. He lived in the desert eating wild honey, wearing strange clothes and proclaiming crazy ideas about the kingdom of God. He lived like the prophets of old (see Isaiah 40:3, Jeremiah 2:2), yet he had a more urgent message of judgment. The Sadducees and Pharisees were probably angry when they went to see John and were called a brood of vipers. Jesus would continue to challenge their assertions of ethnic and social superiority, affirming that “there is no partiality with God” (Romans 2:11).
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Daily Bible Meditations are taken from The Helping Hand,a Sabbath School student quarterly for youth and adults. Copyright © 2008, Seventh Day Baptist Board of Christian Education, Inc.
Scripture quotations marked "ESV" are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Text provided by the Crossway Bibles Web Service .
