0103 THE G.O.A.T.

Matthew 3 contains the story of John the Baptist. Here is why Jesus called him the greatest of all time.

THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME

Grace and peace to you. Welcome to the podcast of One a Day, in which we share both an overview of a chapter of Scripture and dig down into one salient detail of it. Today is January 3, so we are reading Matthew chapter 3.

In this chapter we are introduced to John the Immerser, we see a sampling of some of his teachings, and we see Jesus baptized by him. In chapter 11, we will see Jesus make this superlative claim about him: He said there was no man greater who was ever born to a woman (which is pretty much every man, if you think about it). The Lord Jesus Christ ought to know about such things. 

Sooner or later, any story about Jesus will need to begin with John the Immerser. All four gospels tell about him.

Now, some say that John was a Baptist. A Baptist? Seriously? I’m here to tell you, I’ve seen a lot of Baptists in my day, and John definitely was not one of them. He was—how can I put it? Peculiar. You might overhear mommas whisper behind their hands to one another about him, calling him A Curious Boy. 

In truth, nobody was weird as he was. The truth is, if you could earn kingdom points for where you live, what you wear or how you eat, John would be hard to beat. 

In the first place, he lived in the wilderness. The wilderness. You know, where nobody chooses to live? Let me just say there’s a reason no one else chooses to live there. He lived in the wilderness because John was a wild man, sure enough. But it turns out, he was a preacher, of all things. A wild, unkempt, college-educated, preacher man.

And in the second place, John took to wearing camel’s hair, in the tradition of the prophet Elijah. May I say that camel’s hair is not a top choice for hot weather clothing? You got wool, sheepskin, linen, even Silk and Cotton. They are all reasonable choices for the extreme temperatures of the Judean desert. But there was only one man out there wearing camel’s hair, which feels as smooth as burlap and as comfortable as wearing an inside-out camel. It almost seemed as if he was out to punish himself for the sins of the rest of the nation. And it was working.

What did he eat? Bugs and wild honey—which is an important part of a high-risk diet. You never know if this one’s going to be your last meal. I mean, locusts, in season, can be a good source of protein, if you can get past the wiggly crunch, and the fact that they look like apocalyptic battle horses (just wait until we get to the book of Revelation!). And wild bees go anywhere they please—including poisonous plants. So their honey is not exactly approved by the FDA. 

But John wasn’t looking for anyone’s approval, that’s for sure. The crowds didn’t come because John was following a well-traced strategy for popularity. His preaching mostly consisted of yelling at folks all day long. He wasn’t what you’d call a People Person.

And yet, folks came from all over just to hear John preach and then to get themselves dunked by him in the Jordan. Yessir, this eccentric preacher moved in the spirit and power of Elijah, the greatest of the prophets before him. And Elijah’s purpose was to call fallen Israel back from the brink.

What was the secret to the power of John’s ministry? To begin with, the self-discipline of his austere living gave him spiritual power. 

Maybe even more than his self-denial, John had power because he had no fear of men. He never chased after the crowds, never depended on them for money or fame, and never changed his message based on public opinion. That fearlessness came to lead to his undoing, actually. More on that later.

What’s more, John knew the prophetic future for Israel. He knew that wrath was ahead for the entire nation, unless they repented. That awareness gave him a sense of urgency and seriousness that made every sentence quiver with power. After all, John was the chief fruit inspector for Israel, the quality control specialist for the kingdom. He was not inspecting their words, their reputations or their credentials; he was inspecting the fruit that came from a prophet’s unbiased wilderness view of their actual behavior.

So, make no mistake about it, for as harsh as John’s message might sound, it was delivered from a heart of tremendous humility. He knew his place, compared to One whom he did not even know, yet. He would do something lower than to carry someone’s sandals; he became less, while Jesus became more.

THAT is the man that Jesus called the best man who ever lived. May we follow in his train.