John Would Never Let You Stop with John

(Today, we studied Matthew 3:4-10)

It has been interesting to move very slowly through the third chapter of Matthew’s gospel, pondering John the Baptist and wondering what he was like. I’ve lingered long enough to allow myself to conjure a three-dimensional character. He reminds me a lot of someone I love dearly—someone who is very different from me. John the Baptist is direct; he’s very forthright, and he doesn’t couch what he says in gentle or even sensitive language. He just goes full force and lays it all out there.

His whole lifestyle is one of austere simplicity. He dresses plainly (and uncomfortably), and he eats what the wilderness offers him to eat. Locusts were not so very unusual in his time. People did eat them. It wasn’t everyone’s favorite food, but it was an acceptable protein source for the poor. And the bees offered him wild honey. John relies entirely on God for something as basic as his nutritional needs. He’s living entirely off the land. His food doesn’t require him to have any money, any wealth. There is no middleman. There’s no marketplace. There’s no dependence on Herod or the Temple establishment. He eats what God provides in the wilderness. This is a life of extreme austerity, extreme simplicity, but also extreme detachment and extreme dependence solely on God for absolutely everything.

John is radically simple. His food and his clothing align beautifully with his preaching. He strips away everything unnecessary; nothing distracts from Jesus. John probably knew the words spoken to his father Zacharias before he was born: ¹⁷ and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (Luke 1:17)

This is simply who John the Baptist was, and he was this from the time he was created in the womb.

He created a wave of new religion in Jerusalem and beyond. He wasn’t just an individual preacher on a street corner with a few listeners. He began a renewal, a revival movement in first-century Judaism. John built a movement, and there was the force of the tide behind it.

John’s whole purpose–the very reasons he was born–was to point people to Christ, and he answered that call so wholeheartedly that he was single-minded in his mission. Some people stopped in their discipleship. They got stuck and remained followers of John. This was not as God or John intended. He didn’t want people to pledge their allegiance to him. He wanted to cultivate disciples who would follow Christ. John famously said, ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’ His entire vocation was to point beyond himself to Jesus. He didn’t want followers of his own; John wanted people to follow him to Christ.

Today, there is a new nuance to the word “followers,” but I think that just points up the timelessness of Matthew’s message. When we seek counsel and advice and spiritual direction, we have to ask ourselves first and foremost where the counsel leads. As we develop relationships, both in person and online, we are called to discern, to be wise. We need to look for the echo of John in spiritual mentors. The task isn’t to gather followers. So, the question remains as it was then: is the voice pointing beyond themselves to Jesus?

John understood the mission of mentorship, and he knew that if people left his presence loving him more than they loved Christ, something had gone wrong. His vocation was to point beyond himself. He wanted people to encounter Jesus Christ. He was calling for repentance, but it wasn’t just for the sake of a better moral life. It was preparation for a full life of grace. He wanted to awaken desire, and he wanted to expose sin. He knew his limits, and he embraced his call. He could call people into the light, but he could not accomplish what only Christ could do.

Just a note before we transition to the paid content: These essays begin weeks before I post them. I read, research, pray, and fill pages with notes. Then I meet live with members of the Take Up community. We ask questions together, and the conversation often leads somewhere I never could have reached alone. I return to those conversations—the transcript, the chat, the notes—to distill what we discovered into these essays. I hope that the process brings the joy of the ministry to more people. You can access the full video replay of this session in the Take Up & Read membership. It is in the archives along with numerous coaching workshops, group coaching sessions, bible studies, and book chats. Come join us.