Luke 3:1–9

Read the passage.

Luke shifts his narrative focus again to John the Baptist’s ministry. There is another time skip, and this time we are given a lot more references to help pin down when events took place. Five Roman rulers and two Jewish high priests are mentioned. Normally, the Jews had only one high priest at a time, but the Roman conquerors meddled in local politics by deposing Annas and put his son-in-law Caiaphas in his place. The fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar’s reign was around A.D. 27–29.

John returns from the wilderness with the word of the Lord to say to the people: “Repent!” Thus he fulfills the prophecy in Isaiah concerning the “voice of one crying in the wilderness”. He calls the people to turn from their sins and ask God to forgive them before He brings judgement on the earth. There was a common idea at the time that because the Jews were God’s chosen people, they would be exalted in the Day of the Lord. John refutes them by saying physical descendence from Abraham isn’t the point, but a spiritual descendence.

Your words are forever true, and You do not change through the ages.