What compelled individuals to seek out John the Baptizer? What was their motivation? What were their expectations upon arrival on the other bank of the Jordan River?
"Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand": I always flash in my mind to the prophet on the soap box on the street corner with the sign, "Are You Saved?" or "Are you ready for eternity?"
What are your thoughts?
"Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand": I always flash in my mind to the prophet on the soap box on the street corner with the sign, "Are You Saved?" or "Are you ready for eternity?"
What are your thoughts?
To answer the first question, I think it is important to consider what we learned in Session 2 about the living conditions in 1st Century Galilee. Life was not pleasant for most and was likely very scary. I remember 9/11/01. The church where I was serving decided to have a worship that evening. Remember that this is before e-mail was a really big thing in this church. Thus, we did not advertise hardly at all, and yet we had more people just show up (church members and non-members) than we typically had on Sunday mornings. For several weeks after that, our Sunday morning worship attendance was much higher than usual. When someone is need of hope, they are more likely to go find it. I think that was the first draw to John the Baptizer.
ReplyDeleteExpectations: I think, as in the 9/11 example above, that people are just looking for any answer to the questions and concerns they are experiencing. Some will (and likely did) go away feeling empty-handed, not getting the answer they wanted or expected. It is possible (maybe even likely) that some (maybe even most) felt that the reason God had not acted was that there had not been enough people "get on board" yet - this is certainly a theme in the book of Revelation. When enough people said, "Yes," then God would act and make everything better. I can imagine some people wondering if they were THE last person needed for God to act.
I think Gary makes a good point with his last statements about, "Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand." I think that there is a similar vein there; part of John's message was likely, "You better be on God's side when God comes to clean up this world. Otherwise, you better expect the bad end of judgment."
Yet, there is one important variation: I think John was sure that God would fix THIS world, not take us to another (i.e. Heaven).
Did anybody have thoughts or questions from the last Session?