Matthew 3:7-12 Wheat or Chaff?
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: January 15, 2019, Matthew 3:7-12
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
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.”
(Understanding the Text) Were the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, or were they coming to observe and judge as they did with Jesus? I think the latter which would explain John’s vehemence. Here they were judging the harlots and tax collectors who had genuinely repented and were in the process of being baptized. John would have felt protective of these children of God, which explains him calling the group a brood of vipers.
John saw the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, and he warned them that simply being blood descendants of Abraham was not enough to make them worthy of salvation. Only turning away from sin and towards God would save them from judgment. Maybe, that was the only way to get the Pharisees and Sadducees to think about their own lives, by threatening them with being destroyed by fire as waste products. Essentially, John was telling them that the sinners he was baptizing were the valuable wheat that God wanted, and they were the trashy leftovers that were burned to get rid of them. John’s condemnation was not about lifting up tax collectors. He was lifting up repentance. It was not about who people were, but about the attitude towards God that they had.
(Understanding the Text / Revelation of God) John had confused the first and second comings of Messiah together. This is understandable since most of the Old Testament prophecies that he would have studied did the same thing. Jesus said that He did not come to judge, which contradicts what John was saying here and shows that John did not totally understand what he was proclaiming. John knew about Jesus. He knew who the Messiah was. He had been raised with the knowledge that his kinsman was the Messiah. However, as far as the Bible tells us, he had had no personal contact with Jesus and only knew the words of scripture and the insights that the Holy Spirit gave him. It is interesting that John was right about Jesus baptizing with the Spirit and with fire, but he was wrong in his vision of how that process would take place. His words were all correct, but the manner in which he spoke them displayed his lack of total comprehension of what they really meant. I think we do the same thing with prophecies today.
John had the humility to know that he was not the truly important one. He was the herald for the Messiah. He knew that the Messiah was way beyond just an ordinary human. The Messiah was going to carry out the important job. John was only to prepare the way so that the people would know that the Messiah was coming and turn to God.
John might have been thinking about Zechariah as he spoke. “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,” declares the LORD of hosts. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones. In the whole land, declares the LORD, two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive. And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’” (Zechariah 13:7-9). I think it interesting that here and in Malachi, the fire purifies the repentant while the others are destroyed.
(Application) My application for myself is that I need to humbly follow Jesus wherever He sends me. Even if I make mistakes like John in his understanding of scripture, Jesus can still use me as long as I am willing to be led.
(Prayer) Dear God, I pray that the mistakes that I have made and that I will make do not hurt others.