Matthew 21:23-27 John’s Baptism

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: July 9, 2019 Matthew 21:23-27

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.

And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

(Understanding the Text) While the leaders did not accept John as a prophet, the people all did.  It sounds like more people accepted John’s prophetic role than accepted Jesus as the Messiah.  Maybe, this was because John fit the mold of the Old Testament prophet while Jesus was nothing like what people expected the Messiah to be.  John went out of his way to dress like a prophet of old while Jesus broke every stereotype and expectation that people had, both in ways that they liked and in ways that they found offensive.

Jesus had cleared out the temple on the day before, so the leaders were challenging His right to make decisions about what happened in the temple since that was their area of authority, and they had agreed with having the market there.

This passage shows that it was well known that John had testified that Jesus was the Messiah.  Jesus had trapped the leaders because if they said that John was from God, they would have to accept that Jesus was the Messiah, but if they denied that John was from God, like they really believed, then the people would turn against them, and support Jesus all the more.  They did not believe that John was a prophet because they did not believe in the power of God.  They had memorized the words of the scriptures but had no idea what the words meant or what they said about the person they pointed to.  Many people are like this today.  They don’t believe in one truth because that would force them to believe the greater connected truth.  They feel that it would be better to deny everything than be forced to accept the unacceptable as truth.

(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is that I need to be open to all the truth that the Holy Spirit wants to reveal to me, especially if it includes truths about myself that I need to be aware of.  In addition, I need to let Him widen my mind to accept the truths of the beauty of God because right now my ability to understand is limited, and that limits my ability to know You.

(Revelation of God) I don’t think that Jesus was just playing word games here.  I think that He knew that until the leaders accepted John’s testimony, they could never accept the more fundamental truth of who Jesus was. God seems to do this kind of interaction with humans a lot.  He puts a truth in front of us and does not reveal new truths until we accept the first one.  If we deny that one, then all the other truths are either closed to us or harder to understand.  I think that this may be a function of our own capabilities.  If we don’t accept the first truth, we are simply incapable of dealing with the truths that are based on the first truth.