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Real, Day 10

by David Joynt on March 19, 2019


LUKE 3:3 | He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

John’s role was to get people ready for the Messiah. How did this purpose fit with his call for repentance?

By calling people to sorrow for their sins, and to baptism, John tried to get people ready by helping them see they were not ready!

John is, as Dale Bruner says, “the last great prophet of the Hebrew Scriptures, a walking talking law of God, full of doom and holiness and ultimacy.”

He knocks off balance everyone who assumes they are in good standing with God, everyone who believes, “I am basically a God person, I’ll be okay in the end.” Self-satisfaction and complacency are the enemy of repentance and never lead anyone to throw themselves on the mercy of God.

In what area of life are you complacent?

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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