Why Does Jesus Get Baptized in the Wilderness?

The Wilderness E8 –– In the Bible, God often turns wilderness wanderings into times of testing, purification, and preparation for returning to the garden land. The tragedy of the Hebrew Bible, however, is that when people do return to the garden, they keep following their own distorted wisdom and desires. This is why the beginning of every gospel account features a wild prophet named John, who is out in the wilderness by the Jordan River, preaching a baptism of repentance. It’s a symbolic reenactment of when God purified the exodus generation through the deadly chaos waters and treacherous desert. But then Jesus approaches John, also asking to be baptized. Why? In this episode, Jon and Tim unpack the background and ministry of John the Baptizer and how Jesus’ baptism connects to his larger Kingdom mission.

CHAPTERS

1. Recap of Theme and Setup for John the Baptizer (0:00-15:53)
2. John’s Background and Words to the Pharisees (15:53-38:03)
3. Why Jesus Participates in a Baptism of Repentance (38:03-44:47)
4. The Heavenly Announcement After Jesus’ Baptism (44:47-51:33)

OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

View this episode’s official transcript.

REFERENCED RESOURCES

• The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, translated by Geza Vermes
• You can view annotations for this episode—plus our entire library of videos, podcasts, articles, and classes—in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.
• Check out Tim’s extensive collection of recommended books here.

SHOW MUSIC

• “Lunch Break ft. Abstractv” by Lofi Sunday
• “Old Record” by Lofi Sunday, Marc Vanparla
• BibleProject theme song by TENTS

SHOW CREDITS

Production of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer, who also edited today’s episode and provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty does our show notes, and Hannah Woo provides the annotations for our app. Our host and creative director is Jon Collins, and our lead scholar is Tim Mackie. 

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