Authority from Humble Respect – Pastor Scott Keller

Alêtheia Christian Fellowship Sunday, February 27, 2022. Pastor Scott Keller.

 

Transcript:

 

Last week we read through verse 28 so I could get to the reference about location in that verse, but we only really talked about the first delegation sent by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. Let’s read it again to get reoriented.

 

JOHN 1:19-28, 22Then they said to him, “Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” 23He said, “I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.” 24Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25They asked him, and said to him, “Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” 26John answered them saying, “I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. 27“It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” 28These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

 

Again, that group of Priests and Levites asked John about his ministry, to which he replied, that he was not the Christ, not Elijah, and not the Prophet.

 

John was none of those because he was John. We talked a bit about the Elijah reference. It was a thread woven into the fabric of the Messiah expectation. In many of the Old Testament references this person’s identity was ambiguous, and so sometimes it was generically thought that a prophet would also figure into the picture.

 

At that time, Jewish people held different views about the end times – what a shock! People are just people, and the modern Christian ideas about the End Times are just as jumbled and contradictory. It doesn’t stop anyone though. Conspiracy theory away.

 

To some, the prophet was a third messianic-age figure, to others it was just the title for the Elijah character. Some thought that the prophet was another designation for the Messiah Himself, and still others, thought that everyone was mistaken. What’s most important to understand, is that the Priests and Levites didn’t ever tip their hand as to what they believed, they were just trying to figure out what John believed.

 

Their questions were really about authority… John, you’re out here preaching fire and brimstone, getting folks so worked up that they’re publicly confessing all manner of embarrassing things, getting them to fall upon the mercy of God, and commit to diligently anticipate the Messiah, and then dunking them under the water for good measure… “By what authority are you doing this?”

 

It’s the same question today. It’s a legitimate and wise question to ask, if asking genuinely. Someone is doing Christian ministry. They claim to be an Apostle, a Prophet, a Missionary, an Evangelist, a Healer, a Pastor, or some other self-designated authority figure. Okay, by what authority? What makes that person and their ministry a valid effort approved by God?

 

In many denominations they make a meticulously detailed, if not laughable, connection from Jesus, or one of His hand-chosen Apostles – usually Peter, to their present leader. It is an attempt for legitimacy.

 

Other groups make an appeal to education – a person gets a certain amount of schooling, training, or experience, graduating with the right degree, or certificate, or commendation, and that gives them the right to minister. Other groups appeal to a certification process whereby Bishops, or Elders, or some other previously certified board grills the candidate and gives them a thumbs up. Finally, there are ministers who seek no official status, but simply minister and allow God to draw to them whomever God chooses to draw.

 

The completely reasonable and necessary question you and every other Christian must ask, is do I fully trust that the minister to whom I submit myself, the minister under whose teaching I sit, the ministry to which I give time, devotion, and money, is approved by God? Or, and this is a big “Or,” or, is this a self-appointed charlatan running a cult as a way to rip off unsuspecting gullible people?

 

It’s a good question and it’s the question they ask John – or so it seems. I said it was a vital question if it was genuine – meaning a question open to the answer. More on this later. John refused to claim any authority for himself. This is a common refrain throughout the New Testament and throughout the early centuries of Christianity. Even the most educated, most endorsed, most experienced ministers refused to appeal to an authority other than the power of the Holy Spirit evident in them and in their ministry.

 

That’s a much more difficult thing to assess than a master’s degree, or a preaching certificate, but ultimately it is the only thing that matters.

 

How can you tell? It is rather simple once you understand the proper litmus test. It isn’t how big or how successful the ministry becomes. It isn’t about the amazing miracles, or powerful messages. It isn’t about how you feel after an encounter… Christianity is always all about Jesus. Show me a minister than constantly brings the focus back to Jesus, and I’ll show you a ministry worthy of your consideration.

 

What John does is quote Isaiah 40:3, “The voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord! Make the paths of our God straight!” If you check that verse in your Bible, and read it carefully as I always encourage, you’ll see a difference between that and what I just read. What I read matches what the Baptist said in John 1:23. In your Bible the Isaiah verse will say something like, “A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.” The difference makes no difference. In the first, it is a voice in the wilderness calling out for straight paths and in your Old Testament it is a voice calling out to straighten the paths in the wilderness. Like I said, it doesn’t matter either way, but it illustrates a point I’d like to discuss.

 

The New Testament was entirely written in Koine Greek. Anyone that says differently has an ideological agenda. It is probable that most of what Jesus said was in His native Aramaic. We know that He could read and understand Hebrew as well – no small feat in those days. He would have also been reasonably fluent in Greek and probably understood some simple phrases in Latin and perhaps a few other languages. It’s reasonable to assume that it was mostly Aramaic though.

 

Since that is true, it is also likely that there circulated stories about Jesus in Aramaic for several decades after His Ascension. In short order, those stories would have been also told in Greek as the Gospel Message spread. In Acts chapter 8, Philip evangelizes the Ethiopian eunuch. Their conversation was almost certainly in Greek. Philip adapted the mostly Aramaic Gospel he knew into Greek for the Ethiopian – it was a natural process.

 

By the time the Bible Books were written, roughly the 50-year span between 45 and 95 A.D., the church had mostly fled what is modern-day Israel because of the Roman-Jewish war and were scattered throughout the surrounding territory where Aramaic was not spoken and practically no one knew Hebrew. So, as we talked about previously, God placed His Messiah in the perfect spot, in the perfect time, because what everyone in the surrounding territory did have in common, was a cultural frame of reference and the Greek language.

 

What Old Testament would you then use under the circumstances? The Greek translation finished and widely distributed long before Jesus was born – of course. It is the LXX or Septuagint. For 350 years that was the Old Testament the Christians used and has been the only Old Testament used by the Eastern Orthodox churches to this day.

 

In 400 A.D. Jerome was sent by the Bishop of Rome to translate the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament into Latin – the language of Rome and the western half of the Roman Empire. Jerome figured it would be more appropriate to learn Hebrew and translate the Scriptures that the Jews were using at that time from that original language directly into Latin instead of from Greek. translation the church had been using.

 

The Old Testament is the Jewish Scripture originally written in Hebrew – it makes sense to translate from their copy. Your Bible is based on that concept. A concept that in practice prefers the Jewish Scriptures of 400 A.D. known as the Masoretic Text to the Old Testament Greek translation Christians had been using for centuries.

 

There are differences between the two. What’s truly remarkable is that none of them amount to much and so no one gets too worked up over the whole deal. To account for those differences, up until 1947, it was believed that the Jewish scholars who translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek starting about 300 years before Jesus, simply made changes either intentionally or through incompetence.

 

I say 1947 because that’s when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. That find is dated to between 300 and 100 years before Christ and it includes every Book of the Old Testament except Esther. These Hebrew Scriptures are about 1,000 years older than any other Hebrew Scriptures extant. With a few Greek exceptions the 981 documents discovered are written in Hebrew. The documents were the Scriptures and other writings used by the Essenes in Qumran Wadi. The Essenes were one of the four major sort of Jewish denominations back then. They isolationists kind of like the Amish today.

 

These Hebrew Scriptures reflect and agree with the Greek original translation far more than they do with the Masoretic Hebrew Text of 400 A.D. that Jerome used. There is an excellent argument that the Greek LXX, or Septuagint, is the more accurate basis for the Old Testament even though it’s a translation.

 

It is almost always the translation quoted by the New Testament authors. We know that because of these subtle differences… We don’t care about it too much because those subtle differences don’t change anything of substance.

 

The worst case is another Isaiah passage. Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:23, “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” The word in the Hebrew Bible means a young woman of marriageable age. Most Christian translations make it “Virgin” to match Matthew, but some, like the NET and the popular Complete Jewish Bible translate as “Young woman.” The Greek Old Testament uses a word that means a virgin. For such a person to be with child is possible in the first place and impossible in the second. Obviously, the New Testament writers took seriously the idea of a virgin and while the Greek Old Testament makes that certain, the Masoretic Hebrew does not.

 

Again, how important is it? Not that important, because Christian scholars and educated preachers understand the situation well and can convey that to others. The Hebrew word can be taken to mean a virgin and even if the original only means a young woman and not specifically a virgin, the Holy Spirit inspired New Testament writers took it that way. Clearly a virgin whether implied or explicit.

 

Back to our passage, the Hebrew is no problem, cry out to make a path, out in the wilderness, straight. It’s okay, but the Greek Old Testament, that is quoted, fits the actual real-life situation perfectly. Out in the wilderness a voice cries out to make a straight path. John was out in the wilderness crying out to prepare the way for the Lord in fulfillment of that Old Testament prophecy concerning the Messiah.

 

It’s a tiny bit confusing in English, but in verse 24, it’s a new delegation, probably a day or two later. The first one of Priests and Levites returned to the leaders and made their report, which was imprecise and unsatisfying. You can visualize what happened next, some Pharisees jumped up and said send us, we’ll find out what’s really going on.

 

Pharisees were another one of the four big denominations of Judaism back then. The Pharisees produced the Rabbis who were like preachers and teachers of Judaism, the Lawyers who were experts in Old Testament Law, and the Scribes who kept the written Scriptures and other documents serviceable. Only a trained and certified Scribe was legally allowed to copy the Bible. The Pharisees held several seats on the Jewish High Council called the Sanhedrin. The Apostle Paul was a Pharisee and likely a council member when he was knocked off of his horse by Jesus.

 

You definitely want to be knocked off of your high horse by Jesus, if necessary, but it’s a whole lot better to get off on your own.

 

The Pharisees were legalistic in the extreme. They asked “Why,” which is just code for, “By what authority are you ministering to these people?” John, just as we’ll repeatedly see with Jesus, had already answered their question. They just didn’t like the answer. He’d already told them all that they needed to know.

 

By applying the Isaiah verse to himself John had confirmed that he was the prophesied forerunner to the long awaited Anointed One of God in the spirit and power of Elijah. It wasn’t that they didn’t understand his answer – they didn’t accept it.

 

You might then reason, well, if they didn’t believe him, why did they press him for an explicit answer? They were merely trying to trap him. Get John to finally say, yes, I am Elijah, and they could charge him with blasphemy and/or insanity.

 

None of the leaders in Jerusalem, nor their minions were trying to find out if something of God was happening - they had all already decided that that was impossible. They were simply trying to eliminate, or stop, or at the very least, discredit, John, and his ministry, so that the people would abandon him and return to lapping at the trough the leaders provided.

 

It was all about power and prestige and as a result money. Neither of these guys are trying to make the other guy comfortable – they are both trying to assert their dominance – it’s a power play and nothing else.

 

Power gives one a greater degree of control and esteem, at the expense of others. It seems evil, so religious people put a holier-than-thou spin on it. The Jewish power players would say that they were simply trying to protect the people from false doctrines. Anytime a government, or a religion, tells you that they are trying to keep you from evil for your protection, you should be on guard.

 

In verse 26, John answers that he is merely preparing the way, making the path straight, by baptizing people in water as they repent of their sins and ready their heart, for the one to come. Again, by obvious implication not lost on anyone, it is for the Messiah, the Christ. That Anointed One of God, who the Old Testament foretold would be God Himself, was standing there among them.

 

Sure, you could take it that John was only saying that the Messiah was already in the land, but I’m guessing for a more literal intention. Jesus was standing among the Pharisees as they confronted John. They did not recognize Him, because they did not even try. I doubt that any of them even looked around.

 

The lowliest slaves were tasked with the removal of the master’s sandals. If a master wanted to punish or humiliate a slave, they would make them untie their sandals. Even to this day, footwear in that part of the world is considered filthy and unclean. You’ll see people from the Middle East take off their shoe and hit a picture, or an effigy, of a despised foe with it. They take them off before entering a Mosque. They will throw their shoes at people they consider evil. You might remember the incident where an Iraqi journalist named Zaidi threw his shoes at President Bush at a news conference. Zaidi shouted in Arabic, “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” Bush, fairly athletically, ducked the first shoe, and Zaidi threw his other shoe yelling. “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!”

 

What is it about shoes? As I mentioned in our Wednesday study, it isn’t just sand and mud on your shoe in those places. People and animals considered whatever place they happened to be, the toilet. The paths and roads and streets were littered with raw sewage, rotten food, and all other manner of rubbish. Shoes were disgusting in reality and even more so as a cultural norm.

 

John, this prophesied forerunner to the Messiah, of whom Jesus Himself later said “Among those born of women there is no one greater than John,” plainly told them that he was not worthy to even untie the Messiah’s sandals.

 

If John wasn’t worthy of untying the Lord’s sandals, why do we, far more blessed than John, a far easier life than John’s and far less impact on Christianity than John, have so little respect for the Lord?

 

You might object and complete the verse I mentioned. Jesus went on to say that while no one was greater than John, the least in the Kingdom of Heaven was greater. Well, there’s a lot to unpack there, but for the sake of brevity let’s say that you are greater than John the Baptist. How so? By what mechanism are you greater than he who was hand-selected by God the Father to prepare for God the Messiah? If you’re greater, I sincerely doubt it’s because of anything you’ve earned.

 

Maybe you’d object by proclaiming that you do have intense respect for Jesus, but is that borne out in fact? I’m not trying to call anyone out and I honestly have no one in mind. In addition, I’m not complaining, nor am I in any way upset with anything. I’m simply asking you to ask yourself some questions and I’m giving you areas in which those questions might be helpful to you and your walk with the Lord. That’s what I’m concerned about.

 

You say that you respect Jesus as much or more than John the Baptist. Look at how you treat His house and the opportunities afforded you for entering that house. I have had many parents come to me saddened because their college-age or older kids don’t go to church. Well, what did you teach them through your own actions about church?

 

How do you treat His servant in the process of delivering a Message from Him to you? The sermon will last less than an hour and in that time several people will casually walk out. Respect doesn’t mean legalism or pain, but it does mean being respectful. What does that mean? There are always legitimate reasons for walking out and there is also a simple lack of respect. You might say, I don’t need to respect Scott, he’s just the preacher. I agree, but when I’m here doing this, I’m His representative. In this isolated case, how you treat the preacher is how you treat Jesus.

 

Look at how you engage in the corporate worship of the Lord when the opportunity is available. We take about 25 minutes to join together in praise and worship. How you engage speaks volumes. You will one day stand before the Lord. He will ask you about your distracted, lack-luster, disinterested worship. You might say, well I was uncomfortable with public demonstrations, to which He might say, well, in your case, so Am I. Jesus said, “But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” Failure to worship among atheists, let alone among fellow Believers, is certainly a form of denial. You might say to Jesus, “Well, I didn’t like the music.” I’m sure that excuse will work. Jesus will probably say, “Oh, well in that case, no worries.”

 

Again, I’m not chastising at all, I’m simply trying to get us to think about Whom it is that we say we serve. I could talk about the offering, I could talk about volunteering to help teach, clean, build, visit, bless. There are a thousand situations each week where we, through our actions, proclaim our level of respect for the Lord. Let’s think about that.

 

I do want to touch on one more. The Christian woman you’re married to is a daughter of the Heavenly Father and a sister of the Lord Jesus Christ and is filled with the very Breath of God. How you treat her is how you treat them. My advice is, be afraid – be very afraid.

 

Our problem is that we think far too highly of ourselves and far too lowly of God. A little fear of the Lord goes a long way to help us get that straight and to respect Him in our actions as well as with our words.

 

Prepare your heart – confess, repent, fall on His mercy, and accept His forgiveness.