It must have seemed odd. As crowds of people were responding to the preaching of John, they came forward to be baptized by him. But as one person came to do so, John tried to stop him. Is he beyond hope? Is he too sinful to be forgiven by God? Is his heart not in the right place?
It’s easy to put other Christians and other churches who have rejected God’s commands in a different category from ourselves. We say things like, “I can’t believe they did that,” but our surprise says more about us than it does about them.
If you find yourself rushing through your reading, deliberately slow down. The Bible doesn’t TikTok well. Our digital scrolling trains us to skim but God’s Word needs to be stored and hidden deep within us to have its effect.
