Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Jensen Holt McNair.

Chapter 2 of the to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair.

Chapter 2 of the Book of Matthew ends with Jesus' family returning to the city of Nazareth while Jesus was still a child. And now, as we enter into chapter 3, we've catapulted forward about 25 years into the future. Jesus is now a man, but Matthew starts this chapter focusing on a different man, a man named John.

verse one. In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea.

Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,

the voice of the one crying in the wilderness,

prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.

Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was

locusts and wild honey.

You've probably heard of John the Baptist before, but here, as Matthew introduces us to him,

he focuses on letting us know that John is the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy.

Isaiah foretold that someone from the wilderness

would come before the long promised Messiah,

and this person's job would be to prepare a way for the Messiah.

You'll notice as we go through the entire book of Matthew

that he has a main focus of showing his Jewish audience

just how Jesus is the fulfillment of all they have waited for in the Old Testament.

And because of this, he includes a description of John that can make John seem kind of crazy to our modern day standards. John the Baptist seems like a crazy guy living in a

desert eating gross food and dressing weird. But Matthew isn't trying to paint John as a crazy guy. The clothes and

food he eats was actually typical of the people who dwelt in the desert at that time and were poorer than most.

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