Recently I posted about John the Baptist as a voice of one shouting in the wilderness. I stopped at a place in the story where John calls his audience to produce the corresponding fruits of repentance. John has deleivered a hard message about the coming wrath of God, and his message hit home with many people. Today I want to look at the responses by some in the crowd.
Certainly some in the crowd were mistakenly trusting in their status as the children of Abraham to spare them from the coming wrtath. John addresses this. In verse 8, he tells that they cannot merely trust in their position as the children of Abraham. That will not save them from the coming wrath. Their history should tell them that God did not spare their ancestors just because they were descendants of Abraham, but allowed them to be carried off into captivity in Babylon. He further tells them that God is able to raise up children from stones if He wants too. John uses the word δύναται (dynatai) meaning God has the power or the ability to do this. In creation, God brought life into the inanimate Earth, and could do so again if He chose to.
John continues by stating that the ax is at the root of the tree. They should repent now. There is an urgency to John’s message. It is the fruitless, unrepentant tree that gets thrown into the fire. John’s message landed, and they began to ask John what they should do. The word for ‘do’ from their question ‘What should we do?’ is the word that I translated earlier as ‘produce.’ What is the fruit of repentance then? They are asking John then "what fruit should we produce?"
One could sum up John’s response to the groups coming forward by saying that, the fruit of repentance involves helping those in need, not cheating people and being content with our pay. The crowd as a whole asked what to do, and John responded that if they have two tunics, they should share with the one does not have a tunic. To most the corresponding fruits of repentance meant helping those who were in need.
But there were also two groups are mentioned specifically as coming forward to ask what they should do. Darrell Bock points out that these two groups were typically among the most hated groups in Israel - the tax collectors and the soldiers. (Bock, 310)
Tax collecting in Israel worked like this: Wealthy Romans would pay for the right to collect the taxes, paying the taxes then charging a surcharge for their own expenses and income. They would farm the actual collecting of the taxes out to Jews. These particular Jews were hated among all of the Jews, for their connection to the Roman empire. Add to that, these tax collectors would place additional taxes for their own income on top. (Bock, 310-311) Abusing this system for personal gain would be pretty easy. How does John respond to the tax collector? What is the corresponding fruit of their repentance? Verse 13, they were told to collect no more than was required. You can be right with God and be a tax collector, but that meant that you had to stop cheating people. Bock says, "John is not a political revolutionary, for he does not attack the right to collect taxes. What John argues is that taxes should be collected without extortion, surcharges, kickbacks, payoffs or bribes. The tax collectors are to do their job and not take advantage of their authority." (Bock, 312.)
The other group that Luke specifically mentions is the soldiers. Bock says that these were likely Jewish rather than Roman soldiers, probably coming from one of three groups: Antipas’s army, the Judean ‘police’ or soldiers hired to help and protect the tax collectors. (Bock, 313) Of these options, the last makes the most sense. The corresponding fruit of their repentance was threefold: First, don’t shake people down. John uses the word διασείσητε, (diaseisaytay) which means to ‘shake violently.” Bock says that in our modern vernacular, it would mean to ‘shake people down.’ Second, don’t defraud people. Συκοφαντήσητε (Sycophantaysaytay) - Bock says that the meaning of this is debated, but that likely it means to falsely accuse for monetary gain. (I do notice however, that the word appears very similar to our English word 'sycophant.) Finally, the soldiers are told, to be content with their pay. Perhaps, if you are content with your pay, you won’t need to do either of these other two.
So John has quickly laid out for three different groups what the corresponding fruits of repentance are. I notice that these corresponding fruits are largely our attitudes about money and about our treatment of others, particularly those in need.
There is more to John's message and we will delve into it more next time.
Tom
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