Daily Bible Reading 6th April 2026 // Luke 3:1-6
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
These words mark, so to speak, the beginning of the gospel proper, as we may gather also from Mark 1:1ff and from early apostolic preaching (Acts 10:37). As Jesus Himself said later, 'the law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached.' In 1:80, we are told that John was in the desert till the day of his showing unto Israel; now, here, we have that showing. This serves to remind us of the context of John's ministry, which requires to be interpreted in the light of what is said in 1:77ff. The question of how far John's ministry is to be regarded as merely preparatory, in relation to our Lord's, is something we shall look at later; in the meantime, we should note particularly the word that Luke uses to describe John's preaching in 18 - it is the word from which we get our English 'evangelize' - the announcement of good news. We must therefore interpret the 'thunder' and sternness of John's ministry in an evangelical context. He was not preaching 'law' as we say. This was a work of the Spirit of God. We shall misunderstand John's purpose and function, unless we grasp this fact.