Daily Bible Reading 10th April 2026 // Luke 3:7-18
7 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 9 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” 11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” 13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, 16 John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18 So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.
When John's hearers asked him 'What shall we do?' (10), and he answered them in strict moral terms, we should realise that they asked this question not in order to obtain salvation, and John was not advocating 'works' as a way of salvation, but rather as those who had been wrought upon by the Spirit of God and were now seeking to walk in the light (cf 1 Thessalonians 4:1ff for a similar pattern). What he said, therefore, represents the outworking of the newly found faith. As is indicated in 8, there were to be fruits worthy of repentance, that is, that would be an evidence and proof that their repentance was real. This is always the true, authenticating factor in a genuine work of the Spirit of God: where that Spirit is, moral transformation will inevitably take place. This is indeed the touchstone and criterion by which to judge the reality of any work that claims the Spirit's seal: does it lead to good works, to the restoration of moral values, moral standards in men's lives, in the community, is the moral tone of society raised and purified - these are the real questions; and if these cannot be answered in the affirmative, if there is any uncertainty about these things, we are entitled to place a big question mark over any claim that is made. After all, the Spirit of God is a Holy Spirit, and where holiness is at a discount, there He is not! We heard recently about a new 'teaching' which proclaims that the gospel proclaims that Christ accepts us as we are. This is all very well, and true; but it would seem that those who are attracted to such teaching have construed it to mean also that He is content to leave us as we are, sins and all. Well, one has only to read through these verses to see how far such an attitude has parted company with true, biblical teaching; and we can hardly be in doubt as to what John the Baptist would have said about such an attitude.