Daily Bible Reading 11th 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.
We pointed out in an earlier Note that it is sometimes said that John's ministry was not really a Christian ministry, in the true sense, but only preparatory, and mention is made of Jesus' own words about John, 'he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he' (Luke 7:28). One sees the force of this, of course, but what we have said in the last Note or two has surely answered this adequately and shown the work to have been a genuine work of the Spirit, a work, moreover, that bore the marks of all that is best and truest in the history of awakening in the Church's life, in the scriptural record or in Church history.
For all that, however, there is a sense in which there is a truth in the suggestion that it was also a preparatory movement. Something requires to be said about this, for a number of important issues arise from it that are highly relevant for our time, particularly in relation to what John says about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. For John himself makes a distinction between his own baptism and the baptism Jesus was to administer: 'I baptize with water, but He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire'. How are we to interpret these words? Clearly, if our interpretation in the past Notes about the work under John's ministry being authentic in itself is correct, problems are raised that need some explanation. We shall try to clarify these issues in the next Note or two.