Hearing Jesus: Daily Bible Study, Daily Devotional, Prayer, Hearing God & Christian Affirmations

I know what a lot of you are thinking. The genealogy. Are we really going there?

We are, and there's a reason. If God had wanted a clean family tree for His Son, He had the power to arrange one. Instead He built this one, out of the overlooked and the outsider and the people who were wronged.

Today we're finishing Luke 3 by walking through the lineage of Jesus and the women hidden inside a list that never names them.

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Why does Luke put the genealogy here?

Matthew opens his gospel with a genealogy. Luke buries his at the end of chapter three, right after the baptism and right before the temptation. Luke is a details guy, so the placement is intentional.

Look at what comes immediately before. The heavens open, the Spirit descends like a dove, and a voice says you are my beloved Son. Then Luke runs the family line all the way back to Adam, who he calls the son of God.

And look at what comes right after. Next week we study the temptation, where the enemy says if you are the Son of God.

So Luke sandwiches this family tree between heaven declaring the sonship of Jesus and the devil attacking it. In the ancient world, genealogies were identity documents.

Why does it say Jesus was about thirty?

Thirty was a meaningful number. The Levites entered temple service at thirty. David became king at thirty. Joseph entered Pharaoh's service at thirty. Ezekiel's visions began at thirty. It was the age a man was considered ready to carry the responsibility of ministry.

Luke says about thirty because he's a careful historian. The point is that this is not a kid. He's ready.

Why is Luke's genealogy different from Matthew's?

Matthew starts with Abraham and walks down through David to Jesus. He's making a Jewish case, laying out the royal credentials.

Luke flips it. He starts with Jesus and walks backward through David, past Abraham, all the way to Adam, and then one step further to God.

That difference is intentional. Matthew stops at Abraham because his point is the covenant with Israel. Luke pushes past Abraham because his point is the entire human race. He's a Gentile writing to Gentiles, saying this is for everybody.

Remember what Luke quoted from Isaiah a few verses earlier. All flesh will see the salvation of God. Matthew and Mark stop that quotation short. Luke carries it all the way through, and then he builds a family tree that backs it up.

And think about the timing. John just told the crowd that having Abraham as their father wasn't enough. Then Luke shows that the family line of Jesus goes back further than Abraham anyway.

Why do the two lists split after David?

From Abraham to David, Matthew and Luke match. After David they diverge almost completely. Matthew traces the line through Solomon, the royal line. Luke traces it through Nathan, a different son of David.

They also give different fathers for Joseph. Matthew says Jacob. Luke says Heli. Scholarship is divided. One explanation is that Luke is giving Mary's line, with Heli as her father and Joseph listed as son-in-law, since Jewish lists didn't name women. Another is that Matthew gives legal rights to the throne while Luke gives physical descent. They run through different members of the same families, so they aren't in conflict.

Why does any of this matter?

Here's what struck me. Most of these names appear nowhere else in Scripture. We know nothing about them. No recorded words. And they're in the line of Jesus.

Dozens of people who lived and raised children and died without making a mark on history, except that they were part of the lineage of the Messiah. God was working through generations who never knew what they were part of. They died without ever seeing it.

For a Jewish person, your genealogy was your identity. Wrapped up in it were land rights, your tribe, and sometimes your job. A priest had to prove descent from a priest in order to serve.

And it was verifiable. Genealogies were part of the public archives, and Josephus talks about consulting them for his own work. When Luke published this list, people could go check it. Those records were destroyed when Rome leveled Jerusalem around AD 70. At the time Luke wrote, you could still look it up.

Why does it end with Adam, the son of God?

Luke is the only gospel writer who takes it all the way back.

Paul later calls Jesus the last Adam in 1 Corinthians, and Luke is making that same connection here, using a list instead of an argument.

The first Adam was tested in a garden where he had everything, and he failed. The very next thing we read in Luke is Jesus going into the wilderness, hungry for forty days, tested. And He doesn't fail.

Where are the women in this list?

There aren't any named. Matthew includes four. Luke includes none, because he's writing the way historians of that era wrote.

But here's what I can't get past. Every name in this list required a woman. And if Luke is in fact tracing Mary's family, then this entire list is her family tree, recorded under the men's names.

So let me point out a few of them.

Eve, the wife of Adam. The very first promise of a rescuer in Scripture was given to her, not to Adam. God tells the serpent that her offspring will crush his head. This whole line Luke just traced is the working out of a promise spoken to a woman about her children. Adam named her Eve because she was the mother of all the living, and Luke traces Jesus back through all the living.

Noah's wife. We don't know her name. We know she boarded the ark, survived the flood, and raised the sons the whole human race descends from, including Shem, who is in Luke's list. Everything after Genesis 8 runs through a woman nobody ever named.

Sarah, attached to the son of Isaac. Twenty-five years waiting on a promise, into her nineties, past any reasonable hope. She laughed when she heard it. Gabriel later tells Mary that nothing is impossible with God, echoing Sarah's story to a young girl who knew it well.

Leah, attached to the son of Judah. Jacob loved Rachel. Leah was the wife he didn't choose, and Genesis says plainly she wasn't loved. She names her first sons in a way that reflects that ache. Then the fourth son she names Judah, which means praise, saying this time I will praise the Lord. She stopped naming her children after the love she couldn't get and named one after the God who saw her. And Judah is the son the Messiah came through. The unloved wife is the great-grandmother of the royal line.

Tamar, attached to the son of Perez. Widowed twice in Judah's family and left in limbo. Under the law she had a right to a husband from that family, and Judah withheld it. A woman with no power, denied what she was owed, who did the only thing available to keep her family line alive.

Rahab, the mother of Boaz. A Canaanite living in Jericho under judgment, with a shameful job. She hid the Israelite spies because she had heard what their God had done and she believed it. Hebrews 11 lists her among the faithful. Her great-grandson was King David.

Ruth, the mother of Obed. A Moabite, and Deuteronomy 23 restricted Moabites from the assembly of Israel. A widow with no children, which meant no security of any kind. She followed Naomi and Naomi's God, and gleaned leftover grain at the edges of fields, the provision the law made for the poor. Two generations in a row, the royal line runs through foreign women.

Bathsheba, attached to the son of Nathan. According to 1 Chronicles 3, Nathan and Solomon had the same mother. Her story was not a clean one, and it was not one she chose.

What do we do with that?

Most of these women are invisible to us. Hundreds of years of women whose names we don't have, who carried babies and delivered them and fed them and taught them and buried them and kept going. All of them part of the story.

And it wasn't only the respectable ones. There's a woman nobody wanted. A widow who had to fight for her place. A Canaanite with a shameful job. A foreigner from an excluded nation. A woman a king took advantage of.

If God had wanted a clean family tree, He could have arranged one. He built this one instead.

So if you feel unseen, or unchosen, or like your story is too messy to be useful, this list is for you. You're in good company, and the company is the family line of Jesus. My own family line is messy too. Praise God that He takes the mess and redeems it.

Timestamps

00:00 Finishing Luke 3, and why we go slowly

01:28 Reading the genealogy

03:25 Prayer

04:25 Why we study genealogy at all

05:01 What comes right before and right after

06:52 Why thirty mattered

08:53 How Matthew and Luke differ

09:49 Why Luke pushes past Abraham

12:40 Two fathers for Joseph

15:57 The names we know nothing about

17:54 Verifiable in the public archives

19:19 The son of Adam, the son of God

19:49 The first Adam and the last Adam

21:07 Why there are no women in the list

22:42 Eve and the first promise

23:27 Noah's wife

23:55 Sarah and the impossible

25:49 Leah and the son named praise

26:54 Tamar

28:15 Rahab

30:24 Ruth

31:49 Bathsheba

33:37 The women we never see

34:45 If God had wanted a clean family tree

Frequently asked questions

Why do Matthew and Luke give different genealogies?
Matthew traces the line through Solomon and Luke through Nathan, another son of David. Explanations include Luke tracing Mary's line, or Matthew giving legal throne rights while Luke gives physical descent.

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Thursday Daily Affirmations: I Seek Wisdom, and God Gives It Freely (James 1:5)
You were created on purpose, for a purpose. These Scripture-based Christian affirmations are a short, steady way to walk into your day with intention, clarity, and wisdom. Whether you're questioning your calling or finding your footing in a new season, today's affirmations will help you trust God's plan, listen for His guidance, and move forward with boldness.

I'll say each affirmation, pause so you can repeat it after me, and then
share the Scripture it's based on.

Links

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Before we begin

God created you for a reason. Your life is not an accident, and your
steps are not random. He has a plan for you, a purpose that brings glory to Him and fulfillment to your heart. As you listen to these affirmations, let them
remind you that God is leading, guiding, and equipping you for everything He has called you to do.

Thursday affirmations and Scripture

God has a purpose for my life and I walk in His plan.
Jeremiah 29:11

I trust in the Lord to guide my steps.
Proverbs 3:5-6

I seek wisdom, and God gives it freely.
James 1:5

God is directing my steps and I do not walk alone.
Psalm 37:23

I am a light in this world, shining for Christ.
Matthew 5:14

God has prepared good works for me to do today.
Ephesians 2:10

I am equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:17

I walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 1:8

I will walk in faith, not in fear.
2 Timothy 1:7

God's Word lights my path.
Psalm 119:105

I choose obedience, knowing God's ways are best.
Deuteronomy 5:33

I live with purpose and do not waste my time.
Ephesians 5:15-16

I am called to make an impact for God's Kingdom.
Matthew 28:19-20

I have the mind of Christ and seek His wisdom daily.
1 Corinthians 2:16

I am a vessel for God's work.
2 Corinthians 4:7

I will not grow weary in doing good.
Galatians 6:9

God's purpose for me cannot be stopped.
Job 42:2

I do everything for the glory of God.
Colossians 3:23

God is using my life to accomplish His plan.
Romans 8:28

I am bold in sharing the gospel.
Romans 1:16

I walk in step with the Spirit.
Galatians 5:25

I remain steadfast in my calling.
1 Corinthians 15:58

God will finish the work He started in me.
Philippians 1:6

I live with an eternal perspective.
Colossians 3:2

I press forward in my faith, knowing my reward is in Heaven.
Philippians 3:13-14

Closing prayer

Father, thank You for calling me to a life of purpose. Help me to walk in
wisdom today, seeking You in all I do. Give me clarity where I need direction,
courage where I need boldness, and a heart that is always ready to serve You. Let my life bring You glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.

I hope these affirmations spoke to your heart today. If you want to go
deeper, just keep listening. Your full Bible study episode is coming up next.

Listen daily and start your morning with God's truth so you can walk in
faith, clarity, and confidence.


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John says the Messiah is coming with a winnowing fork in His hand. Most of us read that as a threat. But a farmer doesn't go out to the threshing floor to destroy things. He goes out because he wants the grain.

Today we're in Luke 3, talking about the different kinds of baptism, what the winnowing fork actually did, and why the chaff is not what most of us assume it is.

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What does the word baptism actually mean?

The Greek is baptizo, and it means to dip, immerse, or plunge something fully into something else. Outside the Bible it was used for dyeing cloth and for sinking ships.

So the picture we get is total immersion. I'm not saying anything bad about your baptism if you had a sprinkle. I'm saying the biblical image is immersion, and that matters for understanding what follows.

Every baptism in Scripture answers two questions. Who is doing the dipping, and what are you being dipped into?

Was baptism a new idea?

Not at all. For the Jewish people, ritual washing was ordinary. They had stone pools for ceremonial cleansing, and archaeologists have found dozens of them around the temple. Remember the water jars Jesus turned into wine? Those were ceremonial cleansing jars.

When a Gentile converted to Judaism, immersion was part of that conversion.

Paul even looks back at the Exodus and calls it a baptism. In 1 Corinthians he says Israel was baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They went down into the water and came out a free people.

That's a beautiful picture, because John is standing in the Jordan, the same river Israel crossed to enter the promised land. That water was always telling a baptism story.

Why did John tell Jewish people to get in the water?

This is the part that would have stung. These weren't Gentile outsiders converting. These were Jewish people, including religious leaders, the ones who had just been talking about being descendants of Abraham.

And John is telling them to go into the water just like the converts do.

That's why he says a few verses earlier not to begin saying they have Abraham for their father. Your family line won't save you. You need to get in the water for yourself.

What could John's baptism not do?

John could get people wet. He could call them to repent. But he could not forgive their sins and he could not put the Spirit of God inside anyone.

He was calling them to repent because he was preparing the way for Jesus. That's why he says someone mightier is coming, and that he isn't worthy to untie His sandal strap, which was the job of the lowest servant in a household.

So water baptism is something a person can do for you. Baptism of the Spirit is something only Jesus can do in you.

What does baptism with fire mean?

Fire runs two directions in Scripture, and both are present here.

One is purifying. Malachi said the coming Lord would be like a refiner's fire, burning the dross out of gold and silver. At Pentecost in Acts 2, Luke tells us there appeared tongues of fire. Fire burns off what doesn't belong and sets people on fire for God.

The other is judgment, and look at the context. Right before this, fruitless trees get thrown into the fire. Right after, the chaff burns with unquenchable fire.

How did harvesting actually work?

Everyone in that crowd knew this process, because they'd watched it every harvest.

First the cutting. Workers cut the stalks and hauled them to the threshing floor, a flat piece of packed hard ground, usually on a hilltop or exposed ridge, because they needed the wind.

Then the threshing. They drove oxen over the grain, sometimes dragging a heavy wooden sledge, to break the stalks apart and loosen the kernel from the dry husk around it. Now you have a pile of mixed material: good grain, broken husks, dust, straw.

Then the winnowing. A wooden fork or broad shovel scooped up the pile and threw it into the air, usually in late afternoon when the breeze picked up. The kernels are heavier so they fall back down. The chaff is light and papery, so the wind carries it off the ridge. They repeated that until nothing was left but clean grain. The grain went into the barn. The chaff was swept up and burned.

Why does it matter that it's chaff and not weeds?

Here's the detail most of us miss. The chaff isn't a weed from another field. The chaff is the husk that grew around the kernel. They came up on the same stalk, out of the same soil.

So the winnowing fork isn't separating one crop from a different crop. This isn't even the wheat and the tares. He's separating what's useless from what's valuable inside the very same harvest.

John is standing in front of a crowd of Jewish people who all technically share Abraham as their father, saying the Messiah is going to sort out what's real from what only looks like it belongs.

What does the wind have to do with the Spirit?

The winnowing doesn't work without wind. You can toss grain in the air all day, and without wind nothing separates.

In both Hebrew and Greek, the word for wind is the same word for spirit. Ruach. Pneuma.

Now look at where this sits. Verse 16 says He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Verse 17 says His winnowing fork is in His hand. The same Spirit who fills and empowers is also the wind that separates. That's why John puts these two images side by side.

That imagery is everywhere. Psalm 1 says the wicked are like chaff the wind drives away. In Jeremiah, God says He will winnow them with a winnowing fork. Hosea compares faithless Israel to chaff on the threshing floor. Malachi, the last prophet before the four hundred years of silence, says the day is coming burning like a furnace and the arrogant will be chaff.

So when John picks up this language, he's finishing a sentence the prophets of Israel started four hundred years earlier.

Two more things worth noticing. Boaz was winnowing barley at the threshing floor in Bethlehem the night Ruth came to him. And in 2 Samuel, David bought a threshing floor, and that very spot later became the site of the temple. Where grain gets separated from chaff is often where Israel meets God.

Is this happening now or later?

Now. He says His winnowing fork is in His hand. Present tense. Harvest time is here.

So John is telling this crowd that their family heritage and their religious activity won't survive the wind.

But notice why the farmer is out there. He isn't on that floor to destroy things. He's there to get the grain. All the tossing and the wind and eventually the fire has one purpose, and that's wheat in the barn. Winnowing is what you do because you want the crop.

So when the wind blows through our lives, when things get stripped away and we feel tossed around, often that isn't Him discarding us. It's Him holding on to us. Sometimes He's separating us from chaff we've let grow up around us, the things that desensitize us and distract us and keep us from producing the fruit He wants.

That process isn't always pleasant. And we always have a choice. I've stubbornly held on to things I knew the Lord was asking me to give up, and there was a cost, sometimes financial and sometimes relational.

Why was Jesus baptized if He had no sin?

This is where we see clearly that not all baptisms are the same.

John's was a baptism of repentance. Jesus had nothing to repent of. So His baptism was something different. While He was praying, heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice said you are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.

That dove was a sign God gave so people would recognize that Jesus was the one John had been announcing.

We'll keep having this conversation as we move through Luke and into Acts. For now, I'd just ask you to loosen your grip on the idea that there's only one kind of baptism. This isn't the sprinkle versus dunk conversation. This is water baptism, the baptism of repentance, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and our baptism into Christ. You don't have to have it figured out today.

Timestamps

00:00 The baptism conversation we usually have

00:53 What the word baptizo means

01:50 Two questions every baptism answers

02:00 Reading Luke 3:3-22

04:11 Prayer

05:37 Ritual washing was already normal

06:33 Paul calls the Exodus a baptism

06:59 Why John told Jewish people to get in

07:55 What John's baptism could not do

08:50 Fire as refining

09:46 Fire as judgment

10:13 How harvesting actually worked

11:17 The winnowing fork

12:16 The chaff grew on the same stalk

13:19 Winnowing doesn't work without wind

13:51 Ruach and pneuma

14:20 Chaff imagery across the prophets

15:20 Threshing floors where Israel met God

16:02 His fork is in His hand right now

16:53 The farmer wants the grain

17:39 What He's separating us from

19:46 Why Jesus was baptized

20:23 The dove, and what it signaled

22:15 Loosening our grip on one kind of baptism

Frequently asked questions

What does baptizo mean?
To dip, immerse, or plunge fully into something. It was used outside Scripture for dyeing cloth and for sinking ships.

What is a winnowing fork?
A wooden fork or broad shovel used to toss threshed grain into the air so the wind could separate the light chaff from the heavier kernels.

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Wednesday Daily Affirmations: I Will Not Be Anxious, I Will Pray and Trust God (Philippians 4:6-7)
Midweek is when the noise gets loudest. These Scripture-based Christian affirmations are a short, steady way to trade anxiety for peace and remember that God is still in control of what you can't see yet. Today's affirmations are about surrendering worry, resting in His presence, and trusting His timing even when the picture isn't clear. God's peace isn't just a feeling. It's a promise.

I'll say each statement, then pause so you can repeat it after me, and
then I'll share the Scripture it comes from.

Links

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Before we begin

Breathe in God's peace, and exhale your worries. This day is a gift, and
no matter what's ahead, you can trust that God is in control. His love is
steady. His plans for you are good. His presence goes before you. Let these
affirmations remind you to trust Him today.

Wednesday affirmations and Scripture

I am ruled by God's peace today.
Isaiah 26:3

I cast all my worries onto Jesus. He carries them for me.
1 Peter 5:7

I will not be anxious. I will pray and trust God.
Philippians 4:6-7

God's plans for me are good, and I trust Him.
Jeremiah 29:11

I do not need to worry about tomorrow.
Matthew 6:34

I will rest in God's presence today.
Exodus 33:14

God is my refuge and strength.
Psalm 46:1

I will not let my heart be troubled. I trust in God.
John 14:27

The Lord directs my steps.
Proverbs 3:5-6

Even when I don't understand, I trust in God's wisdom.
Romans 11:33

I do not have to be afraid because God is with me.
Deuteronomy 31:8

God is fighting for me.
Exodus 14:14

I am not alone. God walks with me.
Isaiah 41:13

God is my rock and salvation. I will not be shaken.
Psalm 62:6

I find rest in God alone.
Psalm 62:1

God's love never fails me.
Lamentations 3:22-23

I have peace because I am in Christ.
John 16:33

I wait on the Lord and He renews my strength.
Isaiah 40:31

I will trust in God, even when I don't see the whole picture.
2 Corinthians 5:7

God is working all things for my good.
Romans 8:28

God's peace rules in my heart today.
Colossians 3:15

I give my burdens to the Lord and He sustains me.
Psalm 55:22

I will be still and know that He is God.
Psalm 46:10

I trust God's timing and His ways.
Ecclesiastes 3:11

I will rejoice in the Lord always.
Philippians 4:4

Closing prayer

Father, I surrender my worries to You. I choose to rest in Your peace
today, trusting that You are in control. Fill my heart with faith instead of
fear, and let Your peace guard my mind. In Jesus' name, amen.

I hope these affirmations spoke to your heart today. If you want to go
deeper, just keep listening. Your full Bible study episode is coming up next.

Listen daily and start your morning with God's truth so you can walk in
faith, clarity, and confidence.


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I had a grape recently that was so good I dug through the flesh to save the seeds. Then on a walk down our road I tried some wild grapes growing by the side, and I spit them straight out. Same size. Same color. Vines that looked almost identical.

That's the difference John is pressing on in Luke 3. He calls a crowd that walked miles into the desert a brood of vipers, and then tells them to bear fruit worthy of repentance. Today we're looking at what good fruit actually is, and why John switched metaphors from snakes to trees on purpose.

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What does "brood of vipers" actually mean?

It literally means offspring of vipers, and in that region they would have pictured a very poisonous snake like the echidna.

In Matthew, this line is aimed at the Sadducees and Pharisees. In Luke, John says it to the crowds. That matters, because these were people who had walked miles into the desert to be baptized. Some religious leaders were there, but so were ordinary people. Luke shows John addressing the whole mixed audience at once, because he doesn't want anyone in that group feeling like the scolding was for somebody else.

And he's attacking something specific. Their confidence rested on bloodline. Don't begin to say to yourselves that you have Abraham as your father. By claiming that, they were saying they were inside the covenant and not like the pagans or the Gentiles. John pushes back on the whole family identity argument. You want to talk about your father? Look at your family resemblance. You don't look like Abraham's children, because Abraham's children didn't act like this. You look like snakes.

Jesus uses the same approach later in John 8 when He tells the religious leaders they are of their father, the devil.

This is a long thread in Scripture. The first time we meet a serpent is in the garden. So when John says brood of vipers, he's linking their sin all the way back to original sin.

Why does he ask who warned them to flee?

Because they were an agrarian society, and they knew exactly what that picture meant. When farmers burned off a field, the snakes would come pouring out ahead of the flames, running for safety.

Read it again. You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. He's watching a crowd stream out into the desert to get in the water, and he's describing them as snakes scrambling out of a burning field.

That fire imagery is everywhere in this passage. Two verses later he's talking about the axe at the root of the tree. By verse 17 it's the chaff burning.

So there's an edge to his question. He isn't impressed that they showed up. He's asking whether they came to be changed or just to escape. Sometimes people call it fire insurance. Getting saved because you want out of the consequences, not because you want a relationship with God. Those aren't the same thing.

Snakes running from a fire aren't repenting. They're relocating. They'll be the same snakes in a different field later.

Why does he switch from snakes to trees?

Because snakes don't produce fruit. They just produce more snakes.

That's the point. Think about the snakes in your life. Are they producing fruit? No. They produce more chaos and more snakes. So John switches metaphors to point people in a different direction, and then he gets specific. Share your coat. Share your food. Stop overcharging. Stop extorting people. Stop accusing people falsely.

Notice what every one of those has in common. They're all about how you treat other people, and three of them involve money. In Luke 3, good fruit is measured by what it does for your neighbor and whether you stopped using your position to take advantage of people.

That's the contrast with the vipers. The problem with a snake is what it does to the people around it. It poisons them. Fruit does the opposite. Fruit feeds people.

What does "worthy of repentance" mean?

The Greek word is axios, and it has to do with weighing and balancing scales. Some translations say in keeping with repentance, others say worthy of repentance. Worthy is a little more accurate, because the idea is balance.

The word for repentance is metanoia, from meta, meaning big change, and nous, meaning mind. A changed mind. Turn around and walk the other direction.

So John is saying we're called to produce a life that weighs the same as the turn we claim to have made. If your mind really changed, something visible should balance out on the scale of your life.

Isn't this harsh?

John is intense, yes. But biblical prophets often used shocking language because comfortable language wasn't getting through.

You may have heard the phrase tickling their ears. A lot of preaching comforts people instead of challenging them. That's not what people operating in the prophetic do. When you're talking to people claiming family legacy as their right to the kingdom, you have to make them face themselves and look at the fruit they're actually producing.

What makes fruit good fruit?

There's something in the Greek here worth catching. In verse nine the word for good is kalos. There's another word, agathos, which means morally good or useful. But kalos carries the sense of fine quality, beautiful, the kind of fruit you'd actually want to eat. The kind you'd save the seeds from.

A tree can produce something that still isn't good fruit. Have you ever had a crab apple? Tiny, sour, and you'll get sick eating a handful. We have an old pear tree out back and every pear on it is small and wormy and useless. It's technically fruit. It's still useless.

This calls back to Isaiah 5, where God describes planting a vineyard. He clears the stones, plants the best vines, builds a tower and a winepress. He expected good grapes and it produced worthless ones. The Hebrew word there means stinking or rotten, like the ones I spit out. Then God asks what more He could have done for His vineyard.

That vineyard wasn't barren. It grew grapes. They just weren't the grapes He planted it for.

That's exactly what John is confronting. They had some fruit. It wasn't good fruit.

Is fruit the cause or the evidence?

The evidence. You can't staple good fruit onto a dead tree. Fruit grows out of whatever the root is drawing from.

So John isn't saying produce better behavior and you'll be fine. He's saying the fruit reveals what's happening at the root. The fruit doesn't make the tree. It shows you what the tree is.

Those grapes on my road tasted bad because nobody had ever tended those plants. They're wild, doing their own thing. The ones I wanted to save the seeds from came from vines that had been cultivated with intention.

A lot of us have fruit. We go to church, we listen to podcasts, we know what the Bible says, we might even post the verse. And what's coming out of us is still gross fruit.

That crowd had activity. Walking into the desert and getting in that river took real effort. John looked at all of it and said it doesn't count. Show me something that weighs as much as what you say happened to you.

Timestamps

00:00 Two kinds of grapes on the same road

01:54 Where we are in Luke 3

02:23 Reading Luke 3:7-17

04:15 Prayer

04:43 What brood of vipers means

05:43 Why Matthew and Luke aim it differently

06:52 The bloodline argument

09:41 A thread that runs back to the garden

10:13 Snakes fleeing a burning field

11:45 Did they come to change or to escape?

12:23 Repenting versus relocating

12:52 Why he switches to trees

13:21 What he tells them to actually do

14:12 Axios, and the balancing scales

14:39 Metanoia, a changed mind

16:40 Why prophets speak so bluntly

18:06 Kalos, and what good fruit means

19:47 Isaiah 5 and the vineyard

21:11 Good fruit is measured by your neighbor

22:26 Fruit is evidence, not cause

23:26 Having activity without good fruit

Frequently asked questions

What does axios mean?
It's the Greek word behind worthy or in keeping with, carrying the idea of weighing and balancing scales.

What's the difference between kalos and agathos?
Both are translated good. Agathos leans toward morally good or useful. Kalos carries the sense of fine quality or beautiful.

What's coming next?
Tomorrow we're talking about the different kinds of baptism, and no, not sprinkle versus dunk.

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