Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Wednesday, January 29, 2014 Read John 3:22-24 We had left John the Baptist at the end of chapter one. Now we are suddenly back in his presence. John tells us that Jesus and his disciples moved out of the city of Jerusalem into the Judean countryside where John the Baptist was baptizing. Competing baptisms seem to be happening. John the Baptist is still baptizing but so are Jesus and his disciples. This small piece of information is provided only in John’s gospel. In Mark, Matthew, and Luke, John the Baptist has been removed from the scene and put in prison before Jesus ministry begins. John even comments, “John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison.” John is aware that John the Baptist will eventually be put in prison, but he tells of a ministry of John the Baptist and of Jesus that are concurrent with one another. It is likely that John reflects historical reality more closely than Mark, Matthew, and Luke. For them, to get John the Baptist off the scene before the ministry of Jesus begins is important. Remember, for them John is the forerunner foreshadowing what will happen to Jesus. John is imprisoned and eventually will be killed. That will happen to Jesus too, but he begins his ministry anyway. In some ways he cannot begin until the forerunner is removed. John does not share this concept of John the Baptist. He is not the forerunner but a prime witness to Jesus. It will trouble some that Jesus is said to be also baptizing at this point in the story. In fact, it will trouble the final editor of John’s gospel to such an extent that when the idea of Jesus baptizing comes up again in chapter 4 he will deny that Jesus really did baptize. Why a correction is made at that point and not also here is anyone’s guess. But it does seem likely that at least at some point John and the community of John’s gospel believed that Jesus had engaged in baptism. These discrepancies within the text are one of the peculiarities of John’s gospel which strengthens the belief that the gospel as we now have it has undergone revision at the hand of an editor. We will notice other discrepancies as we move forward.