A Fresh Perspective

John, the Baptizer drew people from the villages and towns out into the desert to hear his message and to be baptized. As he baptized people he pointed them to Jesus, who would come after him, whom he said would baptize them in the Holy Spirit. What does a baptism in the Spirit of Christ look like or feel like? What does it involve?   Luke describes John’s baptism in v. 3 as “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” It seems to be that any baptism that represents in some way a new beginning or chapter in our lives must include repentance and forgiveness. I think it is often assumed that forgiveness of sins is the receiving of forgiveness from God, but the text doesn’t specifically say that. In reality, forgiveness is never just a one-way street. If you look at the teachings of Jesus regarding forgiveness in the Gospels Jesus inseparably connects receiving forgiveness with extending forgiveness. The model prayer makes this connection clear. We pray , “forgive us ...

In Mark’s Gospel a leper comes to Jesus begging, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” The text says, “Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’” The alternate reading says that Jesus was “moved with anger” (Mark 1:40-41).   This is an example of a variant in the manuscript tradition. We do not possess a single original manuscript of the New Testament (this is true of the Hebrew Bible as well). We have copies—copies of copies. The vast majority of manuscripts date from the ninth century and later. A smaller group of manuscripts date earlier. A few generally considered very reliable date from the fourth to the sixth centuries. We have a few papyrus manuscripts that date even earlier that contain portions of the New Testament, but many of these show evidence of having been copied without the greatest care.  It is the work of textual scholars to compare these manuscripts, rate their comparative value, ...