John 1:19-51

This Morning I preached the sermon based on John 1:19-51. The followings are my observation and related historical background.

The primary role of Priests and Levites was to conduct religious rituals in the temple. In John 1:19, it is written that because many had followed John the Baptist, they were sent to the wilderness to check out the true identity of John the Baptism who was born in the priestly family but not following his father’s career. This prompts readers to think about what could be the contextual situation. In chapter 2, while we read about the event of Jesus cleansing the temple, we are quite certain that there was a corruption in the priestly system. As I check out the historical background, the correction of the society was pervasive at that time.

Alfred Edersheim (1825-89), in his book, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, wrote this:

“It has been rightly said, that the idea of conscience, as we understand it, was unknown to heathenism. Absolute right did not exist. Might was right. The social relations exhibited, if possible, even deeper corruption. The sanctity of marriage had ceased. Female dissipation and the general dissoluteness led at last to an almost entire cessation of marriage. Abortion, and the exposure and murder of newly-born children, were common and tolerated; unnatural vices, which even the greatest philosophers practiced, if not advocated, attained proportions which defy description”

In the first century, there was a pious Jewish group called Essenes. They dedicated themselves not to marry, not to possess material wealth and devoted to study God’s words. They were famous because they built a library in caves at Qumran, collecting all the Old Testament manuscripts or scrolls. The collections were destroyed by fire during the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 DC. In 1949 the remaining few were discovered in 1949 and they are called the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some scholars thought that it was possible that John the Baptist was mistaken to be one of the Essenes because he used to conduct baptism in the wilderness near Qumran.

In different generations, God raised up His servants, separated from the secular life, to awake His people. James VanderKam:  “The Essenes who lived in Qumran were just a small part of the larger Essenes movement.” (The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, p. 127)

Your Shepherd,

Pastor Paul Tong