There are a lot of phrases in this chapter that are difficult to make sense of. First of all why is it significant that John the Baptist wears a belt? Is this a bad translation of 'Ephod'? Is it something to do with symbols of Passover? I can't tell for sure at the moment. John tells the Pharisees something about a winnowing fork and separating wheat from chaff. Here, also, we see introduced something Johnthebaptist calls the 'Holy Spirit', which if we ignore modern brain training could literally be another way of saying 'Judgement' or 'Separation'. Why? Because of the context, and because of the meaning of the word 'Holy'. John tells them several ways that there is a separation coming, and some are going to be chaff and some wheat unless I misunderstand his points. So this could be what he means, but its still not clear why Matthew tells us John wears a belt. Doesn't everybody wear a belt? They do in all the Sunday School depictions.Chapter Three Overview
This is a short chapter so my overview and my take will be quite short, especially since I'm leaving on a mini-vacation tomorrow anyway. So here are the main points of interest to me:
John the Baptist preaches repentance and confession and baptizes Jesus with water.
Pharisees & Sadducees come to hear him.
Similarity with Elijah and the latter's role to announce the Messiah, plus there's similarities between Elisha and Jesus.
Jesus said that he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, thus a prediction of what is to happen at Pentecost.
Highly significant is that John baptizes Jesus instead of Jesus baptizing John. Nobody has touched that yet in the thread, but its opposite to what one might think. When you go to church to get baptized its usually the pastor who dunks you. You don't dunk the pastor.