Bible Sharing from Luke 3: Verse 1 to 9

Verse 4 : John the Baptist was the messenger of God who was sent ahead of Jesus (Malachi 3:1, 4:5–6). John spoke to people about the coming of Christ and pointed them to follow Jesus when the Lord began His public ministry (John 1:26–34; 3:28–30).

Verse 5-6: The purpose of the “voice of one,” calling out from the wilderness is to prepare the people to meet their Savior – The promised One (Isaiah 40:3–5). 

Jesus Christ is the promised one and the salvation of God. Now the believers are eagerly awaiting for the second coming of Jesus. But as some say, God is not slow about his arrival, rather is patient with humans, because He doesn’t want anyone to perish, but all to come into repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

Verse 7: The people who came to hear from John were “baptized”. It’s a term transliterated from the Greek word baptizō which means “immersion or submersion” and has got nothing to do with water standalone. John baptized people with water because water was abundant (John 3:23). Believers are then baptized by the Holy spirit and fire (Acts 1:5, Luke 3:16). 

Verse 8-9: The tree represents a believer. The fruit worthy of repentance are good fruit (Galatians 5:22) and work of the flesh is the bad fruit (Galatians 5:19, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Romans 8:5a). Whoever doesn’t produce the fruit worthy of repentance will be cut down and thrown into the fire (Matthew 7:17–20, John 15:4–6).