Anchor My Faith

Herod Puts John in Prison

Scripture: Luke 3:19-20; Matthew 4:12; John 4:1-4

Reference to John the Baptist being imprisoned is mentioned in all four gospels. From these three Scriptures we obtain the following: “Lk 3:19 But Herod the tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison. Mt 4:12 Now when [Jesus] heard that John had been arrested, Jn 4:1 [and] learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria.”

If you carefully look at the above narrative, you will notice that the information in Mark was not used. Instead the information found in Luke was so much more detailed that the information found in Mark added nothing to the narrative and so it was not needed. Each time we start a new section that draws from more than one gospel, you will find a worksheet for that section. You can quickly access any worksheet by forming a link from anchormyfaith.com/name of worksheet. If the worksheet name you entered does not exist, you will be directed to the home page. You should look at the worksheet as we begin each new section that contains information from more than one gospel.

We will begin with the text from Luke. “Herod the tetrarch” is the son of Herod the Great, who was king over a great part of Palestine. Being a tetrarch was a step down from being king. Herod the tetrarch was an evil ruler who had been reproved by John the Baptist for his evil, causing a strain in their relationship. Then when John tells him it was wrong for him to take his brother’s wife, Herod reacts by having John locked up in prison.

From information found in Matthew, we learn that news of this imprisonment reaches Jesus. Adding to this information from the gospel of John that the Pharisees realized that Jesus was more popular than John the Baptist, Jesus decides to go to a safer area and departed for Galilee. Verse 4 said he had to pass through Samaria. Actually he didn’t have to as there were other routes, but going through Samaria was the shortest route. Going through Samaria was not the route that most Jews wanted to take as they thought contact with Samaritans made them unclean. I believe Jesus had to go through Samaria because he had a divine appointment with a woman there who needed to hear about salvation.

Several years ago when doing a study of the gospel of John, I listed four possible reasons given by John Piper as to why Jesus went through Samaria. This link will take you to that lesson. Conversation with this woman will be covered with a series of lessons in the next section.

One last detail that we should mention is the fact that Jesus did not do any of the baptizing; only his disciples did.

Prayer

Father, John was faithful to the end to declare to sinners their need of repentance and being forgiven. This faithfulness to his call resulted in his imprisonment and eventual execution. Here in the west our philosophy is to say nothing to Herod about his sin so that we can live in safety and continue to share the gospel, but the gospel we then share, if we do, is a watered down gospel that has minimal impact. Father, it seems that as we seek to live in comfort and safety, we tend to keep the gospel to ourselves, resulting in a church lacking the power of God.