Context Matters: New Testament BackgroundsSample

Topic 3: John the Baptist

Mark’s Gospel starts with the sudden appearance of John the Baptist. This figure from the wilderness comes on the scene wearing strange clothes, preaching, and baptizing people in the Jordan River. Most Christians are familiar with John the Baptist as the prophet who pointed people to Jesus, but what do we make of all the details about him?

The Bible rarely describes someone’s clothing, so when it does, we can assume there is some significance. Mark describes John as wearing clothes made from camel hair with a leather belt around his waist. John’s ministry is patterned after the Old Testament prophet Elijah, the prophet who God would send before the day of the Lord in Malachi.

Elijah, in 2 Kings 1:8, is described as wearing a “garment of hair” with a “leather belt around his waist,” matching John’s appearance here. Mark is intentionally portraying John as the Elijah-like prophet that God had promised.

Why was John coming from the wilderness? This detail also refers to John’s prophetic role. Just before introducing John the Baptist, Mark quotes from Isaiah 40:3, “a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” John is seen as the fulfillment of this prophecy, coming from the wilderness, and preparing the way for God in the person of Jesus.

Even the location John chose to baptize people in, the Jordan River, held significance. Elijah parted the Jordan before being taken up to heaven in a whirlwind in 2 Kings 2:5–12. Perhaps more significantly, the Jordan River is where the people of Israel crossed from their wilderness wanderings into the Promised Land in Joshua 3–4.

Crossing the Jordan signified a new stage of God’s promise to Abraham being fulfilled. By baptizing in the Jordan, John was preparing the people for another new stage of God’s promises being fulfilled: the coming of Jesus, the Messiah who would take away the sin of the world.

Learn more about John the Baptist and his teaching in this video below.