Both John the Baptist and Jesus were announcing a new age: the age of the Kingdom of God. John the Baptist dressed like Elijah to indicate that Israel was as much in need of a complete turnaround as they were in the time of Ahab and Elijah. He also lived in the desert to symbolise the state of his people. Jesus always stressed that entering God’s Kingdom involved a radical shift of life. This point is spelled out in the Sermon on the Mount, and it is also highlighted here in 11:11b when Jesus says that the least person in the new Kingdom of God is greater than John, who was the last old covenant prophet. The point here is that there is a radical discontinuity between the worldly way of living and Kingdom living. To make the transition from one to the other is a radical shift into an entirely new order of things. It is not a smooth and direct transition. It is not a matter of simply relabelling, or even slightly adjusting, all your previous expectations, goals, desires, mindsets, and priorities. When the disciples stepped into this new life, they left everything behind. Likewise, when people joined the early church, they sold their properties and invested the money into the Christian movement. They understood that to be a part of the Kingdom of God is a completely different kind of life. It is a radical shift. It may not always require us to do what they did, but if it isn’t that, what is the radical difference? What is the radical difference between your life and the lives of the non-believers around you?
Are you willing to give your life over to God? Do you believe it will be better that way?
Read Matthew 11:1-19
