Luke 3:1-18

§ 15. JOHN THE BAPTIST’S MINISTRY, Luke 3:1-18 ; Matthew 3:1-12; Mark 1:1-8.

From his visit to Jerusalem and the temple, the boy Jesus returned to his mountain home of Nazareth, and probably wrought at his father’s trade as a carpenter. About five years after the return, when Jesus was seventeen years of age, the news came doubtless to Nazareth from Rome, the conquering capital of the world, that Augustus Cesar, emperor of Rome, and acknowledged master of the nations, after a reign of forty years, had gone to the grave. In his young days Augustus had been an unscrupulous and bloody man, for the sake of winning the empire. But when it was attained he became a just and a beneficent ruler, and brought the nations of the world to peace. Thus he, like John the Baptist, though in a different manner, prepared the way for the Prince of Peace. Little knew the proud emperor that he was but the preparer for the boy of Nazareth.