John Baptist Quotes & Sayings

Know that no one can have indulged in the Holy Writers sufficiently, unless he has governed churches for a hundred years with the prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, Christ and the apostles ... We are beggars: this is true. — Martin Luther

John the Baptist was supposed to point the way to the Christ. He was just the voice, not the Messiah. So everybody's calling has dignity to it and God seems to know better than we do what is in us that needs to be called forth. — James Green Somerville

Anyone with two tunics should share with him who has none. — John The Baptist

[On refusing to be silenced:] I do not pretend to be John the Baptist rebuking the Pharisees. I do not claim to be Nathan upbraiding David. I aspire only to be Balaam's ass, castigating his master. — Katharina Zell

Religion is best when it points beyond itself, like Isaiah or John the Baptist. It is worst when it gives you just enough of the forms to inoculate you against the substance, when it substitutes rituals for reality, the container for the contents, the wineskins for the ecstatic wine. — Richard Rohr

If there was anything I learned from John the Baptist, it was that the sooner you confess a mistake, the quicker you can get on to making new and better mistakes. — Christopher Moore

13 Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist. — Anonymous

that government is best which rules least," John Leland Baptist spokesman who knew Thomas Jefferson, circa 1760. — Robert G. Torbet

The god of Moses would brusquely call for other tribes, including his favorite one, to suffer massacre and plague and even extirpation, but when the grave closed over his victims he was essentially finished with them unless he remembered to curse their succeeding progeny. Not until the advent of the Prince of Peace do we hear of the ghastly idea of further punishing and torturing the dead. First presaged by the rantings of John the Baptist, the son of god is revealed as one who, if his milder words are not accepted straightaway, will condemn the inattentive to everlasting fire. — Christopher Hitchens

Regardless of when Advent begins, every year the same Scripture readings are used for weekdays from December 17-24. The Gospels on those days describe events leading up to the birth of Christ: December 17: The genealogy of Jesus (Matthew) December 18: The annunciation to Joseph (Matthew) December 19: The annunciation to Zechariah (Luke) December 20: The annunciation to Mary (Luke) December 21: Mary's visit to Elizabeth (Luke) December 22: Mary's "Magnificat" (Luke) December 23: The birth of John the Baptist (Luke) December 24: The "Benedictus" of Zechariah (Luke) — Ken Untener

He was a Baptist minister who prayed through his six-shooter which he claimed was the most efficacious form of prayer, especially in dealing with Yankees ... he would go into battle singing the songs of David. — John S. Mosby

I have been most industriously talking up your extraordinary powers to all my wide acquaintance,' continued Mr Drawlight. 'I have been your John the Baptist, sir, preparing the way for you! — Susanna Clarke

He looked sharply at the birds himself, as he held the child up at the grate, especially at the little bird, whose activity he seemed to mistrust. 'I have brought your bread, Signor John Baptist,' said he (they all spoke in French, but the little man was an Italian); 'and if I might recommend you not to game - ' 'You — Charles Dickens

Responding to John the Baptist's hard-line approach, Jesus maintains both sides of this equation when he says, "No man born of woman is greater than John the Baptizer, yet the least who enters the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is" (Matthew 11:11). Is that double-talk? No, it is second-half-of-life talk. — Richard Rohr

I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature's loveliness. Heaven knows that John the Baptist was not more eager to get all his fellow sinners into the Jordan than I to baptize all of mine in the beauty of God's mountains. — John Muir

Moses does not encounter the living God at the mall. He finds Him (or is found by Him) somewhere out in the deserts of Sinai, a long way from the comforts of Egypt ... Where did the great prophet Elijah go to recover his strength? To the wild. As did John the Baptist, and his cousin, Jesus, Who is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. — John Eldredge

Matthew 11:12? "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it." Are you playing offense in your marriage? Or are you playing a prevent defense that leaves romance on the sidelines? — Mark Batterson

Many a modern preacher is far less concerned with preaching Christ and Him crucified than he is with his popularity with his congregation. A want of intellectual backbone makes him straddle the ox of truth and the ass of nonsense. Bending the knee to the mob rather than God would probably make them scruple at ever playing the role of John the Baptist before a modern Herod. The acids of modernity are eating away the fossils of orthodoxy. — Fulton J. Sheen

The two men's roles had to be reversed: Jesus had to be made superior, John inferior. Hence the steady regression of John's character from the first gospel, Mark - wherein he is presented as a prophet and mentor to Jesus - to the last gospel, John, in which the Baptist seems to serve no purpose at all except to acknowledge Jesus's divinity. — Reza Aslan

St. Chrysostom, suffering under the Empress Eudoxia, tells his friend Cyriacus how he armed himself beforehand...."I thought, will she banish me? 'The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.' Take away my goods? 'Naked came I into the world, and naked must I return.' Will she stone me? I remembered Stephen. Behead me? John Baptist came into my mind," etc. Thus it should be with every one that intends to live and die comfortably: they must, as we say, lay up something for a rainy day; they must stock themselves with graces, store up promises, and furnish themselves with experiences of God's lovingkindness to others and themselves too, that so, when the evil day comes, they may have much good coming thereby. — John Spencer

I heard this album as finished, I heard it in dreams ... It was like the revelations of John the Baptist or something. — Marilyn Manson

Loving the Second Amendment while opposing the NRA is every bit as natural as loving Jesus while opposing Westboro Baptist Church. — John Fugelsang

Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near. — John The Baptist

It's all right," she said. "You're through."
"Jesus," he finally managed, pushing water off his face. "Jesus Christ and John the Baptist. For that matter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John." Still not enough. He needed to reach back to the Old Testament for this. "Obadiah. Nebuchadnezzar. Methuselah and Job."
"Be calm," she said, taking him by the shoulders. "Be calm. And there are women in the Bible, you know."
"Yes. As I recall it, they were trouble, every last one. — Tessa Dare

This depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry; the cloud is black before it breaks, and overshadows before it yields its deluge of mercy. Depression has now become to me as a prophet in rough clothing, a John the Baptist, heralding the nearer coming of my Lord's richer benison — Charles Spurgeon

It seems that, after nineteen centuries of extraordinary glorification, the small Host for which so many cathedrals have sprung up, the small Host that has rested in millions of breasts and that has found a tabernacle and worshippers even in the desert - it seems that the triumphant Host of Lourdes and the Eucharistic Congresses of Chicago and Carthage remains as unknown, as secret as when it appeared for the first time in a room in Jerusalem. Light is in the world as in the days of St. John the Baptist, and the world does not know it — Francois Mauriac

One evening, for example, he was troubled because he could no longer tell whether or not his actions were pleasing to God. He went to see the bishop and asked what he should do.
'Abraham took in strangers, and God was happy,' came the reply. 'Elijah disliked strangers, and God was happy. David was proud of what he was doing, and God was happy. The publican before the alter was ashamed of what he did, and God was happy. John the Baptist went out into the desert, and God was happy. Paul went to the great cities of the Roman Empire, and God was happy. How can one know what will please the Almighty? Do what your heart commands, and God will be happy. — Paulo Coelho

Pathology, probably more than any other branch of science, suffers from heroes and hero-worship. Rudolf Virchow has been its archangel and William Welch its John the Baptist, while Paracelsus and Cohnheim have been relegated to the roles of Lucifer and Beelzebub ... Actually, there are no heroes in Pathology-all of the great thoughts permitting advance have been borrowed from other fields, and the renaissance of pathology stems not from pathology itself but from the philosophers Kant and Goethe. — Harry S.N. Greene

I held my hand up, frowning. "Wait a minute. Where did you say this thing was stolen from?"
"The Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist." Father Vincent said.
"In Northern Italy." I said.
He nodded.
"In Turin, to be exact."
"He nodded again, his expression reserved.
"Someone stole the freaking Shroud of Turin?" I demanded.
"Yes."
I settled back in the chair, looking down at the photos again. This changed things.
This changed things a lot. — Jim Butcher

He got me a cup of tea with honey, toast with honey, yogurt with honey, like I was John the Baptist with the flu. — Anne Lamott

At last, John Baptist, now able to choose his own spot within the compass of those walls for the exercise of his faculty of going to sleep when he would, lay down upon the bench, with his face turned over on his crossed arms, and slumbered. In his submission, in his lightness, in his good humour, in his short-lived passion, in his easy contentment with hard bread and hard stones, in his ready sleep, in his fits and starts, altogether a true son of the land that gave him birth. The — Charles Dickens

As the people came to a desert place to hear John the Baptist proclaim, "Thus saith the Lord," so [man] in his confusions, frustrations, and bewilderment will come to hear the minister who preaches with authority. — Billy Graham

When you worship, you are saying, "This one is worth more." At the same time you are implying, "I am worth less." Worship is the magnification of God and the minimization of self. One of the most succinct expressions of a worshipper's heart in all the New Testament came from John the Baptist: "He must increase, but I must decrease."5 — James MacDonald

Don't ask me those questions! Don't ask me what life means or how we know reality or why we have to suffer so much. Don't talk about how nothing feels real, how everything is coated with gelatin and shining like oil in the sun. I don't want to hear about the tiger in the corner or the Angel of Death or the phone calls from John the Baptist. — Susanna Kaysen

anyway," I said. "But I'll do my best to play John the Baptist for you." Dur — Dan Simmons

And don't succumb too much to the spell of these cases. I have seen many other fragments of the cross, in other churches. If all were genuine, our Lord's torment could not have been on a couple of planks nailed together, but on an entire forest.'
'Master!' I said, shocked.
'So it is, Adso. And there are ever richer treasuries. Some time ago, in the cathedral of Cologne, I saw the skull of John the Baptist at the age of twelve.'
'Really?' I exclaimed, amazed. Then, siezed by doubt, I added, 'But the Baptist was executed at a more advanced age!'
'The other skull must be in another treasury,' William said, with a grave face. I never understood when he was jesting. — Umberto Eco

If the enemy could only know that Marcus Garvey is but a John the Baptist in the wilderness, that a greater and more dangerous Marcus Garvey is yet to appear, the Garvey with whom you will have to reckon for the injustice of the present generation. — Marcus Garvey

In the entire works of the Jewish historian Josephus (37-c. 100 CE), which constitute hundreds of pages, there are only two paragraphs that purport to refer to Jesus. Although much has been made of these 'references,' they have been dismissed by many scholars and even by Christian apologists as forgeries, as have been those referring to John the Baptist and James, 'brother' of Jesus. Bishop Warburton (1698-1779) labeled the Josephus interpolation regarding Jesus as 'a rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too. — D.M. Murdock

I pray for John the Baptist and Baby Jesus to come around for a playdate with Dora and Boots. — Emma Donoghue

Teach me your way of looking at people:
as you glanced at Peter after his denial,
as you penetrated the heart of the rich young man
and the hearts of your disciples.
I would like to meet you as you really are,
since your image changes those with whom you
come into contact.
Remember John the Baptist's first meeting with you?
And the centurion's feeling of unworthiness?
And the amazement of all those who saw miracles
and other wonders?
How you impressed your disciples,
the rabble in the Garden of Olives,
Pilate and his wife
and the centurion at the foot of the cross. . . .
I would like to hear and be impressed
by your manner of speaking,
listening, for example, to your discourse in the
synagogue in Capharnaum
or the Sermon on the Mount where your audience
felt you "taught as one who has authority. — Pedro Arrupe

It is not the business of religion in these days to isolate herself from the world like John the Baptist. She must go down into the world like Jesus Christ. — Hugh Reginald Haweis

A similar lack of concern about Jesus's earthly origins can be found in the first gospel, Mark, written just after 70 C.E. Mark's focus is kept squarely on Jesus's ministry; he is uninterested either in Jesus's birth or, perhaps surprisingly, in Jesus's resurrection, as he writes nothing at all about either event. The early Christian community appears not to have been particularly concerned about any aspect of Jesus's life before the launch of his ministry. Stories about his birth and childhood are conspicuously absent from the earliest written documents. The Q material, which was compiled around 50 C.E., makes no mention of anything that happened before Jesus's baptism by John the Baptist. The letters of Paul, which make up the bulk of the New Testament, are wholly detached from any event in Jesus's life save his crucifixion and resurrection (though Paul does mention the Last Supper). — Reza Aslan

Three more saves and he ties John the Baptist. — Hank Greenwald

We could say that people who eat grits, listen to country music, follow stock-car racing, support corporal punishment in the schools, hunt 'possum, go to Baptist churches and prefer bourbon to Scotch are likely to be Southerners. — John Shelton Reed

John the Baptist never performed any miracles. Yet, he was greater than any of the Old Testament prophets. — Leonard Ravenhill

Dear church, John the baptist died for exposing the sins of others. Jesus died to actually pay for the sins of others.

John was great, but we should not follow his model. Our model is Christ. So lets stop telling the world how bad their sin is and lets start sharing how good the Father has always been. — Carlos A. Rodriguez

Every great movement needs an agitator. Every leader of spiritual ideals need a John the Baptist. — William Allen White

But Jesus wanted the crowd to know, look, 'John's (the baptist) the one who got this whole thing started.' In verse ten He says, 'This is the one about whom it is written, 'I'll send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare Your way before You.' Jesus says, 'If it wasn't for John, I wouldn't even be here performing these miracles.' — Steven Furtick

It has never been recommended to confuse "loving" with "seeking to please" ... Salome pleased Herod's guests; I can hardly believe she was burning with love for them. As for poor John the Baptist ... she certainly did not envelop him in her love. — Jacques Maritain

An ancient human religious figure known as John the Baptist had once claimed, "The truth shall make you free," but if Aelyx remembered correctly, John's honesty had been rewarded with a gruesome decapitation. Aelyx hoped for better results. — Melissa Landers

Whether we're looking at the burial box of St. James, a fragment of the True Cross, the Shroud of Turin, or some bones supposedly belonging to John the Baptist, there is always excitement and distrust, faith and doubt. — Jay Parini

Can it be possible that the painters make John the Baptist a Spaniard in Madrid and an Irishman in Dublin? — Mark Twain

John the Baptist, who we are told was related by blood to Jesus, was preaching the impending judgement of God, urging repentance and moral reform, and baptizing in the Jordan River those who responded. — Kenneth Scott Latourette

I always wanted to be Robin Hood or John the Baptist when I was growing up. — Bear Grylls

There was a double-wide mobile home directly across from (New Prospect Baptist) church, .. The mobile home even had tie-down straps on it, but it was thrown clear across the highway. Part of the mobile home struck the church, and part of the frame ended up in the woods behind the church. — John Robinson

I grew up a Baptist and went to seminary at Methodist school, Duke University, but I also don't worry too much about denominations. I love what John Wesley said - "If our hearts are together, let's not worry about whether our heads are together. If our hearts are together, then let's joins hands." So, I try to do that regardless of denominations. — Randall Wallace

No honest theologian therefore can deny that his acceptance of Jesus as Christ logically binds every Christian to a belief in reincarnation - in Elias case (who was later John the Baptist) at least. — Robert Graves

The poet's, commonly, is not a logger's path, but a woodman's. The logger and pioneer have preceded him, like John the Baptist; eaten the wild honey, it may be, but the locusts also; banished decaying wood and the spongy mosses which feed on it, and built hearths and humanized Nature for him. — Henry David Thoreau

All of my role models, whether it was the disciples, or John the Baptist or Arthur Rimbaud, slept under the stars. — Patti Smith

The angels heralded the birth of the Savior, John the Baptist heralded the coming of the Savior, and we herald the gospel of the Savior. — Katy Kauffman

This pointing-hand gesture - with its index finger and thumb extended upward - is a well-known symbol of the Ancient Mysteries, and it appears all over the world in ancient art. This same gesture appears in three of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous encoded masterpieces - The Last Supper, Adoration of the Magi, and Saint John the Baptist. It's a symbol of man's mystical connection to God." As above, so below. The madman's bizarre choice of words was starting to feel more relevant now. "I've never seen it before," Sato said. Then watch ESPN, Langdon thought, always amused to see professional athletes point skyward in gratitude to God after a touchdown or home run. He wondered how many knew they were continuing a pre-Christian mystical tradition of acknowledging the mystical power above, which, for one brief moment, had transformed them into a god capable of miraculous feats. — Dan Brown

I grew up in a very small, close-knit, Southern Baptist family, where everything was off-limits. So I couldn't wait to get to college and have some fun. And I did for the first two years. And I regret a lot of it, because my grades were in terrible shape. I never got in serious trouble, except for my grades. — John Grisham

Logic, order, truth, reason, we consign them all to the oblivion of death," said one Surrealist manifesto. We must "cultivate the hatred of intelligence," said the leader of the Futurists, Filippo Marinetti, an artist hailed by Mussolini as the John the Baptist of Fascism.17 — Leonard Peikoff

In 1979, certain leaders within the Southern Baptist Convention began a concerted effort to address what they saw as a theological drift in some of that denomination's seminaries and agencies. Over a fifteen-year period, they were able to bring about a remarkable change in the direction of those seminaries and agencies, such that one writer has called it "the Baptist Reformation."- — John S. Hammett

The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist Jack. — H.L. Mencken

When Jesus stepped into the waters of the Jordan and was baptized by John the Baptist, he did so not because he was in need of repentance, or conversion: he did it to be among people who need forgiveness, among us sinners, and to take upon himself the burden of our sins. — Pope Francis