More Than a Prophet
24 When John’s messengers had departed, he began to tell the multitudes about John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 25 But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are gorgeously dressed and live delicately are in kings’ courts. 26 But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and much more than a prophet. 27 This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ 28 “For I tell you, among those who are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptizer; yet he who is least in God’s Kingdom is greater than he.” 29 When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they declared God to be just, having been baptized with John’s baptism. 30 But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God, not being baptized by him themselves. 31 “To what then should I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? 32 They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, saying, ‘We piped to you, and you didn’t dance. We mourned, and you didn’t weep.’ 33 For John the Baptizer came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ 35 Wisdom is justified by all her children.”
The tribute to John, and a note about who had already accepted him — the tax collectors, not the lawyers.
When John’s messengers had departed, he began to tell the multitudes about John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?
The tribute is given in Matthew's account Matthew 11:7–19 — the three questions, the quotation from Malachi with its pronoun turned, and the paradox that the greatest man born of women is outranked by the least in the kingdom.
One detail of this telling is sharpened. "Those who are gorgeously dressed and live delicately are in kings' courts" Luke 7:25. The man being praised is at that moment in a king's prison, put there by the occupant of the court, and the sentence brushes past that without naming it.
What belongs to this account alone is the two verses in the middle, and they are the writer's own comment rather than reported speech.
29 When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they declared God to be just, having been baptized with John’s baptism. 30 But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God, not being baptized by him themselves.
The verdict is split down a line the whole book keeps drawing. Ordinary people and tax collectors had gone to the Jordan; the professionals had not. And the two halves of the sentence are stated as equivalents: to be baptized by John was to declare God to be just, and to decline was to reject the counsel of God for oneself.
That last phrase is unusually severe and unusually precise. God had a purpose concerning them, and they set it aside — for themselves rather than for anybody else. Nobody stopped them; they stopped. And what looks like caution about an unusual preacher turns out, in the account's judgment, to be a decision about God.
They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, saying, ‘We piped to you, and you didn’t dance. We mourned, and you didn’t weep.’
The picture is children who will not join either game. John came fasting and was called demon-possessed; the Son of Man came eating and was called a glutton and a drunkard Luke 7:33–34. The complaint is never about the message and always about the manner, and it changes to fit whichever manner arrives. A generation that objects to both has shown that the objection was never the reason.
The insult is worth keeping: a friend of tax collectors and sinners. It was meant to end the argument, and this Gospel simply accepts it as a description — the next paragraph is a dinner party where exactly that is demonstrated.
"Wisdom is justified by all her children" Luke 7:35. Wisdom is vindicated by what it produces rather than by winning the debate, and the children in question have just been named two verses earlier: the people and the tax collectors who went to the river.
settled What this mark means