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Lucas 3

VBL · Chapter 3/24

1Para este tiempo Tiberio había sido el César durante quince años. Y Poncio Pilato era el gobernador de Judea. Herodes gobernaba Galilea, su hermano Felipe gobernaba Iturea y Tacronite, y Lisanio gobernaba Abilinia.

2Anás y Caifás eran los sumos sacerdotes en turno. Este fue el tiempo en que la palabra de Dios vino a Juan, el hijo de Zacarías, quien vivía en el desierto.

3Juan salió por toda la región del Jordán anunciando a todos que era necesario que se bautizaran y se arrepintieran, y sus pecados serían perdonados.

4Tal como lo escribió el profeta Isaías: “Se oyó una voz clamando en el desierto: ‘Preparen el camino del Señor: enderecen su senda.

5Todo valle será rellenado, y toda montaña será allanada. Las curvas serán enderezadas, y los caminos ásperos serán suavizados.

6Todos ser humano verá la salvación de Dios’”.

7Juan se dirigió a una multitud que vino a él para bautizarse. “¡Camada de víboras! ¿Quién les advirtió que escaparan del juicio venidero?” les preguntó.

8“¡Demuestren que están realmente arrepentidos! No traten de justificarse diciendo: ‘Somos los descendientes de Abraham’. Les digo que Dios puede crear hijos de Abraham a partir de estas piedras.

9El hacha está lista para comenzar a cortar los árboles desde su base. Cualquier árbol que no produzca buen fruto será cortado y lanzado al fuego”.

10“¿Entonces qué debemos hacer?” le preguntó la multitud.

11“Si tienes dos mantos, entonces comparte tu manto con quien no tiene. Si tienes alimento, comparte con los que no tienen”, les decía.

12Y algunos recaudadores de impuestos vinieron para bautizarse. “Maestro, ¿qué debemos hacer?” le preguntaron también.

13“No recauden más de lo que deben cobrar”, respondió él.

14“¿Y nosotros?” le preguntaron algunos soldados. “¿Qué debemos hacer?”

15La gente estaba a la expectativa oyendo, y se preguntaban si Juan podría ser el Mesías.

16Juan respondió y les explicó a todos: “Sí, yo los bautizo en agua. Pero el que viene es más importante que yo, y yo no soy digno siquiera de desabrochar su calzado. Él los bautizará con el Espíritu Santo y con fuego.

17Tiene el aventador en su mano y está listo para separar el trigo de la paja en su trilla. Él reunirá el trigo en sus graneros, pero quemará la paja con un fuego que no puede apagarse”.

18Juan dio muchas advertencias como estas mientras anunciaba la buena noticia a la gente.

19Pero cuando Juan reprendió a Herodes, el gobernador, por casarse con Herodías, quien era la esposa del hermano de Herodes, y por todas las cosas malas que había hecho,

20entonces Herodes agregó un crimen más sobre sí enviando a Juan a la cárcel.

21Aconteció que después de que todos habían sido bautizados, Jesús también se bautizó. Y mientras oraba, se abrió el cielo,

22y el Espíritu Santo descendió sobre él, tomando forma de una paloma. Y una voz salió del cielo, diciendo: “Tú eres mi hijo, al que amo. Estoy realmente complacido de ti”.

23Jesús tenía aproximadamente treinta años cuando comenzó su ministerio público. La gente suponía que él era el hijo de José. José era el hijo de Elí,

24el hijo de Matat, el hijo de Leví, el hijo de Melqui, el hijo de Jana, el hijo de José,

25el hijo de Matatías, el hijo de Amós, el hijo de Nahum, el hijo de Esli, el hijo de Nagai,

26el hijo de Maat, el hijo de Matatías, el hijo de Semei, el hijo de Josec, el hijo de Judá,

27el hijo de Juana, el hijo de Resa, el hijo de Zorobabel, el hijo de Salatiel, el hijo de Neri,

28el hijo de Melqui, el hijo de Adi, el hijo de Cosam, el hijo de Elmodam, el hijo de Er,

29el hijo de Josué, el hijo de Eliezer, el hijo de Jorim, el hijo de Matat, el hijo de Leví,

30el hijo de Simeón, el hijo de Judá, el hijo de José, el hijo de Jonán, el hijo de Eliaquim,

31el hijo de Melea, el hijo de Mainán, el hijo de Matata, el hijo de Natán, el hijo de David,

32el hijo de Isaí, el hijo de Obed, el hijo de Booz, el hijo de Salmón, el hijo de Naasón,

33el hijo de Aminadab, el hijo de Arni, el hijo de Esrom, el hijo de Fares, el hijo de Judá,

34el hijo de Jacob, el hijo de Isaac, el hijo de Abraham, el hijo de Taré, el hijo de Nacor,

35el hijo de Serug, el hijo de Ragau, el hijo de Peleg, el hijo de Heber, el hijo de Sala,

36el hijo de Cainán, el hijo de Arfaxad, el hijo de Sem, el hijo de Noé, el hijo de Lamec,

37el hijo de Matusalén, el hijo de Enoc, el hijo de Jared, el hijo de Mahalaleel, el hijo de Cainán,

38el hijo de Enós, el hijo de Set, el hijo de Adán, el hijo de Dios.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

John the Baptist preaches repentance in the wilderness and baptizes crowds, including Jesus, when the Holy Spirit descends like a dove and a voice from heaven declares him the beloved Son. Luke then presents the genealogy of Jesus, tracing it back to Adam.

Explanation

John takes up Isaiah's prophecy about a voice preparing the way of the Lord, and his preaching is practical: he calls for concrete fruits of repentance, not just religious talk (v.10-14). Jesus' baptism marks the public beginning of his ministry, confirmed by the Trinity present: the Father (the voice), the Son (Jesus), and the Spirit (the dove). Unlike Matthew's genealogy, which goes back to Abraham, Luke traces it back to Adam, emphasizing that Jesus came for all humanity, not only for Israel. This invites us to consider that genuine faith shows up in practical, everyday attitudes.

Fun facts

  • Luke's genealogy likely follows Mary's line (through Eli, Joseph's father-in-law), while Matthew's follows Joseph's legal line — scholars compare the two to show Jesus' double right to David's throne.
  • Tiberius Caesar, mentioned in v.1, allows us to date the beginning of John the Baptist's ministry to around A.D. 28-29, one of the few points in the New Testament that can be precisely anchored in Roman history.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Lucas 3:1After the death of Herod the Great, the territory he ruled was divided among several heirs and Roman administrators, each overseeing a portion — hence the title tetrarch, meaning something like ruler of a fourth part of the territory. Luke stacks up these rulers’ names precisely to pin down the date with precision, the way a historian of that era would.
  2. Lucas 3:2Having Annas and Caiaphas as high priests at the same time is a way of describing the real political situation: Annas, a former high priest deposed by the Romans, remained extremely influential, even with his son-in-law Caiaphas holding the official position.
  3. Lucas 3:3John does not stay in one place: he travels through the whole region of the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance, different from other Jewish purification rituals in having an explicit moral sense of life change.
  4. Lucas 3:4Luke directly identifies John’s ministry as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about a voice announcing, in the wilderness, the coming of the Lord.
  5. Lucas 3:5This image of filled valleys and lowered hills comes from an ancient practice of preparing roads for a king’s arrival — here it is used as a metaphor for spiritual preparation.
  6. Lucas 3:6Unlike Matthew and Mark, Luke extends the quotation from Isaiah to include this line about “all flesh,” reinforcing from early on his interest in a salvation that reaches every people.
  7. Lucas 3:7Calling the crowd a “generation of vipers” is a direct insult, comparing the people to snakes fleeing a fire — John questions whether they truly understand what they are seeking by being baptized.
  8. Lucas 3:8Being a descendant of Abraham gave people of that mindset a kind of automatic guarantee of belonging to God’s people, no matter how they lived. John attacks exactly that idea: bloodline does not replace a changed life.
  9. Lucas 3:9The axe “already laid” at the root of the trees speaks of an imminent, decisive judgment, not a distant threat — the image suggests the time to act is now, not later.
  10. Lucas 3:10The crowd’s direct question, “What shall we do then?”, sets up the very practical instructions John gives next, about how to live out this repentance day to day.
  11. Lucas 3:11The instruction to share an extra coat and food with those who have none shows that, for John, repentance means concrete action, not just an inner feeling.
  12. Lucas 3:12Tax collectors, despised for working for Rome, also come to John to be baptized — a sign that his message reached even the most socially rejected groups.
  13. Lucas 3:13Tax collectors collected taxes for Rome and made their living by charging more than what was owed, pocketing the difference — which is why they were seen as traitors to their own people and extortioners. John does not condemn the profession itself, only the common practice of inflating the charge beyond what was due.
  14. Lucas 3:14To the soldiers, likely auxiliary troops rather than Roman legionaries, John says not to extort anyone through threats or false accusations, and to be content with their wages — a common problem at the time.
  15. Lucas 3:15The people’s expectation was so great that many even began to wonder whether John himself might be the awaited Christ.
  16. Lucas 3:16Untying someone’s sandals was a slave’s task, considered so humiliating that, according to some customs of the time, not even a Jewish slave was required to do it for his master. By saying he is not worthy even of that, John places himself below the lowest rank there was, to mark the distance between himself and the one who was coming.
  17. Lucas 3:17The image of the winnowing fork and the threshing floor describes separating wheat from chaff at harvest: the wheat is stored, the chaff is burned — a picture of final judgment separating what is worthwhile from what is not.
  18. Lucas 3:18This verse works as a summary: the text makes clear that John preached far more than the few examples cited so far.
  19. Lucas 3:19Herod here is Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, rebuked by John for having married Herodias, his own brother’s wife — a union Jewish law considered wrong.
  20. Lucas 3:20Imprisoning John is described as just one more item on a list of Herod’s wrongdoings, and it sets up the reader for the prophet’s tragic end, told later in the narrative.
  21. Lucas 3:21Luke highlights a detail found only in his gospel: Jesus is praying at the exact moment heaven opens — His baptism happens amid an ordinary crowd being baptized, not off on His own.
  22. Lucas 3:22The Holy Spirit descending like a dove and the voice from heaven calling Jesus the beloved Son form a scene with all three persons of the Trinity present at once: Father, Son, and Spirit.
  23. Lucas 3:23Luke already signals, with the parenthetical “as was supposed,” that he is listing the legal line through Joseph, not a biological link. In the culture of the time, being recognized as someone’s son, even through marriage, counted for purposes of inheritance and genealogy.
  24. Lucas 3:24This part of the list runs through names like Matthat and Levi, which do not appear in any other known biblical record — Luke seems to have had access to a detailed genealogy that has not survived anywhere else.
  25. Lucas 3:25The names listed here, such as Mattathias and Amos, also appear only in this genealogical list of Luke’s, without any other mention in the Bible.
  26. Lucas 3:26The list continues through generations without any narrative significance of their own — the goal here is not to tell a story, but to document an unbroken line of ancestry.
  27. Lucas 3:27Zerubbabel and Shealtiel also appear in Matthew’s genealogy, but linked to different sons — a sign that Luke and Matthew may be following distinct family lines.
  28. Lucas 3:28Again, names like Elmodam and Er have no record outside this list of Luke’s, reinforcing that the evangelist had access to his own genealogical sources.
  29. Lucas 3:29Here appear another Joseph and another Levi — common names repeated throughout the line, unrelated to the more famous figures of the same name found elsewhere in the Bible.
  30. Lucas 3:30The list passes through Simeon and Judah, names that recall the tribes of Israel, but here used as personal names of individuals within a family line, not as the tribes themselves.
  31. Lucas 3:31Here is an important difference: Luke links Jesus to David through his son Nathan, while Matthew traces the line through his son Solomon — a hint that the two gospels follow different branches of the family.
  32. Lucas 3:32This part of the list recovers familiar Old Testament names: David, his father Jesse, and before them Obed, Boaz, and Salmon, tied to the story told in the book of Ruth.
  33. Lucas 3:33The list reaches Judah, one of Jacob’s twelve sons, and continues through names like Amminadab and Hezron, also cited in Matthew’s genealogy at nearly the same points.
  34. Lucas 3:34Here the line passes through the great patriarchs Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, to whom God had promised, centuries earlier, a line of descendants through whom all nations would be blessed.
  35. Lucas 3:35The list continues through very old biblical names, such as Reu and Serug, mentioned briefly in Genesis 11 as links between the flood and Abraham.
  36. Lucas 3:36Noah appears here, and among the names, Cainan — a name present in the Greek translation of the Old Testament that Luke used, but absent from the Hebrew text of Genesis, a difference scholars still debate.
  37. Lucas 3:37The list goes back to well before the flood, passing through Methuselah, known for the exceptional longevity attributed to him in the account in Genesis.
  38. Lucas 3:38Unlike Matthew, who begins the genealogy with Abraham and works forward to Jesus, Luke goes the other direction and reaches all the way back to Adam, called here “the son of God” — linking Jesus not only to Israel, but to all of humanity.

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