Please note that due to the software used, not everything in this transcript will be accurate.

Question Answer XVI

Media – Bad Bunny announced for the Super Bowl

John Dickson – Studio

That’s a clip from September 2025, where the NFL officially announced that Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny would headline the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show. The Halftime Show is a big deal: past headliners include Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé, and my beloved U2. There’s usually upwards of 100 million people tuning in to watch. Bad Bunny – real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio – is one of the most successful artists of the 21st century. With 6 Grammy awards, millions of streams, and sold-out stadium concerts under his belt, he’s definitely Super Bowl worthy. But not everyone was happy with the choice. As with many of his pop contemporaries, a lot of his lyrics are pretty sexually explicit. This – combined with his outspoken political views, and the announcement that the performance would be entirely in Spanish – left many calling for an alternative. Turning Point USA, the organisation founded by the late Charlie Kirk, soon had one to offer. A fortnight after the Bad Bunny announcement, TPUSA launched its own ‘All-American Half Time Show’, which would stream at the same time as the Super Bowl concert. The alternative show would celebrate “American culture, freedom, and faith”. Here’s what Erika Kirk, CEO of TPUSA and widow of founder Charlie Kirk, had to say about it:

Media – Erika Kirk

John Dickson – Studio

Both performances went ahead; Bad Bunny’s was a pop extravaganza, with guest appearances by Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, and Puerto Rican ensemble Los Pleneros de la Cresta. The All-American Halftime Alternative was more rock n’ roll,  pre-recorded in a warehouse in Atlanta, and featuring the likes of Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, and Lee Brice (among others). Now, I don’t really have an opinion on which was better – I didn’t watch the TPUSA one. I watched the official Super Bowl show with Bad Bunnie, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t like it. Naturally, I hated the sexualisation — it demeans human beings in my view. But it was also far more spectacle than musical. I texted my daughter Josie during it – she was in a pub in Sydney watching it with friends – “I don’t understand why people like this bunny dude!!”. She wrote back, “Haha he’s cool. And it’s important for latinas coz there’s been a lot of racism around him performing today.” “Oh,” I replied, “Well, I wish his singing was good.” I hope I haven’t made any enemies with that. Feel free just to laugh at me, like my own daughter did. But I did heap praise on the guy who sang the national anthem, Charlie Puth – is his name. “He was fantastic,” I texted Josie, “Now THAT is a musician!” We’ll link to his performance in the show notes. My point ??? The call for a family-friendly alternative to Bad Bunny raised many an eyebrow – was this just another example of fuddy-duddy conservatives tsk-tsking from the sidelines? Or is there really a line that those with classical convictions shouldn’t cross when it comes to consuming art? That’s just one of the questions I’ll be tackling on this episode – our sixteenth Q&A! I’m John Dickson, and this is Undeceptions.

Producer Kaley

Hey, Producer Kaley here. As usual, Director Mark and I will be taking you through this episode so John can focus on answering the questions. Our first question, as John alluded to, is from Arabella.

QUESTION 1

What is a helpful guide for how Christians can consume secular music, art, literature, ect? 

John Dickson – Studio

The first thing to say, I suppose, is that we should be able to recognise skill and artistry when we see it. The opening chapter of the Bible declares God’s own masterpiece, the creation, tov, “good.” This Hebrew word captures both aesthetic beauty and moral worth. What’s more, there are some cool passages around the building of the Old Testament tabernacle, the huge mobile tent where the Israelites worshipped. Various kinds of artists and craftsmen (they are all men) are praised for their skill.

Reading

Then Moses said to the Israelites, “See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. And he has given both him and Oholiab, son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers. – Exodus, Chapter 35 

John Dickson – Studio

In the early days of Christianity, there was little opportunity to reflect on these things. Christians were a tiny minority, typically from the lower classes. Survival, more than art, was at the forefront of mind. But as Christianity became more settled by the end of the 4th century, people did start to reflect on art and music. The view of Augustine of Hippo around the year 400 is laid out in a volume titled On Christian Teaching. He lays down a basic principle that, while some pagan science, philosophy, and art is frivolous and even demonic, much of it is also good—the simple discovery of true and beautiful things in God’s world. He makes the point that, just as the Israelites plundered the Egyptians when they escaped slavery in Egypt, so Christians can take the treasures of pagan learning and put them to good use. Once the great Augustine had laid down this principle, others ran with it, I think, in really positive ways. One of my favourite examples is Cassiodorus, a century after Augustine. We have to do an episode on him one day, but he was quite amazing. He was an Italian statesman who turned to being a monk. He lived until he was 95, and his life’s work was establishing what you might call a great books program for his fellow monks. His magnum opus was called Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning. Volume 1 deals with all the important theology and Christian-related books people should read. Volume 2 comments on all the pagan works people should enjoy and learn from. There’s a beautiful section on music, where he praises loads of pagan writers on that topic. He describes these artists and thinkers as offering “laudable instruction on this subject” and “pleasing and useful knowledge, which both raises our understanding to the heights and pleases our ear.” (Institutes of Divine Religion, II.5.10). It’s because of the theoretical groundwork of people like Augustine and Cassiodorus that the Church of the Middle Ages was so thoroughly committed to art and music. It wasn’t secular rulers who produced and preserved art and music. It was Christians who were always looking for the genius of God built into beautiful things and residing in certain men and women in whom God had given all kinds of skills “to make artistic designs,” as the Book of Exodus 35 puts it. And, happily, this included some remarkable women. We’re planning an episode on Hildegard of Bingen, who produced some beautiful music in Germany in the 1100s. Can we give a little taste, Kaley, of, for example, Hildegard’s O tu suavissima virga—which still, nearly a thousand years later, makes it onto collections of all-time classic, soaring musical works.

Producer Kaley

When she was a toddler, our daughter Harriet used to sneak out of her new big-girl bed when she was supposed to be going to sleep. You could hear her walking down the hallway, and one time I had gotten up to put her back to bed, and found her sitting on the staircase with her hands over her eyes. “Let’s go back to bed, little one,” I said. And her face turned towards me, still with her hands over her eyes and she said “But mum, how can you see me?”. She thought that because she couldn’t see me, I couldn’t see her.  Our next question comes from Abigail, who’s wondering why God seems to be hiding. If he really wants us to come to him, why doesn’t he just sit out in the open?    

QUESTION 2

I’ve been wrestling with the idea of God’s hiddenness. Why is the existence of God something that can be questioned? Why is there doubt surrounding His very existence?  (Abigail)

John Dickson – Studio

It’s a great question, Abigail. I was about to give you my best effort … then I remembered my friend Dr Max Baker-Hytch in the Philosophy Department at the University of Oxford. He’s done loads of thinking and writing on this theme, so I phoned a friend.

Max Baker-Hytch

 Thanks John and thanks Abigail for a great question. Yeah, so this question of why God isn’t more obvious, why there would be room for doubt, um, is a significant question in philosophy of religion, which is the branch of philosophy that I work in. And there’s a philosopher called J Schellenberg who, in the last 30 years, has essentially turned this question into quite a formidable argument against God’s existence called the argument from divine hiddenness. In a nutshell, Schellenberg’s argument says that we would expect a loving God to make his existence perfectly clear. So we wouldn’t expect there to be any ambiguity. Um, but the fact that there seemingly is ambiguity is a sort of decisive reason to think there isn’t a loving God. Now, there’s been lots written on this and there’s been lots of responses to Schellenberg, and I think there’s three things I’d want to say. So firstly. Can we think of any reasons God might have for not being as obvious as we might like? And I think these just have to be sort of possible reasons. We don’t have to claim to know that these are God’s actual reasons. Um, so let me give you one example of a reason that’s been suggested for why God might not be as obvious as we might like. And this comes from the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, and Kierkegaard basically gives this parable if you like. He asks us to imagine that there’s this extremely powerful king. Think of a sort of medieval monarch, how absolute power, and he’s fallen in love with one of his subjects, a humble maiden. But he’s smart. So he realises that if he goes to the maiden in all of his royal splendour, he’s gonna completely overwhelm her. He’s the power imbalance is such that, um, her response won’t be a free response of love. It will be a coerced response. And so his solution is to adopt the guise of a peasant and go to her in a humble way and win her heart that way. So then her response is a genuinely free one. And so, okay, Kierkegaard’s thought is that there’s an enormous power imbalance between us, in fact, much greater than that between a medieval monarch and one of their subjects. And so if God comes to us in a way that hits us such that his power is completely obvious to us, then we would be overwhelmed. Our response would be coerced. Now God obviously isn’t going to disguise himself, um, as someone else, but what he can do is dial down the obviousness of his existence and in that way, go some way towards mitigating the power imbalance between us. And Kierkegaard suggests that God’s solution, um, according to the Christian faith, is that God has come to us in an extremely humble way by becoming incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. So coming to us in person, but in a way that doesn’t overwhelm us because his, his, um, his divine power, his omnipotence and so on isn’t completely manifest in that way of coming to us. The second thing I want to say is that, um, I think we need to reflect on the question of what God might be aiming at. So is it just that God wants everyone to have intellectual certainty that he exists? In which case, then probably the best approach would be to be as obvious as possible. Perhaps, you know, make the stars spell out writing in the sky and so on. But if it’s something else, then that might not be the best approach. So if it’s that God wants us to respond out of a certain heart attitude, out of a certain kind of desire for relationship with God, then it might be that being as obvious as possible isn’t the best approach. And the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal gives voice to this thought and he suggests that God has set things up in a way that there’s enough light for those who want to believe in and enough shadows for those who don’t. And this brings me to the third thing. So you might say, oh, well, that’s all very well, and you know, enough light for those who want to believe, enough darkness for those who don’t. But I do want to believe, or I’ve got a close friend who really seems to want to believe, and yet the light doesn’t seem to be there. And I wanna say that I take this really seriously, not least because Jesus says, according to Matthew 7:7:

“Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you’ll find, knock and the door will be open to you.”

And there are two things I think I’d want to say about that, that kind of, um, heartfelt doubt. The first is that, and I really don’t mean to say that no one is sincerely seeking, but I do think we need to be constantly aware of how difficult it is to truly know our own heart motivations, let alone those of other people. But the second thing is that Jesus’ promise about asking, seeking, knocking, doesn’t say anything about the timeframe in which the answer will come. So the fact that someone has been sincerely seeking and seemingly not receiving an answer doesn’t imply that there won’t be an answer in the fullness of time. So thanks again for that question, Abigail, and I hope that that’s somewhat helpful.

Director Mark

Hey, it’s Director Mark. Our next question is from Troy: 

QUESTION 3

Hello John and Team, You recently mentioned one of your university professors having a recommended list of books that he considered ‘must-reads’. It would be great to have a similar list on the Undeceptions website. As a historian and a theologian, outside the Bible, what would be your top 10 or 20 books that you consider a ‘must-read’ for listeners to Undeceptions?

John Dickson – Studio

First, there are the novels recommended by my friend Simon Smart, head of the Centre for Public Christianity in Australia. His challenge years ago was that I—a strictly non-fiction reader—really should read these novels:

• To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee
• On Beauty — Zadie Smith
• A Tale of Two Cities — Charles Dickens
• Gilead — Marilynne Robinson
• Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen
• The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald
• East of Eden — John Steinbeck
• Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Cloudstreet — Tim Winton

Just for fun, let me add a first-century Greek novel that Buff and I read to each other years ago over our morning cup of tea: Callirhoe by Chariton. It offers amazing insight into ancient Greco-Roman romance, adventure, religion, and ethics. Then there are some biblical and theological works that I have found influential:

• Confessions and The City of God by Augustine of Hippo
• Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin
• Reformed Dogmatics (4 vols.) by Herman Bavinck
• Systematic Theology (3 vols.) by Wolfhart Pannenberg

And then there are a couple of hidden gems that might not be in the same league of influence, but I have found extremely helpful:

• Gospel and Kingdom and Graeme Goldsworthy 

And then there’s what’s called Introduction to the Bible. It’s the first section of a unit that’s offered everywhere by Moore Theological College in Sydney.

On Jesus specifically, you can’t go past:

• Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham
• Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn
• The Gospels and Jesus by Graham Stanton

Some non-theological works might include:

• The Righteous Mind — Jonathan Haidt
• Testimony — C. A. J. (Tony) Coady
• Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory — Lawrence Langer
• Against the Sexual Revolution — Louise Perry
• After Virtue — Alasdair MacIntyre
• On Rhetoric — Aristotle

And then just about every second volume of the excellent Oxford Very Short Introduction series, which covers just about any topic you can imagine. Happy reading!

Producer Kaley

John got a bit carried away there. You can check out the full list and links in the show notes at undeceptions.com. We’ll be right back. 

Break

Media – Neanderthal’s news story

Producer Kaley

That’s a news clip from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation back in 2022, looking at new research on Neanderthals (or NeanderTALs if you want to be closer to the German). Neanderthals are named after the Neander Valley in Germany, where the species was first discovered in the 1850s. We loved our next question, because it relates to two of our episodes in this season- our episodes on evolution and also on God’s Image. Thanks, Mark. 

QUESTION 4

I agree that evolution and an old-earth view can align with a Christian perspective in the world, but I was wondering how our human ancestors fit into God’s plan for humanity. Specifically, would other types of now extinct humans (e.g., Neanderthals) have been made in the image of God? Would they have had souls and needed God’s salvation? I’d appreciate any thoughts on the matter! Thanks. 

John Dickson (Studio)

Hannah, what a great question. Let me begin with, I dunno the answer. I’m open to whatever the creator decides on things like these. But since you asked me directly, here’s my hunch. If you listened to our episode on the image of God recently, you’ll know that this expression, “image of God” has nothing to do with capacities. It’s not about our moral sense or our rationality or whatever, and this is why a baby is in the image of God or a severely mentally disabled adult is in the image of God. The expression refers to God’s own decision to regard human beings as his offspring, his children. What that means is that the higher or lower intelligence of other creatures in the animal kingdom has no bearing on whether they’re made in the image of God. The higher apes and the dolphins apparently have more intellectual capacity than a one or 2-year-old human being, but I don’t think they’re made in the image of God. That said, if you go back and listen to our episode on animals, that’s where you’ll hear why I think the creator has a special relationship with the animal kingdom without any of those animals serving as God’s image in the world. And that’s a long-winded way of saying that I doubt extinct species like the Neanderthals were created as the image of God. That only belongs to Homosapiens, but I don’t doubt that the Neanderthals had some kind of relationship with the creator. I bet as higher beings in the homogenous, they consciously revered the creator in a way that was even more explicit than dolphins. As for the future kingdom. I don’t know, but as I say in the animals episode, I don’t think the question of whether my dog will be in heaven is a dumb one at all. Given that the kingdom come is the renewal of all creation, I should probably stop there before I get into trouble. Okay. Hope that works.

QUESTION 5

Hi John, I really enjoyed your recent episode on Evolution. I take a similar view to you on the topic, but many believers I know and respect, including my own husband, disagree. I don’t find it productive to debate the ins and outs of textual genre and the reliability of carbon dating when the central truths of the gospel remain the same. But one thing I’ve always struggled to answer is the question of why the good God we know, who has revealed himself in the Bible, would choose to use *death* (through many evolutionary cycles) in order to *create*. Death is pretty clearly revealed as an aspect of the brokenness of this world. And yet we know God’s work of creation is deeply good, so having it inextricably entwined with brokenness is hard to reconcile. I’d be very appreciative of any insights you have to share on this matter. 

Many thanks,
Jen

John Dickson (Studio)

This is a big one. To maintain that there was no death before the first human beings is really to deny the entire fossil record. And in my tradition of Christianity—the tradition encouraged by Augustine of Hippo—when an irrefutable fact of our world, or of logic, clashes with our interpretation of Scripture, we are spiritually obliged to question our interpretation—not Scripture, but our interpretation. Fortunately, in this case, some details in the Genesis text open up real possibilities for thinking about this question. Let me give you a little Bible reflection, some philosophy, and a reasonably undogmatic conclusion. God had told Adam that shunning the Good would result in “death” (Gen 2:16–17). Of course, they eat from the tree (Gen 3:6), and they don’t die—at least, not in the immediate, straightforward biological sense. What happens instead is that the three spheres of human existence begin to unravel: the social, the physical, and the spiritual. Socially, human relationships with one another become strained. In Gen 3:7 they are ashamed in each other’s presence. In Gen 3:12, when God confronts them, Adam blames Eve. And then in Gen 3:16 we read that the relationship between man and woman is now marked by distortion—either a troubled desire or a struggle for mastery. Either way, it’s a bad thing—it’s a breakdown of their shared mission in the world. Physically, the very environment is frustrated. In Gen 3:16, there is pain in childbirth, and in Gen 3:18, the ground produces “thorns and thistles.” Spiritually, they become alienated from God. They hide from God (Gen 3:8–10). The one made in God’s image now tries to avoid him—ashamed, estranged. These are all pictures of true death—the unravelling of our social, physical, and spiritual life. And the final scene sets a seal on this “death,” in the most powerful image of all (Gen 3:22–24): humanity is expelled from the garden and barred from the tree of life. A flaming sword guards the way back to the tree of life. So, here’s the scientific question: Does Genesis teach that there was no death or discord of any kind in the natural world before Homo sapiens? As I say, that would clash with the fossil record, which is replete with death and decay prior to humanoids. Obviously, Genesis doesn’t address itself directly to that modern question, but there are some philosophical and textual things we can say. Philosophically, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1647–1716) famously pointed out that there must be creaturely imperfection in everything that isn’t God himself. No matter how hard you try to picture a “perfect tree,” you can always add one more piece of fruit. No matter how strong or knowledgeable we think God should have made us, we can always ask, “Why not a bit stronger … a bit more knowledgeable?” The only way out of the dilemma is to imagine God making us all-powerful and all-knowledgeable. But that would make us God—which would involve a logical contradiction, since there can’t be more than one infinitely powerful and knowledgeable entity. In other words, philosophically, limitation and imperfection are intrinsic to being a created thing. But what does the text say about all this? Obviously, Genesis isn’t engaging in this kind of philosophical speculation, but it’s interesting that the narrative itself doesn’t imply there was no death or discord prior to the Fall. First, the word to describe the creation is not ‘perfect’ but ‘good’. Imperfection can be good. Then, notice, within the narrative world of Gen 2–3, “fruit”—a living thing—had to be destroyed (had to die) every time Adam and Eve ate from the trees in the garden. Then there’s the “serpent,” a creature already in discord with the Creator—and in discord with humans. And it’s clear that humans themselves were not inherently immortal—they weren’t perfect in that sense of enjoying endless life by nature. Not only did they need to eat fruit to survive, they had to depend on the “tree of life” to enjoy an unending full life. The natural state of human beings—prior to sin—is entropy or decline, which was only halted—in the imagery of Gen 2–3—by being nourished by the “tree of life.” Inside the Garden, in other words, humans were kept safe from the decay of creation. When they were ejected from the Garden, they fell subject to that decay. I hope that helps. 

Director Mark

After the break, we talk about wealth and Christianity. 

Break 2

Media – Kenneth Copeland

Director Mark

That’s American televangelist and pastor Kenneth Copeland, speaking at a conference in 2008. Copeland is one of the richest pastors in America – his current net worth is an estimated $300 million USD – and as you just heard, he’s not exactly shy about his financial position. Copeland is well known for preaching a prosperity theology; essentially, the idea is that the more money you give, the more you receive back. Or as Copeland would say ….

Media – Kenneth Copeland

Director Mark

Yikes! Copeland is an extreme example of – at times – preaching a “money-focused” gospel. That runs against what Jesus taught. But what is a Biblical approach to money? And how might things like modern economics affect how we understand what the Bible has to say on it? That’s the crux of this next question, which comes from one of John’s students.

QUESTION 6

How would John teach about wealth in our contemporary society? This seems to be largely overlooked in the West today. 

John Dickson (Studio)

My very first experience of Christianity in America, 25 years ago, was arriving in Nashville, turning on my TV, and being greeted by the classic TV evangelist. Pierre Cardin suit, slicked-back hair, beautiful Southern accent. His message that day was that God was a God of prosperity and wanted to prosper our lives. He had a special prayer cloth that he would send us free of charge with every $1,000 donation. Apparently, if you put it somewhere in your house, you’d be able to buy the home of your dreams—in your garage, you’d have the cars of your dreams, in the pantry, you’d always have enough food, and so on. He showed us footage of his own home and car collection to prove that it worked. I honestly thought it was a joke, so I got out the little dictaphone I carried everywhere with me in those days and recorded his message. I still have that recording somewhere. I must dig it out. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that this kind of teaching is a blasphemy—or, to put it more mildly, a departure from what Jesus taught. But let me put all this in historical context. I wanna read a Twitter thread I composed a year or so ago. It’s actually the most interacted with tweet I’ve ever offered—positively and negatively! It doesn’t provide a complete answer to your question James, but it does express the fear that you and I both seem to have for the modern church.

I teach a class here at @WheatonCollege on the history of Christianity, focused on the first thousand years. One thought haunts me. We are right to look with shock and disappointment at the way medieval Christians accepted violence as a norm. It seems clear that in seeking to convert European warrior societies, Christians themselves were ‘converted’ to a martial ideology, in contradiction to the teaching of Jesus. We see this with clarity today. We even question whether they could have been real Christians! I am equally struck by how medieval Christians wholeheartedly obeyed Jesus’ call to shun wealth & pursue charity. They said the one who does not show material mercy has not known divine mercy toward their sins. For me, this is the most striking part of medieval Church history. So, here’s what haunts me. Without denying we are right to condemn medieval Christians for their violence, I wonder if they would have every right to rise up and condemn modern (Western) Christians for the way we accept the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, and comfort as norms. They might say that in seeking to convert modern materialistic societies, we ourselves have been converted to a materialistic ideology. They might even wonder if we are real Christians, after all! I hope not. I like to think not. But … when I teach the history of Christianity, and find myself (and my students) condemning medieval Christians for violence, I have this nagging anxiety about my wealth, pleasure, and comfort.

Postscript: I am not claiming to be a modern-day prophet, only confessing that I am an anxious historian.

Does that answer your question, James? No. I don’t really have an answer. All I know is that you’re asking the right question.

Producer Kaley

We’ve come to the final question for our regular listeners. PLUS subscribers will get to hear John answer a few extra questions. If you want to become a PLUS subscriber, follow the link in the show notes. This last question comes from Kimberly.

QUESTION 7

Why did Jesus have to get baptised? Jesus doesn’t need to be made clean. Moreover, other people were being baptised at the same time as Jesus, which is before His resurrection. Their baptisms represented something that hadn’t even happened yet. Do you have any thoughts about why these happened and what they could mean?

John Dickson (Studio)

Thanks, Kimberly. Of course, Jesus himself gave an answer to this when John the Baptist expressed hesitation about baptising him. Jesus said,

“This is to fulfil all righteousness.”

There’s a sense in which it was right and good for Jesus to undergo this symbolic action. The first thing to note is that originally, the baptism of John the Baptist was a picture of the rebirth of Israel. That’s why it had to be at the Jordan River. That’s where, centuries earlier, Israel had begun its national existence—crossing through the Jordan into the Promised Land. John’s baptism seems to have been a piece of prophetic theatre, calling Israel to begin again or be doomed. In this sense, it makes sense that Jesus, whose ministry was also about the renewal of the people of God, would lead the way in being baptised. Incidentally, most scholars think that his selection of twelve apostles was a deliberate symbol of the same thing—Israel’s twelve patriarchs, the twelve tribes, being renewed. It’s true that baptism also symbolises washing—the forgiveness of sins—but this theology is embedded in the larger meaning of God’s people beginning again through the waters of baptism. Then there’s this simple fact: Jesus attended all of the major religious festivals at the Jerusalem temple—Day of Atonement, Passover, and he practised Hanukkah. Jesus himself didn’t need any of the sacrifices that went on during these festivals, but it was right and proper that he endorsed them with his presence, in order to highlight the important truths embedded in these rituals. We also know that every worshipper at the temple had to have a little wash before they went up into the temple space. Jesus must have done this too. He didn’t need washing in the spiritual sense, but he would have done it so that these actions could serve as pointers, ultimately, to his own ministry. I think something like that explains why he underwent baptism. Thanks.

Undeceptions theme