the last of the OT prophets

Matthew 3:1-5

John the Baptist is the main character in this section of the story. We've moved from Joseph to John. Matthew is careful to connect him to prophecy as well - he's the one who precedes the procession calling out, "Make way for the King!" John is a prophet in the OT sense - he wears weird clothes and eats weird food and I am sure that there is some significant symbolism to that. Perhaps it is that he rejects society. He is an outside observer that can speak to the society with objectivity because he is not wrapped up in it.
This is the first time that Matthew uses a phrase that will come up over and over again in his book: the kingdom of heaven. He has set up the use of this phrase by showing Jesus to be a legitimate challenger to Herod's throne and title. John's message was pretty simple: "repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near." Most of the Jews (and possibly even John) would have understood this to mean that the Messiah was coming to overthrow the Romans and to re-establish Israel to the status it enjoyed under David and Solomon. They would have also understood (from the prophets) that this would be a time of judgement and so they flocked to John to show their repentance by being baptized.
I need to be careful how I read and understand Scripture. Every time I come to the Word, I am affected by past teaching, my own understanding, my circumstances, my biases, previous knowledge. Just like the Jews in John's day, I may not completely understand the message I am hearing and I need to be humble enough to admit that I may not only misunderstand but also misapply what I am reading.
I also can learn from John. I think that sometimes we strive so hard to be culturally relevant and to wrap the message of Christ in a palatable way that we are no longer in a position to speak with any authourity to our culture. We look so much like everyone and act like them and think like them that we really have no voice. Now, I am not saying that we should wear camel clothes and eat locusts and I do think that we must be relevant enough to at least know what is going on in our culture. I also think that the use of technology and speaking in a culturally relevant way is great but I wonder where the line is. I want to be careful that I don't become so immersed in the culture that I begin to conform to it (I think there's a verse about that...).

Paul's Testimony

Galatians 1:13-17

There is a contrast between Paul's previous way under Judaism and his new way of preaching the gospel: under Judaism Paul was advancing, full of zeal, it was about traditions; under the gospel it's about grace, God setting Paul apart and Paul reaching out to those outside the traditions of Judaism.
I think Paul is proving his point that he didn't receive the message that he has been spreading from any human source but that it was received from God. For some reason Paul seems desperate to show that the message he is preaching didn't come from the church in Jerusalem. Maybe because, while the gospel was always about Jesus' death and resurrection, the Jerusalem version was mixed with some elements of Judaism (which is not necessarily bad if it was an attempt to be relevant to the culture of Jerusalem) while Paul's version was about radical freedom - a Gentile didn't need to become a Jew to become a Christian.
I'm not sure what I can personally learn from this passage. What I am taking from it is that I need to make sure that the truth of the good news message of Jesus is presented in a way that is relevant and speaks clearly to the culture in which I am living. I must not get so wrapped up in old forms of sharing the good news message of Jesus that I make them a part of the message itself.