Luke 3:3

3:3 He ¹  went into all the region around the Jordan River, ²  preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ³ 

Luke 12:50

12:50 I have a baptism ⁴  to undergo, ⁵  and how distressed I am until it is finished!

Luke 20:4

20:4 John’s baptism ⁶  – was it from heaven or from people?” ⁷ 

Luke 7:29

7:29 (Now ⁸  all the people who heard this, even the tax collectors, ⁹  acknowledged ¹⁰  God’s justice, because they had been baptized ¹¹  with John’s baptism.

[3:3]  ¹ tn Grk “And he.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style. Due to the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[3:3]  ² tn “River” is not in the Greek text but is supplied for clarity.

[3:3]  ³ sn A baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins was a call for preparation for the arrival of the Lord’s salvation. To participate in this baptism was a recognition of the need for God’s forgiveness with a sense that one needed to live differently as a response to it (Luke 3:10-14).

[12:50]  ⁴ sn The figure of the baptism is variously interpreted, as some see a reference (1) to martyrdom or (2) to inundation with God’s judgment. The OT background, however, suggests the latter sense: Jesus is about to be uniquely inundated with God’s judgment as he is rejected, persecuted, and killed (Ps 18:4, 16; 42:7; 69:1-2; Isa 8:7-8; 30:27-28; Jonah 2:3-6).

[12:50]  ⁵ tn Grk “to be baptized with.”

[20:4]  ⁷ sn John, like Jesus, was not a part of the official rabbinic order. So the question “John’s baptism – was it from heaven or from men?” draws an analogy between John the Baptist and Jesus. See Luke 3:1-20; 7:24-27. The phrase John’s baptism refers to the baptism practiced by John.

[20:4]  ⁸ tn The plural Greek term ἀνθρώπων (anqrwpwn) is used here (and in v. 6) in a generic sense, referring to both men and women (cf. NAB, NRSV, “of human origin”; TEV, “from human beings”; NLT, “merely human”).

[7:29]  ¹⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the parenthetical nature of the comment by the author.

[7:29]  ¹¹ sn See the note on tax collectors in 3:12.

[7:29]  ¹² tn Or “vindicated God”; Grk “justified God.” This could be expanded to “vindicated and responded to God.” The point is that God’s goodness and grace as evidenced in the invitation to John was justified and responded to by the group one might least expect, tax collector and sinners. They had more spiritual sensitivity than others. The contrastive response is clear from v. 30.

[7:29]  ¹³ tn The participle βαπτισθέντες (baptisqente") has been translated as a causal adverbial participle.