“Just Between Us Bros”

Matthew 3: 3: “For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!”’” It is said that Matthew wrote his Gospel to his Jewish brethren to convince them that Jesus was the Christ. For that to be successful, he first had to identify the forerunner promised by Isaiah and Malachi. (Isaiah 40: 3; Malachi 4: 5) Without a forerunner, anyone claiming to be the Christ was just a pseudo-Christ. So Matthew, like

Mark, Luke, and John after him, spends time pointing to John the Baptist, as an initial step in introducing his readers to Jesus