John was not talking to unbelievers who were joking around. He was talking to people who came out to hear him preach repentance. After he told them to repent, they asked him a serious question: “What should we do then?” They didn’t ask that question randomly. They asked because he had already told them something very heavy in verse 8: “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”
That statement alone tells you that repentance is not something you claim in your head alone. If repentance truly happened, something must follow it. Something must come out of it. John did not say, “Feel sorry.” He did not say, “Cry.” He did not say, “Pray a prayer.” He said, produce fruit.
The BBE translation helps it land properly. It says: “Make clear by your acts that your hearts have been changed.” That means your actions are supposed to prove that something happened inside you. If your mind has changed, then what comes out of your life should line up with that change.
You cannot say your mind is renewed while your actions contradict it. If what is coming out of you does not align with what you claim is in your head, then something is wrong. If your thinking is now “white” and what is coming out of you is still “black,” there is a problem. Nobody manages that kind of contradiction in real life.
John was saying that repentance produces evidence. If the seed that entered you was truly the word of God — not the mixed-up one that only promises goodies, but the one that says you are a sinner, repent — then that seed must grow. And if it grows, it must bear fruit.
Full communiqué: https://youtu.be/GwLG78DmjJk?si=Dg4Tlk6rbV5dZgaP
[Published On 19/12/2025]
