3:1–4:16 Review · Matthew moves from narrating the infancy stories to two preparatory events for the ministry of Jesus—his baptism and temptation. Both narratives are set in the wilderness (“desert”), tying Jesus’s preparation for his ministry to the identity of the people of Israel as they prepared to enter the land promised to them. Both stories are also marked by the Spirit, signaling that the time of eschatological promise has begun. John the Baptist is introduced in Matthew 3 as the forerunner who signals Jesus’s ministry by calling Israel and its leaders to repentance, announcing God’s kingdom, and warning of judgment, while hinting at Gentile inclusion into God’s restored people. Jesus’s own baptism becomes both a sign of God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel and an affirmation of …