How different things must have looked for John behind prison walls. If ever the word "free spirit" applied to anyone, it applied to John. He said what he wanted to say, without holding back. If the scholars are correct that he was an Essene, then he had gone into the wilderness specifically to get away from everyone. The Essenes wanted to worship their way, with no interference from anyone. Now, those prison walls confined John.

We can't know what it was like for John to be the superstar preacher. We don't really know much about him, so we don't know if he was able to keep his ego in check when crowds of people from all over came to hear him preach. Perhaps it is safe to say that John at least felt a kind of excitement with so much religious energy in the air. All of that religious energy…