Book of Common Prayer

Moses was a faithful servant: Christ a faithful son

3 ^1-6 So then, my brothers in holiness who share the highest of all callings, I want you to think of the messenger and High Priest of the faith we hold, Christ Jesus. See him as faithful to the charge God gave him, and compare him with Moses who also faithfully discharged his duty in the household of God. For this man has been considered worthy of greater honour than Moses, just as the founder of a house may be truly said to have more honour than the house itself. Every house is founded by someone, but the founder of everything is God himself. Moses was certainly faithful in all his duties in God’s household, but he was faithful as a servant and his work was only a foreshadowing of the truth that would be known later. But Christ was faithful as a loyal son in the household of the founder, his own Father. And we are members of this household if we maintain our trust and joyful hope steadfast to the end.

^25-26 This led to a question arising between John’s disciples and one of the Jews about the whole matter of being cleansed. They approached John and said to him, “Master, look, the man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan, the one you testified to, is now baptising and everybody is coming to him!”

^27-30 “A man can receive nothing at all,” replied John, “unless it is given him from Heaven. You yourselves can witness that I said, ‘I am not Christ but I have been sent as his forerunner.’ It is the bridegroom who possesses the bride, yet the bridegroom’s friend who merely stands and listens to him can be overjoyed to hear the bridegroom’s voice. That is why my happiness is now complete. He must grow greater and greater and I less and less.