Lukas 7:29

7:29 (Now ¹  all the people who heard this, even the tax collectors, ²  acknowledged ³  God’s justice, because they had been baptized ⁴  with John’s baptism.

[7:29]  ¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the parenthetical nature of the comment by the author.

[7:29]  ² sn See the note on tax collectors in 3:12.

[7:29]  ³ tn Or “vindicated God”; Grk “justified God.” This could be expanded to “vindicated and responded to God.” The point is that God’s goodness and grace as evidenced in the invitation to John was justified and responded to by the group one might least expect, tax collector and sinners. They had more spiritual sensitivity than others. The contrastive response is clear from v. 30.

[7:29]  ⁴ tn The participle βαπτισθέντες (baptisqente") has been translated as a causal adverbial participle.