 Despite the fact that John is faithfully interpreting Jewish law and applying it to Herod, John is what? Is he rejected or accepted? He's rejected. Okay, there's this theme of rejection again. John is rejected. The followers of Jesus are rejected. Jesus is rejected. So John's purpose up to this point is to show again that those sent by God will be rejected by the world because they will tell the world things the world doesn't want to hear.