John 1:31

"I myself did not know him; but for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel."

From Background Notes [BN] for February 25^th/26^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

This might seem to suggest that John had no prior acquaintance with Jesus before the baptism. However, the force of the word "know" needs to be taken into account. The Greek is helpful in this regard. The verb is oida, "to know, understand, perceive," used in the pluperfect (that is, past perfect) tense.

This tense is fairly infrequent in Greek, but when we see it, normally the idea is of action in the past with enduring results. Grammarian Moulton says that this tense is simply the perfect tense placed into the past, relative to the time of the speaker. We might capture the meaning of 1:31 this way: "I myself had not yet come to know him…that is why I came baptizing with water, so that I might know him more completely…" John may well have formed an opinion about Jesus (John and Jesus were related, according to Luke's account), but this understanding was still imperfect. What this verse explains, from the Apostle John's perspective, is that Jesus' baptism was the occasion for Jesus to be "revealed to Israel." That is, the baptism of Jesus was an inaugural event at which God would make the formal introduction of His Son.  [BN, 4-5]

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