Sorry I haven't posted in a while. It takes a long time for me to put the notes into the context of a devotional. For now, I will just pass along bullet points. Since there is so much to each study, I will probably not post every day as originally planned.
The Temptation of Jesus 4:1-11
1. Jesus’ 40 days and nights of fasting recall the Israelites 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and also Moses’ fasting on Sinai when receiving the tablets (both times—Deut. 9:9 and Ex. 34:28). When we are faced with big decisions or turning points, do we ever consider fasting? Fasting was one of the three pillars of piety during the time of Christ. Fasting, prayer, and giving. Jesus addressed these in Matthew 6. He said, "WHEN" you fast, "WHEN" you give, "WHEN" you pray. He didn't say, "IF". Fasting can also be done simply as worship.
2. The purpose of the temptation is to show Jesus’ resolve to be a servant-king.
3. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus was without sin. Can you imagine going through your entire life without sin? Doesn't it give you faith to read the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life and compare them up against the accounts of the lives of Moses, David, and the Prophets? The Jewish writers never backed down from recording their great leaders' sins. Yet, with Jesus, he sinned not.
4. Satan tempts Jesus to move off his mission. To choose the material over the spiritual and to satisfy his physical cravings, and perhaps to opt for a mission as social reformer preoccupied with meeting human beings’ physical and material needs as distinct from their spiritual need to be rightly related to God.
5. Jesus’ response shows his reliance on God’s word by quoting the Scriptures, as he did in response to each of the temptations. In each case, he quotes from Deuteronomy, one of the books of the Pentateuch, associated with Israel’s wandering in the wilderness.
6. Jesus’ mission is primarily spiritual in nature. "Man does not live by bread alone". Jesus recognizes that man needs bread, but more importantly needs God’s word and to be in right relationship with God.
7. Satan takes Jesus to the highest point of the temple—the pinnacle of the royal porch, 450 feet above the Kidron valley. He tempts Jesus to yield to the lure of the spectacular, to use the divine power at his disposal to gain popular acclaim which would merge easily with the common notions about the coming Davidic king as a political revolutionary. Again Jesus is being urged to leave the path of the servant who endures suffering, and to become instead a political messiah who inflicts suffering on Israel’s enemies.
8. Satan was tempting Jesus to move off his mission—perhaps something we would not think of as sinful—but if Jesus had succumbed it would have equated to sin. When we move off the mission God has called us to, we are in sin.
9. Three temptations—1/ Bread. 2/ Belief and testing God. 3/ Kingdoms of the world.
10. Jesus’ mission is to establish the Kingdom of God which means rule over all the kingdoms of the world (3:2, 4:17). Satan is offering a short cut, a way to achieve the end without the costly means. There are no short cuts in the Christian life.
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