Week 35 Matthew
Just before the start of his public life the Lord spent forty days in the desert being tempted by Satan.
The first temptation was a food-related one, a hunger-temptation. Food was part of Adam and Eve’s test. Same with Daniel and his friends. But the Lord’s was a near-starvation-temptation.
I thought back to the Esau story. He was famished and traded off his inheritance to his wily brother for a plate of food (which has to be one of the most stupendously idiotic exchanges in the bible).
The Lord was hungry too. Way hungrier than Esau.
Satan said to him: if you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.
The Lord didn’t say anything to him about being the Son of God. Didn’t say anything about his miracle-working capacities. He just bypassed Satan’s comments like so many monotonous acoustic vibrations thrumming in the desert heat. He got to the real point. People shouldn’t: live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
The main thing the Lord was getting at is that there’s a material dimension to life that’s in the need-to-eat-bread-to-stay-alive domain and there’s a non-material dimension to life that’s in the need-to-take-in-every-word-that-comes-from-God-to-stay-alive domain.
Two parts: Life A and Life B. Bread for Life A; words of God for Life B.
Note: quotes from Matthew 4:3 & 4 (NASB)