The Temptation for Jesus (3)

and he was in the desert for forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.(1:13)

The first temptation that Jesus got from Satan was a request like this: "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."(Matthew 4:3) Satan's requests sound very interesting. He put the preposition "If you are." Jesus might receive this kind of requests lots of time from others. And also he could ask himself too, couldn't he? He could have liked to prove "if he is the Son of God or not" in any methods. One of them could be to change stones into bread.

First of all, let's ask like this. Could Jesus change stones into bread? Many Christians might think like this: of course, he could, but he did not, because he did not want to be led into temptation. Well, it might be possible. But it is meaningless to ask if Jesus has this kind of power or not. Those questions belong to the heavens of curiosity, not to the spiritual realm. These questions are ones that Satan might pay attention to.

These days when people have attentions only to reinvestment are for Satan. Modern people whose interests are just in the price of apartments, stocks, expense for education are friends of Satan's. Satan's requests to mock Jesus 2000 years ago happen to us these days over and over again. Roughly speaking, neodemocracy is Satan's ideology, what to change stones into bread is the most valuable thing to do. How do we Christians overcome this kind environment of today? What is worse, we might provide with some tests to Jesus to change stones into bread, having shoulder to shoulder with Satan?

If we are true disciples of Lord Jesus, we should be able to change Satan's request into spiritual one. And then we should ask like this. "Lord, what is a true bread to revive us?" In this sense, Christian spirituality might be an ability to differentiate worldly questions from spiritual ones. It is an ability to differentiate what kind of question could be to revive mankind and ecosystem from what could kill them.

Jesus answered like this to the request of Satan: "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God"(Matthew 4:4) This teaching means that we need bread as well as the words of God to live a life? On the surface, it may sound like he emphasizes both bread and the words, but actually he does not. To live on bread people do without learning from anybody. Jesus does not mean we need both bread and the words. Jesus' answer focuses on the words of God only.

Yes, it is true. If people understand the words of God in proper way, they could share bread with others. Church should pay attention to only teaching properly the words of God. Church should be able to say to the world that this much of bread is enough. That is a short cut to revive mankind.

Lord, we like to live with attention only to the words through the mouth of God rather than an economical magic power to change stones into bread. Amen.