Jesus in the wilderness
Forty days without food, then three offers from the devil. What Jesus was actually tempted with, how he answered, and why it isn't a self-help tip.
The story
This happens straight after his baptism. A voice from heaven had just said 'this is my beloved Son', and then the Spirit led Jesus out into the desert. Matthew says it plainly: he was led there to be tempted by the devil. It wasn't an ambush. It was the plan.
He fasted forty days and forty nights. Then, Matthew notes with some understatement, he was hungry. That's when the tempter showed up.
First offer: if you're the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. Notice the 'if'. The devil isn't doubting Jesus can do it. He's poking at the identity that was just announced at the river. Jesus answered with a line from Deuteronomy: people don't live on bread alone, but on every word from God's mouth. He'd rather stay hungry than use his power to prove a point.
Second: the devil took him to the top of the temple in Jerusalem and quoted scripture back at him. Psalm 91, the angels will catch you. So jump, and let God show he's got you. Jesus answered with scripture again: you don't put the Lord your God to the test. Worth remembering that the devil can quote the Bible fine. Knowing verses isn't the same as knowing what they're for.
Third: a very high mountain, every kingdom of the world laid out, and the offer. All of it is yours if you bow to me. This is the one with no 'if'. Just a shortcut. A kingdom without a cross. Jesus told him to get behind him, and quoted Deuteronomy a third time: worship the Lord your God and serve him only.
Then the devil left, and angels came and looked after him. The text doesn't say what that looked like. It also doesn't say the devil was finished. Luke's version of the same story adds that he left 'until another time', which is ominous, and honest.
The verse to keep
But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of God’s mouth.’”
It's already written down: people don't stay alive on bread alone. They live on every word that comes out of God's mouth.
He says it while starving. It's not a slogan about diet. It's a claim about what you're actually made of.
What it actually means
Matthew's first readers were mostly Jewish, and they'd have seen Israel's story replayed. Forty days in the desert like forty years. Every line Jesus quotes comes from Deuteronomy, from the part where Israel was tested in the wilderness and mostly failed: they complained about food, they tested God, they worshipped an idol. Matthew is showing Jesus take the same test and pass it. He is what Israel was meant to be.
Notice that none of the three temptations is obviously evil. Bread when you're starving. Safety. Influence. Each is a good thing, offered in a way that skips God. That is what temptation usually looks like. Not evil in a costume, but a shortcut to something you actually want. And the thing Jesus uses against it isn't willpower. It's God's words, already in him before the desert. That's a case for reading the thing before the crisis, not during it.
What it doesn't mean: that you quote a verse and the devil runs off. Jesus was starving, alone, and there because God's Spirit put him there. The story doesn't promise you won't be tested. It says that when you are, you're not the first, and that being hungry and tempted isn't the same as failing.
Worth arguing about
- 1None of the three offers is obviously wrong: food when you're starving, safety, influence. Which one would have got you?
- 2The devil quotes Psalm 91 accurately. How do you tell the difference between using a verse and misusing it?
- 3The Spirit led Jesus into this. What do you do with the idea that a hard stretch might not be a sign you've gone wrong?
Read it yourself: Matthew 4:1–11
World English Bible. 11 verses.
Whole book: Matthew