Tag Archives: Matthew 4

Bible Study

Matthew 4 sermon for February 4, 2024 — Jesus Plans His Strategy

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I have been asked to give the message during the worship services at Zion Mennonite in Birdsboro, Pa on February 4th as part of a series the pastor is doing on Matthew.  I will be using  Matthew 4 as my sermon text.  I decided to compose my thoughts here and publish them for those who read my blog.

Today’s passage picks up immediately after Jesus had Himself baptized by John.  This is important context because it tells us that Jesus was preparing Himself for His ministry.  Like many men, Jesus hoped to transform the world.  Unlike most, He was going to do so beyond what anyone else could imagine (and well beyond what anyone else had done before, or has done since).

I need to make a slight aside here. I believe that Jesus was fully God, but I also believe that He was fully human. And, as a human, His brain was limited. As a result, Jesus did not possess full omniscience, full knowledge of everything, while He went about His earthly ministry, because the human brain is finite and just cannot contain all of that knowledge.

So, once He was baptized Jesus went into the wilderness to fast and commune with His Spirit, the Spirit of God, about how He should execute His ministry. Or, perhaps I should say that His Spirit led Him into the wilderness to commune with Him.  Into this situation comes the devil to test and tempt Jesus (the Greek word which is most commonly translated as “tempt” can also mean “test”.  And I think both meanings apply here.).  Jesus faced three tests, three temptations, about a way to a “shortcut” to His ministry.  They represent three pitfalls that every spiritual leader can fall into.  And they represent three pitfalls that those seeking a spiritual leader to follow can fall for.

So, the first one:

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.  The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

With the hunger which Jesus was experiencing after fasting for forty days and forty nights, the devil saw an opportunity to offer Him a shortcut which would derail His ministry

Which brings me to one of those rabbit holes I warned you I tend to go down the last time I gave the morning message. “40 days and 40 nights” represents throughout Scripture a period of preparation. When the flood happened, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. When Moses went up on Mt. Sinai, he was on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights (this actually happened twice: once before Aaron made the golden calf and then again afterwards). After his contest with the prophets of Baal, Elijah fled into the wilderness having given up. God provided him with food and he traveled an additional 40 days and 40 nights to Mt. Horeb, where God restored his faith. Then there are all of the periods of 40 years. There is actually a separate message right there.

The devil suggested to Jesus that He could satisfy His hunger by turning stones into bread.  And if He could satisfy His hunger that way, He could satisfy that of the poor the same way.  We don’t really understand the power represented by this, because hunger is not a daily reality for most of us.  We fail to understand the degree to which for most of human history most people went through periods of time where they didn’t know where their next meal was coming from, or even when it might come.  The temptation here was for Jesus to build a following by regularly meeting the physical needs of people.  They wouldn’t really listen to what He said, but they would fight in support of whatever it was they thought He had said.

There is another side to this as well.  We are tempted to follow those who promise us that following them and doing as they instruct us is the way in which all of our physical needs (and perhaps even our physical wants).  Jesus’ answer to the tempter tells us why that doesn’t get us where He wants us to go:  ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’

Jesus rejected  the “prosperity gospel” and the “social justice” answer here.  I don’t like using “social justice” here because it oversimplifies what many of those who espouse it believe they are working for, but I needed something which encapsulates the fact that there are those on both the left and the right who think that the answer is just meeting people’s physical needs.  We need to listen to what God is speaking to us and act upon it.

Which brings me to the second test:

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’

Here, Jesus faces the temptation of a “celebrity” ministry.  Go to Jerusalem and put on a big show.  Everyone will follow you because they want to be close to the celebrity.  Harness the power of the opinion leaders to get everyone on your side.  If Jesus had put on this show, He would have had the priests and the religious leaders on His side, promoting His ministry (after that big miraculous show, they would have had to back Him, or lose their position).  The problem is, those leaders would not have followed Him because they understood how what they had been doing was wrong.  They would have just transferred those same one size fits all rules to supporting Him.  This is the test I have the hardest time summarizing.  It’s the bigger is better philosophy.  Getting caught up in the glitz and glamour and thinking that because it makes us feel good it means we are worshiping God.  Ultimately, it is expecting God to do the hard work and we can just go along for the ride.

I wish I could explain it better, but let’s move on to the third test:

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.  “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’

This represents the temptation to take the political route to fixing the world’s problems.  If Jesus was just the Emperor, He could change things.  He could stop all of the injustices of the system.  From our perspective, the temptation is thinking that if we can just get the right person in charge, if we can just get the right laws in place, we can fix everything.  Jesus sees the problem with this.  In fact, it is built right into the offer.  In order to take this path, you have to compromise with evil to gain the power to act.

All of these are shortcuts to gain a mass following to change things and bring justice to the world.  The tempter told Jesus, “Do these things and you will quickly have a following which will allow you to transform the world.”  Jesus rejected each of these.  Fortunately, Matthew shows us how Jesus chose to build His ministry in the next few verses:

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”  At once they left their nets and followed him.

Rather than seeking  to change the world wholesale, Jesus chose to change the world retail.  Instead of trying to change systems and institutions, Jesus sought to change individual hearts.  He chose a small group of followers and taught them how to act and how to treat others, one at a time.  He didn’t go for a one-size-fits-all method of fixing what was wrong with the world, because He knew that the problem was not the systems.  The problem that needed fixing was the desire in each of us to have mastery over our fellow man.  In order to change that, He chose to teach a few people the power of being a servant.

Daily Bible Study

October 3, 2023 Bible Study — The Scandalous Women in Jesus’ Family Tree

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 1-4.

I had originally not intended to write anything about the genealogy of Jesus which Matthew gives here, but then I was thinking about the fact that Matthew mentions five women in Jesus’ ancestry: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary.  He lists all of them by name, except for Bathsheba.  Matthew tells us that Solomon’s mother had been Uriah’s wife.  In other words, he didn’t want us to miss the scandal around David and Bathsheba’s relationship.  In fact, there was a scandal associated with everyone of the women Matthew mentions here.  Tamar pretended to be a prostitute in order to become pregnant with a twins by her father-in-law.  Rahab was a prostitute.  Ruth was a Moabitess, about whom the Law of Moses said their descendants should not be eligible to enter the Tabernacle, or Temple, for ten generations.  Mary was unmarried when she became pregnant (even though this was a virgin birth, it was still a scandal).  Matthew’s audience would not miss the scandal concerning those four, but they might think about Bathsheba only from her role in King David naming Solomon as his heir.  Matthew made sure that we would not miss the scandal concerning Bathsheba.  He wanted to make sure that we realized that God can, and will, use those we consider improper.  If these women were acceptable ancestors for the Son of God, what makes you think God won’t use you for something wonderful?

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

October 3, 2022 Bible Study — All Of The Factions Viewed The New King Of The Jews As A Threat

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 1-4.

One of the things we often miss in reading the New Testament, particularly the Gospels, is the way in which Jesus’ ministry was connected to what was going on in Judaism at the time.  The Gospel of Matthew was written in attempt to convey the connection between Christianity and Judaism in a manner convincing to Jews.  Which brings me to Herod and why he and “all of Jerusalem” were disturbed by the arrival of the Magi looking for the newborn king of the Jews.  I think that, in part, Matthew included this account because it reminded his readers about the political instability of this region.  Most of us are familiar with the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid dynasty based out of Antioch on the Orantes (a city located in what is now Turkey) to establish the Hasmonean Dynasty over Judea.  What we generally are unaware of is the many civil wars fought among the Hasmoneans.  To a large degree those civil wars were fueled by disputes over the proper way to worship God.  Fights between Jews who had adopted the cultural practices of the Greeks (Hellenists) and those who supported more traditional cultural practices.  Further, it is clear from the stances on these issues taken by the various Hasmonean rulers that the conflicts were more about different factions than about specific religious practices.  Herod the Great had been made king over Judea, in place of the last Hasmonean, by the Romans and despite his cruelty brought a period of stability.   Since Herod was an Idumean who had converted to Judaism, he had brought a sort of peace among the factions.  So, the various leaders of Jerusalem had to be alarmed by the news of the birth of a new king…especially since they knew he was not being put forth by their own faction.  While the various factions hated each other, and fought each other for power, they were united in opposing Jesus because His very existence was a threat to their power.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

October 3, 2021 Bible Study — Produce Good Fruit Or Be Cut Down

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 1-4.

So, we finally get to the New Testament on the 3rd day of the 10th month.  Make of that what you will.  Everything I have read about the Gospel of Matthew says that he appears to have been writing in order to keep Christianity grounded in Jewish tradition.  This suggests to me that even though I would not read the Old Testament prophecies they way he did that much of the Jewish community of the First Century did (even if they did not apply the prophecies to Jesus, they saw them as applying to the Messiah).

As I read this I was thinking about how I was going to write something tying together all of the important things in this passage.  Then I got to Matthew’s introduction of John The Baptist and decided that I was going to focus on that.  Many people came out to hear John’s preaching.  They heard his message and it struck them to the heart.  So, they confessed their sins and were baptized.  When the political leaders realized what was going on, they too went out to hear John.  Except they were not there to hear the word of God.  They were there to harness the popularity of John The Baptist for their own political ends.  John The Baptist was having none of it and he called them out for their hypocrisy.  He told them, and the rest of the people listening, that it was not enough to put on the appearance of righteousness.  We need to hear that message today.  We need to both make sure that we do not fall into the trap of trying to use the show of righteousness for our own ends and call out those who are doing so.  As Jesus is quoted later, we will be judged by the fruit which we produce.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

October 3, 2020 Bible Study Read The Bible For What It Says, Not What You Think It Says

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 1-4

As I was reading Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth and Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt I was struck by something interesting.  I have frequently seen the family (Joseph, Mary, and Jesus) compared to refugees, poor people with just what they can carry on their backs and on the back of their donkey.  I have never questioned that image because it fits with how I think of Jesus’ family going to Egypt.  However, Matthew tells us that the wise men had given Jesus (and, let’s be honest, at that age they really would have been giving it to His parents) gold, frankincense, and myrrh just before the family began their journey to Egypt.  That means that Joseph and Mary were not destitute refugees when they went to Egypt.  In fact, they were relatively well to do at that point.

In addition, reading Matthew’s account of John the Baptist and Jesus’ interaction with John the Baptist struck me differently than I had ever thought of it before.  Typically, we have read this passage as showing John the Baptist as a unique figure who previewed Jesus’ coming.  While there is truth to that and things we can learn about our relationship with God by looking at it that way, I believe there is more to it than that.  We know now that John the Baptist was part of a larger religious movement, perhaps even the leader of that movement, which is only mentioned in the Gospels in connection with John.  Those for whom Matthew was writing would have been familiar with that religious movement to one degree or another.   I believe that Matthew included this account to make the connection between Jesus and that movement.   With his account of John the Baptist, Matthew is placing Jesus in the midst of a Jewish tradition which emphasized faithfully following God.

Daily Bible Study

October 3, 2019 Bible Study — Jesus, a Jewish Rabbi, But Not Just a Rabbi

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 1-4

Matthew starts his account of Jesus’ ministry by establishing the prophetic basis for believing that Jesus is the Messiah, the Chosen One of God.  Matthew also makes the case that God revealed Jesus’ Divine mission in other ways (that is the purpose of including the account of the wise men).  Actually, all of this passage up until Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness serves the purpose of placing Jesus’ ministry in the context of God’s working at the time.  First, Matthew establishes that Jesus is descended from David.  Then he shows the divine nature of His birth.  He follows that up by showing how God revealed Christ to those who worshiped Him who were not Jewish, and the threat which Jesus was to those in political power.  The account of John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism by him ties Jesus to the Jewish religious revival movement of the Essenes (perhaps the only Jewish religious group of the period without a strong hint of hypocrisy about it).  There are other things we can learn from what Matthew wrote here, but his primary purpose in including these elements was to thoroughly establish Jesus’ ministry in Jewish religious traditions.

Even Matthew’s account of Jesus calling His first disciples fits into the Jewish religious context of the time.  However, as I understand how someone normally became a rabbi’s disciple in First Century Judaism, Matthew is using this to show that Jesus was a different sort of Jewish religious teacher.  Normally, someone who wanted to study with a rabbi requested to be taken as his student and the rabbi would accept only the best of the applicants.  Jesus, on the other hand, chose His disciples.  They did not choose Him.

Daily Bible Study

October 3, 2017 Bible Study — Wholistic Approach To Salvation

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 1-4.

    Matthew begins his account of Jesus’ life with a genealogy. Matthew makes a point of noting the fact that there were 14 generations from Abraham to King David, 14 generations from King David until the Babylonian Exile, and 14 generations from the Babylonian Exile until the birth of Jesus. When I went to see if I could find a reference which explained the significance of 14 generations I discovered something interesting, There are only 40 generations (41 if you count Jesus) listed. However, if you read closely you notice that Matthew counted David twice: Abraham to David, David to the Exile, the Exile to Jesus (Jehoiachin is counted after the Exile). I found several explanations of the significance of those 14 generations, but only one that I found satisfying. Matthew pointed out the three sets of 14 in order to illustrate God’s careful planning and foretelling of Jesus’ coming.

    Why was John the Baptist’s reaction to the Pharisees and Sadducees different from his reaction to the “common” people? I think the answer is fairly simple. The “common” people who came to John were fully conscious of their sins. They were the same type of people who today say, “I’m going to Hell, but it won’t be so bad, all my friends will be there.” Whereas the Pharisees and Sadducees were the type of people who made them think that way. The Pharisees and Sadducees wanted to feel the feeling of being cleansed without admitting there was anything from which they needed to be cleansed. If you do not acknowledge that you have done wrong, you cannot stop doing it. It is not enough to come to God and ask for forgiveness, you must also be willing to change, to stop committing the sins which you have identified in your life.

    When I began writing today I was not sure I was going to go over what I think is the core of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. At this point in His life Jesus had realized that He had been called to bring about change in the world. Further, He had a desire, and a plan to do so. The temptations He faced in the wilderness are those faced by anyone who wishes to change the world. Not only that, but they are temptations to focus on symptoms rather than root cause. Each temptation is twofold.
    The first temptation is to provide food (or basic necessities) to gain power, but it is also the temptation to treat the need for basic necessities as the problem which needs to be solved. Jesus refused to accept that the need for food was the basic problem and He refused to use His ability to provide for people’s physical needs to gain power. The second temptation is to use religion to acquire power, but it is also the temptation to divorce people’s spiritual needs from their physical needs. Once again, Jesus rejected the idea that addressing people’s physical needs would solve everything and He would not use His power to overawe people into yielding to Him. The third temptation is the one which opened this all up to me. The third temptation is to enter into the political arena and gather political power in order to address the world’s problems; if we could just fix the problems with corruption and inefficiency in our political bureaucratic organizations all would be well. Jesus rejected the idea that the world’s problems could be solved by playing politics and He refused the compromises necessary to acquire political power. All three of these areas are symptoms of the real problem: our broken relationship with God. We do not need better and more just laws, we need better and more just people. It is not enough to meet people’s spiritual needs, we need to help them meet their physical needs as well. On the other hand, it is not enough to meet people’s physical needs, we need to satisfy their spiritual needs by drawing them into a relationship with God.