Temptation of Jesus

In this episode, Dr. Gurtner and Tyler talk about the passages in Matthew and Luke in which Jesus is tempted by Satan. They discuss the different nuances and the big picture takeaway from that passage. Dr. Gurtner also shares how we can start to analyze these complicated passages with our own readings.

Creators and Guests

Host

Dan Gurtner

Professor of New Testament Studies

Host

Tyler Sanders

Director of Communications

Producer

Courtney McCaa

Digital Media Specialist

What is Conceptions and Misconceptions in Studying the Gospels?

Dr. Dan Gurtner takes on challenging passages and common misconceptions in the Gospels.

Tyler Sanders 0:03
This is Conceptions and Misconceptions in Studying the Gospels with Dr. Dan Gurtner, Professor of New Testament studies at Gateway Seminary. Today we're looking at the temptation of Jesus found in Matthew chapter four, Mark chapter one, and Luke chapter four. I'm your host, Tyler Sanders, and to kick things off, Dr. Gurtner, can you give us a little orientation to the text? Tell us a little bit about what's going on.

Dan Gurtner 0:23
Sure. Thank you for having me, Tyler. I think the first thing to always remember when reading the gospels, and this one's no different, is to remember that this is about Jesus. And we always know that, but sometimes we lose sight of that. But we first want to ask, what is this telling us about Jesus? So we remember that when this narrative is being told, there are a lot of things we can get out of it, there are a lot of things we can understand about it, there are a lot of things that we might want to ask about the text and ask of the text, but remember that the gospel author is trying to tell us something about Jesus. And so he's not necessarily trying to tell us about other things about what we can and can't know about the devil, what we can and can't know about temptations, and all kinds of other things. There are a lot of things that might occur here, but not all of the things that he's trying to tell us. So ultimately, he's trying to tell us something about Jesus.

Dan Gurtner 1:20
We also want to notice some things that occur, like biblical authors, the way they want to emphasize things. You know, they didn't have highlighters, they didn't have bold print. So the way they emphasize things is by repetition. So what we see here repeated, is this question about the Son of God. So the issue that's driving this is about Jesus being the Son of God. And also, whenever you look at any passage, you want to understand the context. So where has Jesus just come from? And then where is he going? So where Jesus has just come from is the baptism, and what has just happened there is he comes out of the waters of baptism, and this voice from heaven, and we all know who the voice from Heaven is, it's God, saying, "This is My beloved Son, with whom I'm well pleased." So God is saying that Jesus is the Son of God. And now what happens immediately after that is Jesus is in the wilderness and there's question about him being the Son of God. So it's important to recognize that this whole thing has a context. So Jesus is the Son of God, there's no question about that.

Dan Gurtner 2:40
And so as we read the temptation narrative, we need to think...Matthew is not questioning whether Jesus is the Son of God, and actually I don't think Satan is questioning whether Jesus is Son of God. There are different ways to translate this, and to understand this 'if'. In other words, I don't think Satan is saying, "I'm not sure if you're the Son of God, could you please prove it? And then I'll make an assessment." I think he's saying...a better way to understand this 'if' is in the sense of sense. In other words, if you're the Son of God, prove it. Show me. In other words, since you are the Son of God, do this. In other words, these temptations make no sense, if it doesn't presume that Jesus is the Son of God.

Tyler Sanders 3:33
Yeah, sure.

Dan Gurtner 3:34
So 'because you're the Son of God do this, because you're the Son of God do that'. So in terms of framing it, in terms of the big picture; number one, we try to understand the context or we understand it's saying something about Jesus. So it's not primarily about me and how I face temptations. Try to understand what it's saying to ancient readers about Jesus. We're trying to understand where it occurs in the narrative, God has just said, Jesus is the Son of God, okay. That's a non-negotiable, we got that. We look for repetition, where the author is emphasizing something, okay. Satan is saying; Son of God, Son of God. So this whole thing is about Jesus being the Son of God. So that gets us going out of the gate.

Tyler Sanders 4:18
Yeah. Now, maybe a good way to kind of take a next step would be...let's compare a little bit between the accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. So I think we're going to start maybe in Matthew. Mark's account is very short, Luke's is about the same length, but it is a little different. So what are some of the things that are the same? What are some of the things that are different?

Dan Gurtner 4:42
Sure. Well, first of all, when we want to make some comparisons between Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we're going to need to recognize what we're doing. It's sort of like if you were to compare like a major sporting event. A major event in a hockey game or a baseball game or something like that. You can have eyewitnesses witness the same event, maybe a major home run, or a fantastic goal, or a fantastic save, or a shot in tennis, and they can describe the same event and even have some different emphases, some different chronology, they might be sitting in a different place in the stands, and they can all be completely accurate. But their accounts can be totally different. They're not going to be verbatim identical. In fact, if they're verbatim identical, you're assuming somebody has copied from somebody. So we're gonna see that their accounts are different, and actually their order is a little bit different. So when we look at Mark, for example. Mark's gospel is noted for being kind of rapid fire. He likes to say, and immediately, and immediately, and immediately. So there's a sense of urgency. Some of his accounts are a little longer. But if it's not a place where he wants to dwell, Jesus is often running to the next thing.

Tyler Sanders 6:17
We see that twice, really, right here.

Dan Gurtner 6:20
Yeah, so "immediately drove him into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness 40 days, tempted by Satan. He was with he was with wild beasts." And then next thing. So whatever Mark wanted his readers to get from this, it didn't take him much.

Tyler Sanders 6:38
Yeah.

Dan Gurtner 6:39
So he didn't need much space to do it. For Matthew and Luke, we see a couple of things that are unique to them. Luke has Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit, and he has the order of the temptations reversed.

Tyler Sanders 7:13
Yeah, I thought that was fascinating, because they both start with the bread. But then it seems like Matthew's account progresses kind of...intensity was the word I was thinking of. It certainly increases a couple of different ways, but even just the height. Like, the first temptation it seems like they're on the ground, then they're on the temple, then they're on a mountain. It's like growing, growing, growing. But then also you have this sense that of like...it seems small to turn, I mean it would definitely be a miracle, but it seems smaller to turn stone into bread and then the next thing being when he's on the temple, he has this temptation, just throw yourself down, you're gonna be okay. And then the last thing is the big temptation, right? Worship me. But Luke flips the second and third one, so that they end at the temple. That was the only thing I could kind of see that seemed to be an important distinction. Maybe that was what Luke was trying to do is show the final temptation being connected more towards the temple. What do you think the difference there is?

Dan Gurtner 8:21
Well, we can sort of see...well, one of them is chronological and one of them is topical. And the gospel authors tell us which one is which. It's actually Matthew that tells us which one.

Tyler Sanders 8:36
Really?

Dan Gurtner 8:37
There's very little difference.

Tyler Sanders 8:39
Where's does it say? Oh, I'm looking at Luke right now. Where does it say...what's the indication in there that it's chronological?

Dan Gurtner 8:44
It's the word 'then'.

Tyler Sanders 8:45
I see. So like, verse five.

Dan Gurtner 8:48
Matthew uses the word 'then' at the beginning of verse five, at the beginning of verse 10. So 'then' is a sequential word. That indicates sequence. So they're both inspired by the Holy Spirit, they are both entirely historically accurate. It's just saying that for whatever purpose-and Matthew could have rearranged it too and it still would have been just as accurate-but for whatever purpose, Matthew chose to preserve the historical order, the sequential order. And Luke as we know from reading, remember Luke in his preface says that he writes for Theopholis and he presents to him "an orderly account" of the things that he has researched. So Luke's saying that, when he says that in Luke 1-4, he's saying that, well sometimes things are chronological sometimes they're not but there's always a reason. I always have a reason for how I'm putting these. There's always a purpose for how I'm ordering things. So, sometimes we can know what that purpose is, sometimes we can't. So why does Luke go from, He goes from being hungry and in the wilderness, and then he goes to being in the...It's strange, in Luke's account it doesn't say, "he takes him up". Like Matthew says, "he takes Him up to a high mountain".

Tyler Sanders 10:26
It just says he shows Him the kingdoms.

Dan Gurtner 10:28
Yeah, he took Him, in Luke 4 verse 5, the devil took Him up.

Tyler Sanders 10:36
Yeah.

Dan Gurtner 10:37
Up where? It doesn't say, he just takes Him up and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And this is another interesting...well, we can get to this later. "If you will worship me all this will be yours" and then he ends at the temple. Yeah, why does Luke end at the temple, whereas Matthew ends at the mountain?

Tyler Sanders 11:07
Matthew ends at the mountain and the other-I guess that stuck out to me as like, he's ending at the temple and maybe that's an important reason-but the other reason, I guess, could be that Luke's order; the questions are basically, since you're the Son of God, then worship me, and then it ends again on the Son of God question. Where Matthew goes. Son of God, Son of God, worship Satan basically as Lord. So I guess that could also be potentially something Luke is aiming for. Like he wants to reemphasize the same question again of whether Jesus is the Son of God, the answer of course being yes.

Dan Gurtner 11:52
You mean for Luke?

Tyler Sanders 11:53
I'm sorry. Yeah, Luke.

Dan Gurtner 11:54
Okay. It's interesting, the way Luke ends his account, in chapter four verse 12, it's very different from how Matthew's ends.

Tyler Sanders 12:11
Yes.

Dan Gurtner 12:12
About the closure. In Luke 4:13, "when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time." Now nowhere else in Luke, do we have Satan showing up. Actually, nowhere else in the gospels do we have Satan himself showing up. Now, what we do have, what we do have is when Jesus is taunted at the cross. That is in Matthew too. Matthew 27:40, "You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Save yourself, if you are the Son of God." The exact same phrase.

Tyler Sanders 13:08
That's true.

Dan Gurtner 13:08
That's found in Matthew, but it's the exact same phrase, as Satan uses in the temptation. Now, sometimes the Gospels, I think, in this temptation account can kind of help us interpret each other. And by that, I mean, what Luke says here is that Satan is not completely done. And Matthew shows us sort of where that occurs. We see that a couple places in Mark and in Matthew. We see that here where the "if you are the Son of God", that taunting, those words come right from Satan. We also see that at Peter's confession, when Peter says, "You're the Christ, the Son of the living God", and Jesus says, essentially, 'Yeah, you're right. I'm the Christ. Now, here's what the Christ is going to do. He's going to suffer and die for your sins.' Peter says, 'No, you're not that kind of Christ'. And Jesus says, 'Get behind Me, Satan. Your definition of the Christ is from Satan.' So there's some of Satan's influence. So, Satan's influence is throughout the Gospels. But Luke is the only one that tells us that.

Dan Gurtner 14:19
Something else that Luke helps us to see, that I think Matthew agrees with, but he doesn't say, is when the devil offers to Jesus the kingdoms of the world, in Luke 4:6. He says, "To you, I will give all this authority and their glory." And Luke alone says, "For it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will." Jesus doesn't say, 'No, it's not yours. You can't give it to anybody.' It only makes sense if that is true. And Matthew doesn't say anything about that. I think Matthew presumes that to be true. Then Luke continues, 'If you will worship me, it'll all be yours.' And Jesus doesn't say, 'Well, it's all mine anyhow', or 'it belongs to God, it's not yours'. I think what's happening here is that Jesus knows he's ultimately going to get all this stuff when he comes to his messianic glory. And that's through the cross. And Satan is offering him to get these things now, without having to go through the cross. And Satan knows that. Jesus knows that. But my point earlier is, look at the way these conclude. In Luke it says Jesus simply answers. "It is written. You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only you shall serve." And then 'the devil ended every temptation until an opportune time.' In Matthew, Jesus said to him, "Be gone Satan." He kicks him out. And then gives the explanation, "The Lord your God, you shall worship and Him only shall you serve." Now, nothing's changed about Jesus in verse 10. So presumably, he could have done that all the way back in verse one. While he's hungry. And as soon as Satan shows up and says, 'Hey, why don't you turn those rocks into bread?' He could have told him that then. Nothing's changed. So let's go back, and couple other things. Well, why don't you, you had something you were gonna say.

Tyler Sanders 17:03
Well, this might be where you're headed with this anyway. But I kind of wanted to talk about the nature of these three questions and the temptations that Jesus actually faces. I think the clearest one is the worship. That seems like such an obvious temptation to deviate from God's plan, but I think it's a little bit less clear why turning stones into bread is a temptation, I think. So I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about why that actually is a temptation.

Dan Gurtner 17:36
Yeah, well, let's go back and look at some of these in their context, and again, make a couple observations about the differences between Matthew and Luke, and how they help us to understand each. In Matthew, Jesus is led up, by the spirit, in the wilderness. And there are some really subtle differences that we can miss. And it shows up in most translations. But again, you got to compare the same translation, and in original languages it shows up too. But if you notice in Luke, it says 'he was full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for 40 days in the wilderness, comma, tempted by the devil'. In Matthew, 'Jesus was led up by the Spirit, into the wilderness, to be tempted by the devil'. What's the difference?

Tyler Sanders 18:48
Well, it seems, in Matthew that the purpose of going-

Dan Gurtner 18:52
There's a purpose, yeah.

Tyler Sanders 18:53
To the wilderness is to be tempted.

Dan Gurtner 18:54
To be tempted. So Jesus is led by the Spirit. So the Spirit is the one who leads Jesus there in the first place, for the purpose of being tempted by the devil. And in Luke's, it says that he ate nothing in those days. Matthew says that he fasted. So there's a difference between eating nothing and fasting. Especially in Matthew. Matthew equates fasting in the Sermon on the Mount with acts of righteousness. Fasting, giving of alms in prayer. So this is not just, he just stopped eating because he didn't have anything to eat. This was an act of righteousness that Jesus was actively doing. And that becomes important because in the rest of the temptation narrative, Jesus is extremely passive. I don't know if you've ever noticed that but when he goes from point A to point B, he doesn't go anywhere. He's taken somewhere. He doesn't look at something. He is shown something. He's extremely passive. So he's fasting 40 days and 40 nights. Matthew adds that 40 days and 40 nights. Well, what's that about? Does it just means he's not snacking at night? There are a couple of places where what Matthew does is, he adds these phrases that cumulatively will add up to something-we'll look at that as we kind of go through-of where he's sending us. He's building a portrait of Jesus in some respects. So the tempter comes to him and 'if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread, loaves of bread'. So what's wrong with that?

Tyler Sanders 20:53
We've seen water to wine already, you know?

Dan Gurtner 20:56
Yeah. Although that's in John. "But it is written, man does not live by bread alone." And that's where Luke ends. Matthew continues the quotation, "but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Now, what does he mean by 'every word that proceeds from the mouth of God'? What does that refer to?

Tyler Sanders 21:27
I mean, I would assume that's referring to basically the Old Testament, right?

Dan Gurtner 21:31
The Old Testament, sure. Scripture, divine revelation. Sure. And so what he's saying is, eating bread itself, of course, it's not a sin. Jesus never uses his miracles to provide for himself, not that that necessarily would be a sin, but he never does that. But the point here is that the life giving sustenance of Jesus' provision is not from bread. The life giving sustenance of Jesus' provision comes from the Word of God. That's his point. That's the contrast that he's making here. So it's not that it would be a sin, as much as he is making a point.

Tyler Sanders 22:21
Gotcha.

Dan Gurtner 22:21
[Satan]'s asking Jesus to use his son of God's status, to provide for his own physical needs. When Jesus is saying, 'I have needs that are greater than my physical needs, and I have the supernatural power to do what you're asking, but I have a higher need, which is sustained by the provision that comes only by the supernatural power provided by the words of God. And that's what I need.' So he's responding in that way. So I don't think, and interpreters try to, 'well, providing for himself is just not what Jesus does,' and that's true. But I don't know that it would be a sin for Jesus to do that. And I don't know that that's his point. I think the point is that Satan is trying to get him to do something and the way Jesus responds is everything. To draw that the thrust of Jesus' sustenance comes not solely from bread, bbut from the saving power of God's word.

Tyler Sanders 23:38
Yeah. Now, is that the same kind of pattern we see in the next two temptations as well?

Dan Gurtner 23:43
Well, the next one is really interesting. Because here, Jesus interprets what Satan is doing for us by how he answers. I'm in verse five of Matthew chapter four, "Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple." So, how did Jesus get there? Matthew doesn't tell us. But all we know is that the scripture says, "The devil took him." We don't know how. Somehow Jesus is passive and allows the devil to transport him to Jerusalem from the Judean Desert. And said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down"-by the way, the pinnacle of the temple is just some precarious position, it might be over the southern steps. It's just, it's dangerous. It's high. He's gonna get killed if he jumps. It's not an architectural feature, is my point. "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down." And essentially Satan, he's playing a chess match. 'Okay, you quoted Scripture against me. I can quote Scripture against you.' "For it is written, He will give His angels charge over you, and on their hands that will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone." And here's Jesus answer, verse seven. "Again, it is written, You shall not tempt the Lord your God." Now, this is where our red flag should go flying up. Because what Jesus has just said is that 'what you're doing, Satan is, that what you're telling me to do would test God. Would tempt God.' So whatever else Satan said, we can understand that what Jesus says is right. What Jesus says is always right in the Gospels. So what Jesus says is that, what Satan told him to do would be tempting God. Fair enough.

Dan Gurtner 26:14
So let's do a little bit of algebra, hermeneutical algebra. Let's see. Satan told Jesus, jump off the temple, and his rationale was, this Psalm says you can do that. Okay, well, let's see what this Psalm says. So this is Psalm 91. Let's go back to Psalm 91 and see where it says, if you're the Son of God, you can jump off the temple, and that's a good thing and God's gonna protect you. And why Jesus says that jumping off the temple is testing the Lord. Now, I'm gonna read through the whole Psalm, it's kinda long, it's 16 verses, and I'm reading from the ESV. So bear with me here. "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, will abide in the shadow of the Almighty." Now, this is a Psalm of worship. This means that 'the person who regularly dwells in the shelter the most high', that means the person who is regularly going to Jerusalem and regularly participating in corporate worship in the temple, will have the protective care of God. That's what Psalm 91:1 means. And then this is the psalmist profession, "I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress," God, you are my refuge and my fortress, "my God in whom I trust. For He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions," that's part of a wing, "under his wings, you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and a buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noon day. 1000 may fall at your side, 10,000 at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, the most high who is my refuge, no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands, they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent, you will trample underfoot because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him, I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him, with long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation." So what does this Psalm say about the angels rescuing this person? What does this person do that causes God to rescue him?

Tyler Sanders 29:23
Well, I'm reading the NASB which has the word abide in it, in that first verse, which that's what it seems like to me. It's like this is a person who abides with God, they have closeness with God and therefore God is a refuge and protects them.

Dan Gurtner 29:43
Sure. It is a regular and customary and habitual faithfulness to God. And this is how God tends to respond to people who are in that covenant or relationship. Now what is Satan asking Jesus to do?

Tyler Sanders 30:03
Do something dangerous, and I think to test that.

Dan Gurtner 30:07
To instead of, in the ordinary course-this song is addressing people in the ordinary course of covenant fidelity, this is how God addresses this. What Satan is asking Jesus to do is to step out of the ordinary course of covenant fidelity and force God's hand. It is sort of like, I don't know, jumping in front of a car because you want the car to go somewhere else. You're obligating. It's like, once I played a friend in checkers, and I didn't know he was a really good checkers player. I don't know if you ever played checkers. But I knew my skills in checkers advanced maybe to about second grade, and then I stopped advancing. And he was like a competitive checkers player online. And he just, it was so unnerving, because he could make me do things I did not want to do. He would move his pieces, and I had to do certain things. And that's exactly what Satan is trying to get Jesus to do. Do this, so that God does that. You're obligating God and Jesus says, that is putting the Lord your God to the test, and that is sin, and I will not do that. That's what Jesus means when he says, Satan, what you're telling me to do, you're yanking that scripture out of context. And you're telling me to obligate God, and that is putting the Lord your God to the test. Fine, you quote scripture, anybody can quote scripture. You're yanking it out of context to cause me to do that. Now, here's the really cool thing about that. Remember how we said that the angels coming to help Jesus from Psalm 91, is for somebody who is abiding in God, it is a result that you can't manufacture. It is something that God does in respond to simple everyday covenant fidelity. Look at how Matthew 4 ends. Matthew 4:11, "Then the devil left him and behold, angels came and were ministering to him." So there is that, not obligated, but there is that vindication, that validation that; yes he was that faithful, abider of Psalm 91, but he was not that tester of the Lord, that Satan wanted him to be.

Tyler Sanders 32:44
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because I think if you read all of Psalm 91, that another good example that you said, the idea of stepping in front of a car to try to change its direction. It would be sillier to use this other image, and that's probably why we don't see it here, but it would be the idea of going and messing with a lion or a cobra. Assuming, 'No, I'm protected because God said a lion can't hurt me' or whatever. But that's not really-you're kind of missing the point, if that's your interpretation of this passage, that I can fight lions now.

Dan Gurtner 33:25
Yeah, yeah. I thought about that, too. As I was reading that. I'm like, nobody would do that, would they? Right? No. But yeah, that's a good illustration, too. Yeah.

Tyler Sanders 33:34
So that's two temptations. So let's look at the third one in Matthew then, that next one in the progression.

Dan Gurtner 33:42
Yeah. And you notice that in this one, Matthew says the devil took him up to-remember in Luke it says, it took him up. In [Matthew], it's up to a very high mountain. So I mentioned earlier that there were some words that are unique to Matthew that cumulatively point us somewhere. We saw "every word that proceeds from the mouth of God", that was added. That was found in Matthew. We saw...

Tyler Sanders 34:17
Was it the 40 days and 40 nights?

Dan Gurtner 34:18
"40 days and 40 nights". And here we see "up on a high mountain". So on a high mountain, 40 days and 40 nights, and thinking of every word proceeding from the mouth of God. What this cumulatively points to is Moses receiving the 10 Commandments on Mount Sinai, Exodus chapter 23. And so what interpreters commonly recognize is that in a sense, Jesus is being presented here as a new Moses. And what exactly that means is somewhat debated. Some people will say, 'well, he's becoming a new lawgiver'. Well, he's not really a new lawgiver, because I don't think in the Sermon on the Mount, which is coming up pretty soon, he's not really giving a new law. He's really explaining the old one. But that's cumulatively, I think, what he's pointing to. He's also quoting from Deuteronomy, all these places which is where Israel has failed. So in a sense, he's like a son of God, Israel was considered a son of God, and is succeeding where the son of God had failed in the Old Testament. But at the end of the day, Jesus is not like Moses, he's similar to Moses, but not like Moses. He's not dying for anybody, Moses never died for anybody's sins. He's similar to Israel. But he's not like Israel. He's not the embodiment of Israel. He's not a corporate person. So ultimately, his Son of God-ness is entirely unique, as the Emanuel. But when we get to the final temptation, the opportunity or the question about his Son of God-ness, is dropped. There's no question about if you are the Son of God. He's taken to a high mountain, he's shown all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. How on earth Satan did this, we don't know. And for Matthew's purpose, we're trying to understand what Matthew is communicating to his readers, we can only assume that Matthew has told us everything we need to know.

Dan Gurtner 34:39
So if Matthew didn't tell us, we don't need to know. I'd be really curious, but we don't need to know to understand what he's trying to say to his readers. What we do need to know is that Jesus was offered the kingdoms and their glory, and presumably that had some appeal. That was so appealing to Jesus, at least in the mind of Satan, that Satan offers these to Jesus, 'I will give these to you, all you need to do is fall down and worship me.' And that somehow, Satan thought that there was a realistic possibility of this. Now, you might say, well, Satan is a liar, so why would he even think that that's a possibility? How is this a temptation if that's not even a possibility? Well, again, I think that the possibility is that Jesus knows what is in front of him. That he knows that the kingdoms and all their glory is going to be his, on the other side of the crucifixion and the resurrection. And I think this is harshly hinted at, at the Great Commission. When he says all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, and so forth. So what Jesus hadn't yet fully experienced is- he's gonna get the wrath of the Father. I mean, it's one thing to say; I'm going to be crucified, which he does know about and he does disclose to His disciples. But for Satan to, in a sense say, you can avert the wrath of the Father, the eternal wrath of the Father now, by simply bowing down and worshiping me, and get what you are going to get anyhow. In that sense, I think this becomes a real temptation.

Tyler Sanders 38:30
Yeah, for sure.

Dan Gurtner 38:54
But the response is, again as I said before, Jesus first commands, when he could have commanded before, and then gives the rationale. The command to 'be gone Satan', the rationale is the worship is exclusively due to the Lord his God.

Tyler Sanders 39:19
And what's powerful, I think about that like we kind of already said, is the follow up verse of that is then the devil leaves, and the angels come to minister to him, which kind of reflects that Psalm 91 idea.

Dan Gurtner 39:33
Yeah. And that throughout-and here's something that I want to move a little further to. We've said that this says something profound about Jesus and it does. It says that Jesus is the tried and true son of God. Tested in every way and yet without sin. He has been tested in ways that you and I had never been tested. And with pressures that you and I will never experience. And so, as the author of Hebrews says, he's able to sympathize with us and our weaknesses. At the same time, he has all of this authority and all this power to drive away Satan, with two words "be gone Satan", and yet he allows himself to be carried about by Satan, to be shown all these things. And the only means by which he combats Satan in this entire confrontation is with scripture. And I take tremendous encouragement from that. So if we believe Paul in Colossians 1; Jesus sustains all-he created the entire universe and he sustains all things with his powerful word. So Satan is telling him to turn these rocks into bread, and Jesus made those rocks. And Jesus could have done anything he wanted to. And he chose to use scripture. That's something that you and I can do. This is compelling for me to do scripture memory. And to hide God's word in my heart that I might not sin against Him, and to use it in my struggle against sin, seriously. And if Jesus the Son of God, when combating Satan face to face, the only time that we really see in the gospels, feels it's a suitable tool to combat Satan, the only tool that he uses to combat Satan. I think that's compelling evidence for me, and a good motivation to memorize Scripture.

Tyler Sanders 41:58
Do you feel like that's a good-One of the things we've been wanting to talk about as we've been preparing for this podcast and how we want to talk about this is, how should a person read the gospels? How should, in a church context, how should we approach reading the gospels? And we've kind of made that step a little bit here, in how you interpret this passage, but could you kind of unpack that a little bit for me? Like what's the process like for a person reading this to get to that conclusion?

Dan Gurtner 42:29
Yeah, I don't think that saying that this is a model for me, is the primary way to apply it. In other words, I think that the primary purpose of the Gospels are to tell us things about Jesus. And so in terms of the primary application, I think the primary application is to build us up in confidence about who Jesus is and what he's done for us. So that whatever we pray to Him, whenever we ask him for things, whenever we wonder whether he is sufficient to pay for our sins, whether he has the authority with the Father, or the good standing with the Father to be our High Priest, to make appeals on our behalf. We have a great deal of confidence, in terms of that standing. So what I've done in terms of application is really two ways. One is to look at what it says about Jesus, and then how to turn that teaching about Jesus and apply that teaching about Jesus to the church today. And that's where I say it's primarily about Jesus being the Son of God, and then how do those truths about the Son of God apply in church context? And in the walk of faith? And then are there other aspects, secondary aspects, that we can glean from this, that might be picked up by an original reader that can also transfer to us today? So I think things like, just good examples. Are there good examples that can be illustrative? So I think certainly a good example is internalizing scripture. But I also don't think that this is necessarily a blueprint. I don't think Matthew is giving us a blueprint for how to combat Satan in spiritual warfare. I would look for clear scripture to articulate this kind of thing. So we think of putting on the spiritual, the full armor of God and those sorts of things.

Tyler Sanders 44:55
So would you say it's fair then, and correct me if I'm maybe overstating this, but maybe a good first step then for someone reading the gospels is to change their orientation a little bit, and don't approach the text saying; What is for me in this text? What am I gonna get out of this text? And maybe changing the question more, especially in the gospels, to like; what is the text telling me about Jesus? That's the first question. And then when you kind of answer that question, you start picking out different things that you can start seeing more of what that may mean to me in terms of, if this is true about Jesus, how does this affect my life?

Dan Gurtner 45:43
Well, I think that maybe we could even take it a step further. And let's just say, for example, you turn on a National Geographic biography. And you find out somebody from the Middle Ages, and let's just say you never even heard of this guy, and he wrote this letter to his love interest and it's really moving. And you've never heard of either one of them before and the only thing you know about them is from this love letter. And you're gonna really pay attention to that. You're gonna think, 'Oh, that's really interesting. He thought this and he thought that.' And it tells you a lot about his personality tells you a lot about him. There's something to be said for reading the New Testament first, like you paid attention to that love letter. Because in a real sense, we're reading something that was written to somebody else from somebody else. So when we read Galatians, we're reading somebody else's mail.

Dan Gurtner 46:37
So that's where I'd say, let's think first of all what Matthew's saying. Because we tend to think of Jesus, so personally, which is good. But we tend to gravitate towards, you know, if we're very relational, we tend to only see the relational aspects of Jesus. If we tend to be very rational, we tend to see only to the rational aspects of Jesus. So we tend to see ourselves and that causes us to miss so much. So if we can just step back long enough to just ask ourselves, what is Matthew saying to his original readers about Jesus? Let's just listen. And I know that sounds kind of cold and calculating and historical. But I think that, if we can do that for just a few minutes, in our first step, we can distance ourselves from the text just for a few minutes, long enough to read it a little bit more clearly, to understand what the author says, and then sort of reengage it in a way that will help us to see it more clearly.

Tyler Sanders 47:49
Yeah. Well, maybe to wrap this up, we can summarize that a bit for this passage, for Matthew four. So what is the big idea here?

Dan Gurtner 48:00
The big idea is that Jesus is the tested, tried and true Son of God.

Tyler Sanders 48:06
I love that. I think that's a great way to wrap things up today. And what we should say for for next time is, join us again- well, maybe we can figure out what passage we want to talk about. Give people a little homework.

Dan Gurtner 48:20
Sure. How about we go...you and I have looked a fair amount at The Stilling of the Storm. And let's sort of, as a teaser, as we talk about conceptions and misconceptions, that's one that a lot of people sort of go to and their first response is; what does this mean to me? And I wonder if listeners would maybe take a few minutes and think, what is Matthew trying to say, Matthew, Mark, Luke, trying to say to the original readers? If you sort of start there before you start thinking about what it might mean to you in the first step, you might be able to see it through a different set of eyes. And we'll look forward to talking about that next time, see if you might see something that's both different and a lot more profound.

Tyler Sanders 49:11
That's good. Well, we've got the passage and we've got the task. So read the Bible and catch up with us next time.