The Bible for beginners for 16 July 2005

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

Luke, Chapter 4, verses 1-15

¹ The temptation and fasting of Christ, ¹³ He overcometh the devil, ¹⁴ beginneth to preach

¹And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

²Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.

³And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.

⁴And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

⁵And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

⁶And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.

⁷If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

⁸And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

⁹And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence:

¹⁰For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:

¹¹And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

¹²And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

¹³And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.

¹⁴And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.

¹⁵And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.

Read more:Luke, Chapter 4

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4

4:1 The wilderness - Supposed by some to have been in Judea; by others to have been that great desert of Horeb or Sinai, where the children of Israel were tried for forty years, and Moses and Elijah fasted forty days. Mat 4:1; Mar 1:12.

4:4 Deu 8:3.

4:6 I give it to whomsoever I will - Not so, Satan. It is God, not thou, that putteth down one, and setteth up another: although sometimes Satan, by God's permission, may occasion great revolutions in the world.

4:8 Deu 6:13.

4:10 Psa 91:11.

4:12 Deu 6:16.

4:13 A convenient season - In the garden of Gethsemane, Luk 22:53.

4:14 Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit - Being more abundantly strengthened after his conflict.

4:15 Being glorified of all - So God usually gives strong cordials after strong temptations. But neither their approbation continued long, nor the outward calm which he now enjoyed.

NOTES

The Lord experienced our entire lot except for sin, walked the most difficult paths of life, and brought light to the darkest places. He experienced the depths of the greatest and most terrible struggle into which every person and society as a whole inevitably enter, the struggle against Satan. Let us consider in order what...

What stands out most in the account of the Savior’s temptation in the wilderness is Satan’s powerlessness. The temptations to which we so easily fall victim prove...

The problem of insiders and outsiders has always existed, in every society and every culture. Everywhere and always it turned out that being an insider was better than being an outsider. But then the Messiah came into the world, and it turned out that everything was not so simple. It turned out that an insider is not necessarily someone we know. Most often it is someone we think we know...

The problem of insiders and outsiders has always existed, in every society and every culture. Everywhere and always it has turned out that it is better to be an insider than an outsider. But then the Messiah came into the world, and it turned out that everything was not so simple. It turned out that an insider is not necessarily someone we know. Most often it is someone we think we know. And this is understandable: we perceive our own people as part of the familiar and known world. There is no need to look closely at them, and no need to listen carefully to their words. In general, we already know more or less what our own people can tell us.

Outsiders are another matter. An outsider is always someone you do not know. Someone who is not part of the known and familiar world, and here it does not matter where he is from: another continent or the neighboring village. Outsiders are often rejected, but they are always looked at closely. People listen to what they say. Not necessarily in a friendly way, but always attentively. After all, an outsider has to be understood. Or at least explained to oneself. Explanation is often an illusion of understanding. Understanding presupposes the perception of another person as he is. Explanation begins when we perceive this other person as we want to see him, so that he will fit within the bounds of our perception of the world familiar and known to us.

Christ can and must be accepted as He is. And He can and must be understood too - also as He is. But He does not need to be explained. Not to ourselves and not to others. Provided, of course, that we want to communicate with Christ and not with our images of Christ. And here it turns out that it is easier for those to whom He is an outsider. They know nothing about Him. His own people also know nothing about Him, but they think they know everything. Unlike outsiders, who at least are not mistaken about their ignorance. And it is this way not only with Him.

It is this way with God too. With His heavenly Father. It is no accident that Jesus gives examples from ancient Jewish history of God's not being recognized by His own people. A failure to recognize Him that separates people from God. And from the Messiah too. For God or the Messiah to begin to act, a person must want it. And must turn directly to God. Directly to Christ. But not to those images of God or Christ that he has invented for himself. Otherwise even the Kingdom may turn out to be unreal. Imagined. And so may life in it.

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