Matthew 4 presents this temptation briefly in two verses. Most students of the gospels are familiar with the situation and the temptation. Jesus fasted for forty days prior to the temptation. He was [understandably] hungry. The temptation suggested Jesus address a real physical need by giving that physical need immediate attention and focus.
Consider two suggestions.
First, consider the fact that this suggestion seems "innocent": both Christians and sinners often react by saying, "Why should that suggestion be regarded as temptation?" The physical need was real and legitimate. The suggestion was not, "Why don't you prepare yourself a banquet and indulge yourself." The suggestion was, "Why not prepare for yourself some simple, daily food and thereby guarantee your survival."
A common reaction is this: the request was wrong because it came from Satan. Thus the "wrong" in the temptation is not to be discovered in the suggestion, but in the source of the suggestion. [This is not intended to imply that Satan ever encourages us to do something good.] This suggestion easily misses the devastation of the temptation by reducing it to a simple issue of authority. "If God says do it, do it! If Satan says do it, do not do it!" In no way does this suggest we should not obey God. It acknowledges a struggle most of us endure: it often is difficult to decide if God or Satan seeks to direct us. The issue behind the temptation likely involved much more than a question of authority.
A second common reaction is this: the "wrong" of the temptation involved Jesus' abuse of power. The reasoning usually follows this path: (1) Jesus' power came from God to confirm his identity through helping others. (2) If Jesus benefited from the power, he abused the power. (3) The request was for Jesus' to use the power selfishly to benefit himself. Several considerations need to be examined in this reasoning. Jesus often benefited from using the power. Mark 1:30-31 tells about Jesus healing Peter's mother-in-law of a fever. Immediately after her healing, "she waited on [served] them." If Jesus received her services, he benefited from her services and thereby from the miracle. When Jesus turned water to wine at the marriage feast (John 2:1-11), if he drank any of that wine, he benefited from the miracle. In Matthew 14:25 Jesus walked on the sea of Galilee in the last watch of the night. He miraculously did so. He benefited from the power. More was involved in the temptation than a personal benefiting from the power that God granted him.
Include in your thinking and understanding the entire context of the situation. Immediately before the temptations, he was baptized to "fulfill all righteousness." Immediately after his temptation experiences, he began his ministry. His baptism and the temptations focused Jesus on (1) who he was and (2) what his priorities were. He successfully could enter his ministry if (1) he knew who he was and (2) he knew what his priorities were [if you would like to confirm the importance of Jesus' understanding his priorities, consider John 4:31-33]. It is disastrous for physical needs to distract a person who follows God from superior spiritual priorities. Jesus understood who he was only if God's will was supreme in his life. Jesus understood his priorities only if God's will was supreme in his life. He immediately was to inaugurate his ministry. His ministry would conclude with his atoning death and his hope-giving, life-giving resurrection. Then was not the time to give physical need a priority consideration. Jesus was focused on God working through him and his mission. To take his focus away from God's purposes in him or his devotion to God's purposes and to place his focus on physical need served Satan's purposes, not God's. At that moment, the challenge was to realize this: "Understand who you are and understand your priorities by focusing on God's purposes for you." At that moment, the challenge was not physical survival.
Second, note Jesus' response to this temptation. "It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." The "it is written" quotation comes from Deuteronomy 8:3. Read Deuteronomy 8:1-6. Moses reminded the Israelites of the reasons for their wilderness experiences. "Why did you go through the wilderness for forty years? Why did you experience those struggles? Why did you experience hunger? Why were you fed with manna? Why did nothing you wore wear out?"
Consider the reasons Moses gave Israel for their wilderness experiences. (1) God was humbling you. (2) God was testing you, providing you an opportunity to show Him what was in your heart. (3) God was developing within you the realization that you can depend on Him. (4) God brought you to a needed understanding: the understanding that you are secure when God takes care of you.
Israel desperately needed to learn a lesson. God's signs and wonders in Egypt failed to teach them this lesson. Though God delivered them with His powerful hand and strong arm, (1) they failed to attribute their deliverance to God's acts on their behalf, and (2) they failed to learn they could depend on God. They proved they failed to learn this essential lesson through their desires and actions in Exodus 32. They reverted to idolatry and credited the idol [the golden calf] with their deliverance from Egypt and its slavery (Exodus 32:4). They did not need Moses! They did not need the God Moses represented. All they needed was the golden calf they made! God delivered them from slavery, brought them to Mount Sinai, and spoke the Ten Commandments to them--and they learned nothing!
The wilderness experiences were intended to teach them what they failed to learn in their deliverance! What did they need to learn? They needed to learn to depend on the God they did not make and could not control. They needed to learn humility before their living God! They needed to reveal to their living God that their hearts had changed! These former slaves had learned who the true master of life was! They needed to learn (1) everything was not okay because they were in control and things were to their physical liking, but (2) everything is okay when God is in control even if it is not to their physical liking.
One way God taught them this lesson was through their hunger and His manna. God taught them there is much more to life than having something to eat. God taught them listening to Him is more essential than food. God taught them dependence on a trustworthy God--He, not they, was in control.
This statement in its context was truly applicable to Jesus' circumstances. The wilderness was a time of humility, dependence, and focusing on the real purpose of his life. It was a time to be certain security was placed in God, not in meeting physical desires. Jesus' understanding ended the temptation to turn stones to bread!
Please note that Satan used an "innocent, everyday need" in his attempt to focus Jesus on something other than God. Would you agree that suffering is a companion of hunger?
Thought and Discussion Questions
Link to Teacher's Guide
Lesson 10