Luke 4:1-13

Transcript

00:00:00:19 – 00:00:30:21
Clint Loveall
All right. Well, welcome back, everybody. Who calls out a week today in the Gospel of Luke moving in to the fourth chapter. A fascinating story. This is not unique to Luke. This is told in the other gospels, some of the other gospels as well, significantly as Jesus begins his ministry. The first episode that we see is the temptation narrative and there’s a lot about this.

00:00:30:21 – 00:01:00:03
Clint Loveall
It frames Jesus spiritual struggle. It’s a kind of supernatural story. It gives us a preview of some of Jesus own work and some of the themes that we’re going to see. But these stories have been really important in our understanding. And so let’s look at Luke’s version here. We’ll go through a little bit of this and then we’ll start and talk about it.

00:01:01:03 – 00:01:23:27
Clint Loveall
Chapter four, Verse one Jesus full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, where He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. There for 40 days, he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days. And when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, If you are the son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.

00:01:24:03 – 00:02:00:08
Clint Loveall
And Jesus answered him, It is written. One does not live by bread alone. So if we stop there, Michael, a couple of notes about this text. There are a couple of biblical words that when we see them, we ought to be aware of them and we ought to understand that they mean more than the word itself. So when we see the word wilderness and when we see the number 40 in the Scripture, it’s not that those aren’t literal numbers and a literal place, but it’s more than that.

00:02:00:30 – 00:02:34:35
Clint Loveall
Wilderness We had this conversation in Exodus. Wilderness is always telling us something about the experience there. When we when we encounter wilderness in Scripture, it’s not simply telling us a location, it’s telling us something of the condition, a difficult time, a testing time. The same is true of the number 40. When we read 40, it is often less about the literal number of days or years and more about the character of that period of time, which is difficult.

00:02:34:49 – 00:02:55:57
Clint Loveall
Now understand, I’m not saying that this isn’t 40 days as in 40 literal days, but I am saying that when the Bible says 40, pay attention because it’s not. In fact, in some ways the most important thing it’s telling you is not the length of time, but what happens during that time. And I think that matters here. Michael.

00:02:55:57 – 00:03:05:56
Clint Loveall
Both of those are keys that we should just a a Bible reader ought to run into those words and go, Oh, I know something about what Luke’s saying here.

00:03:06:23 – 00:03:31:49
Michael Gewecke
We have said this over and over and over again, and so I’m not going to linger with it. But we should definitely recognize that the understanding of Jesus going into the wilderness is certainly a connection to the experience of the people of Israel in the Old Testament, the idea of wilderness and testing, which we had spent lots of time in our previous study in Exodus, the idea of 40, which appears as that testing period throughout the Old Testament.

00:03:32:06 – 00:04:01:39
Michael Gewecke
It’s another way of linking back to that theme. But in this case, I think it is unique in that it is not only linking back building a bridge to the Old Testament, which we talked about, the many ways Luke has done that already, but it also creates a bridge here into Jesus’s ministry, because if you had the earlier parts of this book first three chapters, there’s a lot of stuff happening that involved Jesus, people talking about him, people prophesying over him.

00:04:02:06 – 00:04:32:36
Michael Gewecke
You do have Jesus going to Jerusalem, but even in that, Jesus isn’t taking a lot of action, is a lot of third person narratives happening here. What we’re going to see happening now in the middle of this story, and we’ve already had it in verse four, Jesus is going to begin to be the sole actor upon which everyone else in the story is simply a character in Jesus is now going to be the permanent sole focus of everything that follows.

00:04:32:58 – 00:04:57:37
Michael Gewecke
And what this temptation narrative is going to serve to do is we’re going to go into the wilderness with a Jesus who’s been claimed by God. Then we’re going to come out of the wilderness on the back side. Jesus, having proven his fidelity, proven his faith and his ability and that will then be behind us and everything following that is going to center on who this person is and why he’s the difference for the entire world.

00:04:57:48 – 00:05:26:04
Clint Loveall
There’s a sense here in which for all of us, I think not just for Jesus, before we can pursue our calling, before we can pursue faithful ministry, before we contend with others, we have to face the struggles of ourself. We have to face our internal battles and these temptations in, in essence, speak to Jesus inner fortitude, his inner faithfulness.

00:05:26:42 – 00:05:52:28
Clint Loveall
The first one is the most obvious, and we should maybe before we get there, Michael, we should probably have this moment where we talk about devil. And let’s be careful with the devil because we we don’t want to make that a caricature. This is this is the power of evil that seeks to work against God. And we minimize that when we think guy with horns in a red suit.

00:05:53:07 – 00:06:17:20
Clint Loveall
This is this is everything that would undo what God is trying to do in Jesus. This is the temptation, both external and internal, for Jesus to be something other than what he is and for Jesus to take a path other than that which God has put before him. And so we when we personify the devil, I don’t mean there’s something wrong with that.

00:06:17:20 – 00:06:45:50
Clint Loveall
We just don’t want to under value the reality here that Jesus is in contention with the same thing that led to Adam and Eve to forfeit their place in the garden. The same thing that leads people to leave the path of faith. This is a real moment for Jesus when the power that stands against God tries to take him astray.

00:06:46:12 – 00:07:16:22
Clint Loveall
And and that’s real. I think we have to understand that battle. And here it’s couched in physical terms. He’s famished. And so the first temptation is the most obvious. Feed yourself. Use these powers to serve yourself. And Jesus answers with scripture. It is written. One does not live by bread alone. In other words, one spiritual life is in some ways more important than one’s physical life.

00:07:16:55 – 00:07:43:49
Clint Loveall
This is the kind of thing that Jesus will come back and say again. I don’t know if there’s much to say about this first temptation, Michael. I mean, again, it probably is the most obvious. Jesus is famished. He hasn’t eaten, He’s been fasting, and now he’s tempted to care for himself, to give in to his physical desires, which is in some ways the basest temptation.

00:07:44:00 – 00:08:05:34
Michael Gewecke
It is. I think it’s worth noting, you said, Clint and is right, that this story appears repeatedly in multiple gospels. And one of the reasons for that is indeed that connection to the Adam and Eve text and the idea of here again, the tempter has found the child of God and the question of the reader is, will this one to be tempted?

00:08:05:49 – 00:08:38:00
Michael Gewecke
So that’s the question leading us in. And this is not explicit in Luke’s text, but I just want to point out, isn’t it interesting that the very one who’s going to give to his disciples in a number of chapters, the Lord’s Supper, he’s going to institute, I’m the bread, I’m broken for you, that the very first temptation involves, Here’s bread, eat it beat, be full, be hungry, and Jesus pointing that it’s God’s sustenance within us that is ultimately the measure of human life.

00:08:38:00 – 00:09:09:39
Michael Gewecke
And ultimately we are going to discover that Jesus himself is bread for our human soul. And so that I think, is the amazing teaching that’s happening here, that we see that something is true for Jesus here at the very outset of his ministry. But even in his testing, we are being taught that we should have faith and hope because what Jesus is going to accomplish in successfully passing this test, he’s going to pass on to us in his own spiritual nurturing.

00:09:09:48 – 00:09:18:33
Clint Loveall
Well, yeah, and not too far down the road to that end, Michael, along that point, Jesus is going to miraculously feed others.

00:09:18:58 – 00:09:19:44
Michael Gewecke
Right, with.

00:09:19:44 – 00:09:42:36
Clint Loveall
Bread and yet refuses to do that for himself here, refuses to let his physical body dictate what he does with his power as the Son of God. So then we move on to the next episode year. Then the devil let him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said, I will give you their glory.

00:09:43:12 – 00:10:11:54
Clint Loveall
All this authority for it has been given over to me and I can give it to anyone I please. If you then will worship me, it will be yours. And Jesus answered. It is written. Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him. There’s a couple of things happening in this. The idea that Satan is the or that the devil here is the ruler of the world.

00:10:12:09 – 00:10:34:35
Clint Loveall
This is a kind of early church teaching. This is a kind of we’re going to see this even in this gospel. We’re going to develop this idea that there is the spiritual kingdom in the earthly kingdom. There there is the worldly place that we live in that is run by sin, and that the devil here claims authority or lordship over it.

00:10:34:51 – 00:10:55:24
Clint Loveall
I’ll give you power. I’ll give you the kingdoms of the world, because it’s mine to give. If you will worship me. The word worship is to magnify or to bob down in front of me and you can have it. So this is a political temptation. This is a temptation of power. We’ve seen a physical temptation. Now we’ve seen a status or power.

00:10:55:24 – 00:11:24:18
Clint Loveall
Temptation. And again, we see Jesus answer with scripture. It is written Worship the Lord your God and serve only him. In other words, I won’t bend the knee to anyone. I won’t bow down to you. And you know, I suppose, Michael, again, we see the dominoes here, the base temptation of your physical self, your cravings and desires. Now we have a little more sophisticated temptation.

00:11:24:18 – 00:11:35:36
Clint Loveall
The idea of power, the idea of rote ruling, the idea of authority and status. And again, Jesus quoting Scripture puts the devil in this place.

00:11:35:36 – 00:12:09:34
Michael Gewecke
Yet to be clear, in the first case, the devil is making a case to essentially nourish Jesus’s physical life. Here. He’s asking Jesus to give over his allegiance to someone other than the one true God. And once again, Luke is doing this from a very scholarly perspective. We might miss this if we don’t dig in. But here these words that come from Psalm chapter two, verse eight, The psalmist writes, Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.

00:12:09:55 – 00:12:35:52
Michael Gewecke
That’s God speaking. So here Satan is taking on that voice and claiming to be able to give Jesus something that only God could give. So when Jesus chooses God over Satan, he’s choosing, the higher the better He is choosing the right path as opposed to the counterfeit path, which I think it’s worth noting that this is not just made up out of thin air, that once again there is a biblical nature to this temptation.

00:12:35:52 – 00:13:00:14
Michael Gewecke
And Jesus once again answers that with a biblical response. But not just that. Isn’t it interesting that the devil shows the kingdoms of the world and says, I will give their glory? And this authority for it’s been given over to me? You know who else claimed that authority? You know who else claim to be the ones who were in charge of the kingdoms of the world?

00:13:00:39 – 00:13:33:46
Michael Gewecke
That was Rome. That’s Caesar. And so Luke is making an unbelievably slight yet powerful jab once again that not even Caesar, he’s third in command. You’ve got Caesar, then the Satan, and then you’ve got the dog, the Almighty, the Creator, the one who is the king of all the kingdoms. And I think once again, there’s a lesson in that for the earliest Christians, there’s a lesson in that for us, to be quite frank, that we sometimes mis ascribe authority in measures that is not due.

00:13:33:57 – 00:13:43:40
Michael Gewecke
That earthly authority is temporary and given by the God of all creation. But there is only one true key holder and that’s God himself.

00:13:43:49 – 00:14:04:19
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and I think it’s probably worth saying that, you know, somewhere in the background here, Michael, is the idea that one should not trust what the devil says. So this ought not be taken at face value that it’s been given to me, that I can give the authority of the world to whoever I want, that that is not the way the devil is pictured in Scripture.

00:14:04:19 – 00:14:37:37
Clint Loveall
The devil works within a framework that God allows or that God tolerates. Maybe it it is not clear that the devil actually has the authority that He’s claiming here, much like we saw in the Genesis study, that the devil cannot be trusted. The snake tricks evil, the power of evil is deceptive. And here that deception is to say, if you will bow to me instead of and the implication instead of to God, there will be an earthly benefit for you.

00:14:37:37 – 00:15:01:46
Clint Loveall
And Jesus is unwilling to do so. Then we move to the final temptation in Luke. The devil took him to Jerusalem, placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said, If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written. He will command his angels concerning you to protect you, and on their hands they will bear you up.

00:15:02:09 – 00:15:22:03
Clint Loveall
So that you will not dash your foot against the stone. Interesting. Here we see a repeat of a phrase in the first temptation we saw. If you are the Son of God, but you can read that almost to say, since you’re the son of God, command the stone and really the temptation there has more to do with the bread here.

00:15:22:03 – 00:15:52:03
Clint Loveall
The challenge is to prove it. If, well, if you’re the son of God, then show yourself to show. Do something miraculous. Put yourself out there so that God will rescue you. And notice here that again, in in the idea of twisting things, the devil quotes scripture for the devil can recite these verses, but use them woefully out of context and use them entirely for the wrong reason.

00:15:52:03 – 00:16:35:04
Clint Loveall
Trying to get Jesus to do this thing, almost implying that it’s biblical, that he would do so. And Jesus once again answers we see here in 12, Jesus answered, It is said, Do not put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus effectively says, I don’t need to prove anything. What I think is really intriguing about this, Michael, is where it happens that they’re taken to Jerusalem and the pinnacle of the temple, a sort of nod to Jesus being the Messiah, a kind of claim.

00:16:35:45 – 00:17:01:42
Clint Loveall
There’s a sort of religiousness to this. You could prove it. You could show everyone, you could remove all doubt. We’re here at the temple, we’re in the holy city. I can quote the Scripture to you that would let you to jump. This is a this in some ways is the temptation of a false teaching, of a false belief.

00:17:01:42 – 00:17:08:18
Clint Loveall
And it looks and sounds like faith, but it’s exactly the opposite.

00:17:08:36 – 00:17:28:39
Michael Gewecke
This isn’t the majority point that Luke’s making. I think the majority point that Luke’s making is that fundamentally, when Jesus is put to the test, he chooses God over his on the claim, He chooses his Sonship over a desire to be greater then which is the fundamental sin that we see in the the sin narrative in Genesis chapter three.

00:17:29:04 – 00:18:07:01
Michael Gewecke
What I do think is being taught here, though, and what should not pass. We should not get through this text without noticing that the tempter uses the text itself. And so when we think about studying the Bible, we should avoid the mistake of thinking that there is this interpretation that is clear to everyone and is unassailable that that somehow the text is gild and perfect and perfectly understandable, because here the text is used in such a way that it, if acted upon, would have made Jesus unfaithful.

00:18:07:01 – 00:18:31:58
Michael Gewecke
It would have drawn him away from his call to be Sun and the claim that God just made on over him in his baptism just a few verses ago in our study yesterday. I think the point I want to make here is just quite simply, we need to be careful in how we interpret Scripture and practice a kind of humility in coming to these texts with the awareness that they can be used wrongly.

00:18:31:58 – 00:18:52:44
Michael Gewecke
And in fact, we might, even as people who are reading this, be able to say they can be used exactly opposite their intention. And it can sound good, it can sound really good. And so whatever that line that you draw or whatever that position that you take on the particular text that you’re interpreting or studying there should be a dose of humility.

00:18:52:44 – 00:19:08:18
Michael Gewecke
In the midst of that, an openness to revelation that Jesus Christ might be able to show us, teach us, lean into our own lives so that we might not take a text and understand a text exactly opposite the way it was intended.

00:19:08:44 – 00:19:48:37
Clint Loveall
I think that’s well-said, Michael. I think that’s a very pressing and important point here. Jesus. Yes, He counters the devil here, but he counters scripture with Scripture. The devil gives him two passages that suggest why he should do this thing right. And Jesus counters that teaching with it with his own understanding of a different scripture. And so there is something deeply challenging in that it would be wonderful if it were as simple as finding something in the Bible, Right?

00:19:48:54 – 00:20:16:37
Clint Loveall
But Jesus here at the very outset of his ministry helps us see that it is not simply knowing it, it is understanding it, and it is Jesus relationship with God. It is Jesus own faith that allows him to say it in this moment. It is this idea voiced in Scripture that should guide me and not this misapplication or misappropriation of some other texts.

00:20:16:48 – 00:20:46:01
Clint Loveall
Yes, it’s in there, but it’s the wrong word at the wrong time. And and Jesus pushes back with the right word in the right moment. And then we finish with this line. Michael, when the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. And this was the idea that Jesus had has passed. Jesus has survived this moment in the wilderness, this difficult struggle, the wilderness moment.

00:20:46:01 – 00:21:21:09
Clint Loveall
And the 40 days are behind him. And now sort of vetted in that experience. He’s ready. Having faced inner and outer turmoil and temptation. He’s ready to move into his ministry. The Luke gives us a foreshadowing here. The devil doesn’t just go away. The devil goes away waiting for an opportune time. And that that sort of dark hint hangs over the rest of the story.

00:21:21:25 – 00:21:32:31
Clint Loveall
And I don’t know if it ever comes back explicitly. Maybe you could argue the Last Supper, but it’s a reality of the way that Luke understands the rest of the story.

00:21:32:43 – 00:21:54:09
Michael Gewecke
This is one of the ways that we know that this is a gospel and not just a historical account, because the idea of the opportune time assumes that you know what that means. And we know that it means that in the end, Satan will achieve what appears to be an earthly victory in the conquering of the Son of God.

00:21:54:09 – 00:22:31:08
Michael Gewecke
And what’s fascinating about that is knowing the darkness actually will only emphasize the light. It will only emphasize the victory that comes on the other side. And Clint is just it’s words like this and it’s crafting like this in Luke that shows us that this is not an immature and this is someone who assumes a basic understanding of the gospel and is helping us to see that even when Jesus conquers in the wilderness, we shouldn’t be surprised when Jesus appears to lose to the cross because this is all tied in together.

00:22:31:31 – 00:22:37:48
Michael Gewecke
The story is cohesively well told and it’s not an accident that it’s come to us that way.

00:22:37:48 – 00:23:16:17
Clint Loveall
Yeah, to some extent. Maybe you could say that. That what the devil learns is that Jesus is not susceptible to a frontal attack, that that is going to the devil thinks he’s going to have to be more subtle now in the way moving forward. But the reality that we, the reader, get going forward is that we know that ultimately this contest isn’t over, that we’ve we’ve seen round one here in the desert, but we know that’s not the end of this story of good versus evil, of Jesus versus devil of Kingdom versus Kingdom.

00:23:16:35 – 00:23:18:14
Clint Loveall
And there is much more to come.

00:23:18:54 – 00:23:38:09
Michael Gewecke
The only last word here is just note. There are three temptations and that in the same way that the 40 days matters, three matters as well. There’s a completeness to these temptations that in many ways shows us that if Jesus is able to sustain all three of these, He is able to fight back every single temptation that might come.

00:23:38:09 – 00:23:48:01
Michael Gewecke
So that the idea at the end of this text is that Jesus has completely circumvented sin, not just these three individual things. This represents a totality that we should recognize.

00:23:48:01 – 00:24:14:20
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And I think also categorically, Michael, you have a personal temptation. You have a political or power temptation and you have a religious temptation. So not only has Jesus survived three temptations, but they represent really the whole sphere of human temptation, right? Taking care of self or being selfish, gaining power for oneself or proving oneself for adoration and worship.

00:24:14:20 – 00:24:17:16
Clint Loveall
And I think you know that that also matters.

00:24:17:16 – 00:24:40:37
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, it sets Jesus into his ministry, fully proven, fully set out to mirror your words. At this point, everything that follows this is Jesus, the Son of God acting in his power and rightful place because he’s been tested and he has been found fit. He’s been found authentic. He’s been found faithful to who God has made him and called him in.

00:24:40:58 – 00:24:48:25
Michael Gewecke
And that divine relationship has been affirmed. And now everything that follows will be done in the power of that.

00:24:48:34 – 00:25:18:07
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I don’t I don’t want to take us. Yeah, I don’t want to take us longer than we need to. But interestingly, Matthew ends with the power temptation, Jesus looking down on the surveying the kingdoms of the world and then telling this the devil worship and serve the Lord only Luke ends with the religious temptation, the the Jerusalem temptation.

00:25:18:07 – 00:25:44:42
Clint Loveall
And it’s not at all a different story, but the ordering is a different emphasis. And whereas Matthew, is that idea of are you tempted to rule Luke is perhaps more interested in wants to leave us with the last word of are you tempted to prove that you’re the Messiah in a way that isn’t ready, isn’t, isn’t right yet?

00:25:45:41 – 00:26:07:10
Michael Gewecke
There’s a lot here and there’s quite frankly, way more than what we could spend time with today. Hope there’s been something encouraging. Interesting, challenging, maybe even new for you in the study here today. And do join us next Monday when we can take you with verse 14, Jesus being filled with the power of the Spirit is a amazing move in this story, and you’re not going to want to miss it.

00:26:07:10 – 00:26:10:06
Michael Gewecke
Give this video like so others can find it. Subscribe and we’ll see you next week.

00:26:10:10 – 00:26:18:45
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.