Tag Archives: testing

Someone is going to go too far

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[Matthew 5:38-42]

Someone, this week, is going to go too far.

Someone is going to ask more than they should ask.

Someone is going to insult you.

Someone is going to ask for more than they deserve.

Someone is going to go too far.

You know that it will happen. It happens more to you than to others, perhaps.  But it’s going to happen.

You are going to have to decide, in that moment, how to react.

It will be completely understandable to snap back. It will make complete sense to do precisely what is required and no more. It is to be expected to do what is expected.

I wouldn’t hold it against you at all.

But then, of course, we both would have to figure out what Jesus was talking about when he said to do the unexpected, to go beyond the acceptable response to the insults and attacks sure to come this week.

Because Jesus is saying, well in advance of the insult, to plan to respond differently.

He says you are going to get the back of the hand, someone will insult you with a slap to the face. You have been trained and permitted and encouraged to slap that person back. Your tongue is ready to return the criticism, you mind is rehearsing the devastatingly sarcastic reply.

He says, Jesus says, don’t do it. Instead, start planning now, start rehearsing in your head, turning your face and silently offering the other cheek.

Wait, you say.

Does that mean that if it is an abusive situation that we are to stay in it?

Wait, I say, are you?

Because if you aren’t and you are raising that question rather than preparing for how you will respond to the insult that will come this week, prepare.

when help comes.

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Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. Matthew 4: 11

How far will a text  stretch to absorb the applications we try to make?

We often take what people say and we add to it, we misquote it, we leave words out, we add implications.  It happens all the time in real life, in the life that we live as we walk around work.

But how far can we go when it comes to the words in the Bible?

I mean, in the middle of testing Jesus, the devil cites Psalm 91. “He will command his angels” the devil says, telling Jesus to jump. And Jesus refuses.

And then we get to the end of this round of testing and the devil leaves. And angels show up to take care of Jesus.

Here’s the reason for asking about texts. When we go back to Psalm 91, it is about protection, it is about angels, it is about trampling on lions and snakes.

My symbolism side want to say this:

The devil is known as a serpent. The devil is known as a roaring lion. Psalm 91, quoted by the devil inappropriately, is acted out in this whole period of testing appropriately, with symbolic detail.

But I don’t want to work too hard to make the connections. Part of the challenge of following, the challenge of obeying is, as we talked about a couple days ago, looking at the whole text, not just pieces. And so we have to be careful of flights of application fancy.

However.

What we see acted out in the time of testing is that Jesus went through trials, he didn’t disobey the Father, he quoted God’s words to the devil, the devil left. Deutoronomy 6 and Exodus 7 and Psalm 91 have all been useful. And angels attended him.

Hmmm.

Testing God

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[Matthew 4:5-7]

Don’t test God.

That’s what Jesus says to the devil.

The devil said to jump off the temple wall. He said that God had promised to send angels to catch people who were falling.

Jesus says, “It is also written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Want to go exploring?

Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy 6:16. But he left out part of the sentence. There Moses writes, “Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah.” So let’s keep going.

Deuteronomy 6 refers back to Exodus 17.

The Israelites were on their way from Egypt to Mount Sinai. More accurately, they were on their way where God was guiding them. They didn’t know where exactly they were going, they just knew that they were following fire and a cloud. They discovered that they had come to a place where there wasn’t any water. So they grumbled and quarreled. With Moses.

Moses tells them to trust God. The God who brought them out of Egypt. The God who made a path through the sea. The God who had given them food, with very precise instructions that showed them that he would provide for them if they trusted.

But trusting wasn’t what they did. They grumbled.

And Moses said, “why do you put God to the test?”

God was testing their faith in him. He was giving them an opportunity to trust Him. But rather than trusting, they were creating a test for him: give us water or we will question whether you are really God.

And the place was called testing, Massah. And forty years later Moses says to the people, “Don’t test God like at Massah.” And several centuries later, Jesus says to the devil, we’re not supposed to test God like at Massah.

Risky business

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[Matthew 4:5-6]

The devil says to jump.

That’s what Matthew tells us in his description of the testing of Jesus.

You know the thing mothers are supposed to have said? When you say that everyone is doing something, they are supposed to say, “If everyone was jumping off a cliff would you jump?” We know enough to not respond to that kind of pressure.

But what if ‘everyone’ was quoting the Bible?

I mean, that’s pretty authoritative, right? So if the Bible says “jump”, then we should jump.

But the Bible doesn’t say to jump, particularly not in the passage that the devil quotes. The passage is about protection in the face of adversity, not willful leaping from tall buildings for the sake of defending God.

“What? For the sake of defending God? Where is that in the text?”

The devil quotes scripture. The implication is, if you really believe in God, you will do this. Otherwise you prove that you don’t really believe God, that you don’t trust him, that you aren’t really a follower. You have to jump to defend God.

But here’s the risky business of the title. It isn’t in jumping. It’s in listening to single sentences out of context from known deceivers.

When a person known to lie about everything accuses someone of not being very Christian, what, exactly, does that mean? Compared to how Jesus would have responded in the same setting?

When a person unfamiliar with any of the Bible says, “Aren’t you supposed to love everyone? So why are you not helping me?”, what exactly, does that mean? Compared to how Jesus would have responded in the same setting?

Jesus will respond to the devil with a different passage, one used accurately. And in that, a guideline:  read the whole book.

learned means usable

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Many people have memorized  the Bible. Most people who watch sporting events have memorized John 3:16, for example.

But that doesn’t mean they know what it means.

Some people have memorized parts of the Bible. From phrases to sentences to paragraphs to pages to whole books, people have memorized  the Bible.

But that doesn’t mean they know what it means.

Some people teach other people about the Bible. They can talk about how many books there are, how many versions have been written. They can talk about how many authors may have written which books of the Bible. They can speak with great confidence.

But that doesn’t mean they know what it means.

Some people can study in several languages. They have learned Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and Latin. They can explain now the tenses of a particular verb mean this in the original language, but were translated incorrectly by that group. As a result, they tell us, we have all been wrong for the last 1900 years about what Jesus really meant.

But that doesn’t mean they know what it means.

Jesus was forty days into a fast. He was hungry. He needed food.  Not wanted, needed. And forty days into this fast, the devil shows up to test him, to show him what it feels like to be human.

The devil reminds Jesus that Jesus has the power to turn stones into bread. (As will be seen later, Jesus could take a five dinner rolls and feed 15,000 people.)

And Jesus says, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”Matthew 4:4

In the face of adversity, to remember and say and live even one sentence our dad told us, that is knowing what it means.

Jesus knew.