Matthew 4:1-17 Jesus tempted in the wilderness
(Psalm 91:9-12)
When Matthew tells us the story of Jesus, he is quite intentionally
linking the story of Jesus to the story of those who have gone before.
Matthew will use John the Baptist for foreshadowing, and he will use the
story of Moses as a powerful leader of the people of God to set up how
important Jesus is.
This is a great passage for seeing some of those connections. What
parts of the story sound familiar? What have you heard before? What
happens next in those stories? Where do they go? What happens next in
this story? Where does it go?
Matthew is more than willing to link Jesus’ story to the story of the
huge figures in the faith of Israel. Are we willing to connect our stories to
the story of God? To the stories of those huge figures of faith who have
gone before us? Perhaps our Puritan humility keeps us from making those
connections, or assertions of those connections. But what if we looked at
our stories through the filters of the stories of faith that have gone before
us? What would we learn then?
