Luke 4:1–11 ESV – The Temptation of Jesus – And Jesus, – Bible Gateway

This passage in Luke is just so rich in meaning and parallels it is difficult to limit it to some quick observations. Just the first line relates to Jesus being baptized by John and that the Holy Spirit descended and now Jesus is filled and led by the Holy Spirit is filled with mystery.

The first Sunday in Lent always uses a reading dealing with an account of Jesus’s temptations in the desert. Since it is year C, we are using Luke’s account. In scripture, we see the significance of the number “40” as it relates to a period of purification, testing, and also of preparation. We see this first used as it related to Noah and we especially see this in the Exodus account. In Exodus, the Israelites start their journey by passing through the Red Sea before entering the wilderness. St. Paul in 1 Corinthians (10:1–4) describes this event as them being baptized into Moses. An allusion that was also picked up by the Church Fathers. Jesus is baptized and then also enters into the desert.

Jesus spend these 40 days fasting from all food and at the end, Luke says “he was hungry.” This seems like such an understatement while also pointing to the humanity of Jesus. He is then presented with a series of temptations from the devil.

Jimmy Akin notes:

The Greek verb used here (peirazō) means not only tempt but also test. The devil can be seen as testing Jesus—putting pressure on Jesus to see whether it is possible to get him to give in to sin. [1]

As he also notes this could be a test by the devil to find out if Jesus is actually the Son of God or that this is just done out of sheer spite, without actual hope of corrupting him.

In Luke’s account, the order of the three temptations is different than that of Matthew. In Mark, it is only mentioned briefly that Jesus was tempted by Satan. Brant Pitre writes that “we don’t exactly know which order they happened in but you can make a strong case—is that in Luke’s account, he’s highlighting the order that corresponds to the order of Adam’s fall.”[2] In Luke, “Jesus’ genealogy is presented, going back to Adam. Like Adam, Jesus is tempted by the devil. Unlike Adam, Jesus is victorious over temptation, thus revealing that he is the one who can save humanity from sin.”[3]

In 1 John 2:16, we see a formulation of three dominant temptations. “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life.”

We can see this plainly in Genesis 3:6:

6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Brant Pitre’s summary of the Threefold Concupiscent states:

It’s basically the universal, human, experience of a disordered desire for pleasure (the pleasure of the flesh, that’s the lust of the flesh), whether it be sexual pleasure or the pleasure of food and drink. Number 2, a disordered desire for possessions, that’s the lust of the eyes. We see something that doesn’t belong to us and we want to possess it, like Eve saw the fruit and wanted to possess it, even though it didn’t belong to her. And the third one is pride or vanity. It’s a disordered love of self to the exclusion of the love of God, and that’s what happens to Adam and Eve. It was desirable to make one wise like God. In other words, they want the wisdom of God, they want to be wise like God, by breaking God’s commandment (which is irrational, but it’s what drives them). So they choose three things that are actually good. The fruit is good, food’s good; possessions are good, God gives Adam and Eve the whole word; and even the desire to be like God is a good thing, to be wise is a good thing. But in this case, they want good things but in a bad way.[2]

The devil’s first question seems to be a test of Jesus if he will serve his own needs or those of others? In the second question, the devil assumes what Jesus would later call the Prince of the World. That he has authority over the kingdoms and thus control over their ultimate destination. That if only Jesus would bow down to him, he would release his grip on the world and give control to him. Jesus again answers him again with scripture in that it is only God we should worship and serve.

Peter Kreeft offers what he calls an original and unusual interpretation of the second temptation.

If you do things your way, only some of your beloved children will be saved and I will keep some of them forever in hell. But if you do things my way—if you bow down to me and my will—I will release all those souls from hell and you will get what you most want: to save everybody, all these children you so dearly love. And that—universal salvation—would be the very best thing that could possibly happen, the greatest good in the world. So that was a real temptation to Christ. But the means to that end would be the worst sin, idolatry, worshiping a false God instead of the true God. So this is a temptation to let the good end justify an evil means, to be a moral relativist, a utilitarian, a pragmatist.[4]

The third time the devil decides to quote scripture himself and uses part of Psalm 91 as a proof text. A test of pride to see who Jesus is. That if he is really the Son of God why go through this slow reveal and get right to it and show his power. Possibly hoping that Jesus might have a “Don’t you know who I am?” moment. The fallen angels, who are beings of pure intellect, fell through the only sin they could seem to commit—pride. To place oneself always before others. Jesus’ humility was something he could not grasp.

Philippians 2:8: And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Ironically the devil quotes from a Psalm that was used in Jesus’ time for exorcisms and he leaves out a subsequent verse.

You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.

This is a good reminder that when someone throws a proof text at you, to read for context.

To summarize this section of Luke we can look at Paragraph 539 of the Catechism:

The evangelists indicate the salvific meaning of this mysterious event: Jesus is the new Adam who remained faithful just where the first Adam had given in to temptation. Jesus fulfills Israel’s vocation perfectly: in contrast to those who had once provoked God during forty years in the desert, Christ reveals himself as God’s Servant, totally obedient to the divine will. In this, Jesus is the devil’s conqueror: he “binds the strong man” to take back his plunder. Jesus’ victory over the tempter in the desert anticipates victory at the Passion, the supreme act of obedience of his filial love for the Father.[5]

And then Paragraph 540:

Jesus’ temptation reveals the way in which the Son of God is Messiah, contrary to the way Satan proposes to him and the way men wish to attribute to him. This is why Christ vanquished the Tempter for us: “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sinning.” By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert.[5]

Sources

• The Gospel of Luke, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Rev. Pablo T. Gadenz
• Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Year C
• Catholic Productions, Commentaries by Brant Pitre
• Jimmy Akin’s Studies on Mark (3 vols.) – Verbum
• Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

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1. Jimmy Akin. (2014). Mark, A Commentary  ↩
2. Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre  ↩
3. The Gospel of Luke, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Rev. Pablo T. Gadenz  ↩
4. Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Year C  ↩
5. Catholic Church. (2000). Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd Ed). United States Catholic Conference.  ↩

Luke 6:39–45 ESV – Bible Gateway

In today’s Gospel, Jesus set forth a series of what Peter Kreeft calls comic analogies. Humor often uses the element of surprise or a reversal, and this follows up well considering the Beatitudes and this third part of the Sermon on the Plain. We have, likely, heard these short parables multiple times, and they have become proverbial such that we can miss what quite funny contrasts they are. The blind leading the blind is such a great mental picture, and the idea of a guy with a builder’s plank in his eye taking a splinter out of someone else’s eye seems more Looney Tunes than sacred scripture. We can quickly think of Jesus always being so severe and can miss the playfulness in his preaching at times. On this aspect, I think of the end of G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy:

He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.

This is not simply a case of Jesus telling his listeners to mind their own business because you also have similar or other sins. It is a call to repentance to help out our brother truly. A call to self-knowledge, which is a path to humility. To be aware of our spiritual blindness and how it hinders our lives in giving ourselves to others.

Jesus continues on this theme by comparing the good tree and the bad tree and the fruits they bear. A theme used in the Old Testament and one Jesus uses elsewhere regarding the fruit we should be bearing. The early Christians also used this biblical theme of two ways as a means of instruction in moral conduct.

I partly see this comparison as the full integration of our Christian lives. By building up the virtues through grace and constant practice, we build up that good treasure within our hearts. These virtues will subsequently provide the means for us to act in adverse situations. If we provide ourselves with the toxins of rash judgment, constantly attacking others, and imbibing in various forms of tribalism—we can not help but create evil fruits.

In contrast, St Bede explains:

“A person who has a treasure of patience and of perfect charity in his heart yields excellent fruit; he loves his neighbour and has all the other qualities Jesus teaches; he loves his enemies, does good to him who hates him, blesses him who curses him, prays for him who calumniates him, does not react against him who attacks him or robs him; he gives to those who ask, does not claim what they have stolen from him, wishes not to judge and does not condemn, corrects patiently and affectionately those who err. But the person who has in his heart the treasure of evil does exactly the opposite: he hates his friends, speaks evil of him who loves him and does all the other things condemned by the Lord” (In Lucae Evangelium expositio, 2, 6).

If we are indeed to be a disciple of Jesus, we have to learn our strengths and weaknesses. With Lent upcoming, it provides us with a time of reappraisal in where we are along the path. This discernment is not easy, and with our spiritual blind spots, we can be blind in leading ourselves.

Paragraph 2005 in the Catechism says:

We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved.[1] However, according to the Lord’s words—“Thus you will know them by their fruits”[2]—reflection on God’s blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.

A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: “Asked if she knew that she was in God’s grace, she replied: ‘If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.’ ”[3]

Sources

• The Gospel of Luke, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Rev. Pablo T. Gadenz
• Navarre, Saint Luke’s Gospel (2005)
• Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Year C
• Catholic Productions, Commentaries by Brant Pitre
• Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

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1. Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1533–1534.↩︎  ↩
2. Mt 7:20.↩︎  ↩
3. Acts of the trial of St. Joan of Arc.  ↩

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Luke 6:27–38 ESV – Love Your Enemies – “But I say to you – Bible Gateway

This segment of the Gospel of Luke is the second of three parts of the Sermon on the Plain as divided up in the Lectionary. The reversals of the beatitudes continue on in also reversing worldly and individualist claims. We desire mercy for ourselves but are less prone to give mercy to others. Jesus points out this aspect out in The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew where a servant is forgiven an unrepayable debt, yet refuses to forgive a small debt to a fellow servant. In Luke the theme of mercy is constant and as St. Pope John Paul II points out in (Dives in Misericordia, Rich in Mercy), Luke’s Gospel “has earned the title of ‘the Gospel of mercy.’’

Today’s Gospel reading can be too easily dismissed as something unobtainable in everyday life. Something more aspirational than a guide to life. In reality, we should read this as something Peter Kreeft calls Jesus-Shock. We should be astonished by this as much as the original audience heard this. Jesus points out at the start concerning those who will “hear.” That listening is more than just taking in words, but making them active in your life.

Ultimately Jesus is calling us to love as he loves. To forgive as he forgives. To love and not to expect anything in return for it. What Jesus says in verse 31 is often called the Golden Rule, “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” This has been elevated from the Silver Rule that we can find in multiple cultures to not do things to others that you would hate. A rule still focused on ourselves in a “go along to get along” prudential aspect. Jesus’ love is preemptive and does not wait for others to act, as our love should also be. St. John of the Cross wrote, “Where there is no love, put love and you will find love.”

In his commentary on this passage, Peter Kreeft points out how literalism can reduce our morality to a series of steps to be justified. The Pharisees literally declared how many steps you could walk on the Sabbath. So how do we take in these hard sayings and live them?

Peter Kreeft:

In today’s passage, we must be ready in our hearts to do all these radical deeds of love that Jesus speaks of literally if that is the most loving thing to do. Jesus is not exaggerating.

He is not asking us to check our reason at the church door. He gave us reason, and he expects us to use it. He also gave us agape love, and he expects us to use that too.

As St. Thomas Aquinas points out:

“Holy Scripture needs to be understood in the light of the example of Christ and the saints. Christ did not offer the other cheek to be struck in the house of Annas (Jn 18:22f), nor did St Paul when, as we are told in the Acts of the Apostles, he was beaten in Philippi (Acts 16:22f). Therefore, we should not take it that Christ literally meant that you should offer the other cheek to someone to hit you; what he was referring to was your interior disposition; that is, if necessary we should be ready not to be intolerant of anyone who hurts us, and we should be ready to put up with this kind of treatment, or worse than that. That was how the Lord acted when he surrendered his body to death” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Comm. on St John, 18, 37).

Again, the lives of the saints are an authentic interpretation of scripture. This aspect of mercy to others is so important that Jesus made it part of his prayer, the Our Father.

The last part of today’s passage is one that it seems everybody knows, but few understand. Usually, only the first part “Judge not, and you will not be judged” is referenced as a rebuke to Christians. There are also many times when we deserve such a rebuke. Still, when used to represent a defense of moral relativism, it loses all meaning. This statement parallels the follow-on statement “condemn not, and you will not be condemned” to tease out the meaning. In the Vatican II document, Gaudium et spes, it says:

“God alone is the judge and the searcher of hearts; he forbids us to pass judgment on the inner guilt of others” (Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, 28).

We have no competence to judge the inner guilt of others. Often it is also the case that we can’t even judge our inner guilt regarding what we have done. St. Paul in 1 Corinthians wrote about not caring about others judging him and that he does not even judge himself. This does not mean that he did not examine his conscience, but ultimately, God alone truly understands us. Knowing our inability to truly judge ourselves and sift out all our motivations, we should see how morally dangerous it is to assign inner guilt to others.

One last point about this being used as a defense of moral relativism. Jesus commands us to forgive others.

As Brant Pitre points out:

You can’t forgive if someone has not done something wrong. So the very language of forgiveness presupposes absolute moral standards. Jesus is not a relativist. He’s a Jew. And he knows that there are commandments of God, and that to break those commandments is sinful, and to abide by those commandments is righteous. So, in context, the notion of forgiving someone else clearly presupposes right and wrong and the ability to judge actions; meaning, the ability to judge whether an action is right or wrong and in need of forgiveness or not.

References

• The Gospel of Luke, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Rev. Pablo T. Gadenz
• Navarre, Saint Luke’s Gospel (2005)
• Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Year C
• Catholic Productions, Commentaries by Brant Pitre