I sat on one of the benches near the front of the little country church. The preacher that morning was one of my favourites; in fact, I had ridden from home with him that morning to hear him preach a sermon I had probably heard before. His message came through loud and clear. It was loud because he was a farmer, and this was a country church. It was clear because it was simple: when Eve was tempted, she looked at the temptation and then gave in. But when the devil tempted Jesus to eat, he did not look at the stone and think about bread. Instead, he obeyed God and told the devil ‘no’. Simple. True. Practical.
A few years later another preacher showed me how Jesus said ‘no’: he quoted scripture. The word of God is the sword of the Spirit that we use to stand strong against spiritual wickedness.
Here was the principle beneath the practice. It showed me how resistance to temptation worked. All I needed to do now was memorize scripture.
But how could I know which scriptures to memorize? How could I anticipate every single sort of temptation and memorize just the verse I would need for that particular one? Surely I couldn’t memorize the whole Old Testament, let alone the whole Bible! Should I just memorize Deuteronomy? In three out of three cases, it worked for Jesus.
But another question escaped my notice. What about the fourth use of scripture in this encounter: the devil’s? I knew it was bad because the devil had done it, but what made it wrong? If my ‘temptation toolbelt’ held a jumble of obscure scripture verses—that might even lead me in opposite directions—how should I choose the right one in a given situation? How did Jesus know to oppose Psalm 91.11–12 and yet obey Deuteronomy 6.16?
Not till years later did another teacher help me see past the practice (resist the devil; obey God) and the principle (quote scripture) to something even bigger: the story.
Practices and Principles within the Story
When I say ‘the story’, I don’t mean the story of Jesus’s temptation by the devil in the wilderness. I mean instead scripture’s metanarrative, the one big story within which all the smaller stories and all their principles and practices make sense.
Notice the details as Luke sets the scene. Jesus is being ‘led’ by the Spirit; he is in ‘the wilderness’; he is there for ‘forty’ days; and he is ‘hungry’ (Luke 4.1–2). We’ve seen this scene before. So had Jesus. Centuries earlier, God had led his people Israel through the wilderness for forty years, and, early in their travels, they too were often hungry.
Scripture’s one big story is spiralling forward. We have returned to an earlier scene. Most of the characters have changed (though the central one has not!). Yet the roles, the plot, and the themes are much the same.
‘It is written’, Jesus says, because the divine instruction he quotes is written in the holy scriptures. But ‘it is written’ also in a deeper sense: the play’s script is already written. Jesus knows the roles, the lines, and, should he follow those lines, the outcome of the plot. (And so, for the same reason, when Luke comes to record this and the many other events of Jesus’s life, he does not call them ‘the things that have happened among us’ but ‘the things that have been fulfilled’ (Luke 1.1 NIV).)
Playing the Part
From the earlier scene, Jesus recognizes the setting: the wilderness. He identifies his role: the child God is leading. And now he hears the set directions, as though Moses himself were standing offstage.
Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. (Deuteronomy 8.2–5 NIV)
Scene 1 starts (Luke 4.3–4 NIV).
Devil If you are God’s son, tell this stone to become bread.
Jesus It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’
More set directions.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. …
Fear the Lord your God, serve him only. … Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah. … Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. (Deuteronomy 6.4–6, 13, 16, 18 NIV)
Scene 2 opens, a high place overlooking all the world’s kingdoms (Luke 4.5–8 NIV).
Devil I will give you all their authority and splendour; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.
Jesus It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’
Scene 3 opens, atop the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem (Luke 4.9–12).
Devil If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
‘He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’
Jesus It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’
Jesus knows his role: the child God loves, to whom he has promised an inheritance, but who is now being trained. And as Jesus acts his role, all the appropriate practices and principles for a faithful response to temptation appear.
It is this role also that makes the devil’s application of Psalm 91 false and Jesus’s application of Deuteronomy 6 true. Yes indeed, Yahweh had promised to rescue those who take refuge in him; he will indeed command his angels to guard them and keep them from stubbing their toes. But in the role of a loving child, the appropriate response to God’s promise is not to test God but to trust God. Children securely attached to their father do not question his care; they are sure of it.
Playing Our Parts
What then are our roles? How do we discern them? What principles and practices do they entail? And how do we go about playing them?
There are many roles, but one role is the main one. ‘“Wake up!” Paul says. … “Get dressed. And remember to put on Jesus’ clothes and carry along his tools, for today, as every day, that is the role you play”’ (Romans 13.11–14).[1]
Other roles abound. Some roles are personal: we are the teacher’s disciples, the Father’s children, the groom’s bride, the master’s servants, the Lord’s friends. Some roles are physiological: we are Jesus’s body. Some roles are biological: we are the vine’s branches. Some are even inorganic: we are the Spirit’s temple.
These roles also prescribe our relationships with each other. As the Father’s children, we are each other’s brothers and sisters. As Jesus’s body, we are interdependent, cooperative parts.
We learn our role as good actors learn theirs. We read the playscript over and over again. We study our character. We notice how he or she responds in different scenes to other characters. We learn more about our character by observing other characters in similar roles, whether earlier in the same story (Peter the fisherman is now shepherd like the Good Shepherd, like David the shepherd, like Moses and Abraham the shepherds, etc.), in the author’s world outside the story (Paul is King Jesus’s foreign minister), or in our own lived experience (as mothers know better than Paul himself what it is to labour).
And then in the long-running play we call ‘life’, we wake each day, take a very deep breath, and, with that Energy running along our nerves, we act the part, remembering the lines we have studied, heeding the director’s instructive whispers, and improvising off other characters. In all, we embody a faith that acts in love, sure in the hope that the end of the play too ‘is written’.
Notes:
[1] Ernest Clark, Romans, Really Useful Guides (Bible Reading Fellowship, 2020), 87.
