Why was Jesus Tempted and Led by the Spirit?

Jesus was Led by the Spirit into the desert as we are told through God’s word in the Gospel of Matthew, Mark and John. However the story does slighty tell a different way it happen. Question is why?

One of the first things we notice about this account is that it is fully recounted by only two Gospels (Mt & Lk), briefly mentioned by Mark, and not mentioned at all by John.

Mark's briefness has led some scholars to conclude that Mark wrote first, and that Matthew and Luke are expanded versions of Mark. Others however, see such a short account as indicating that Mark's readers were already familiar with the story. Would Mark have made a reference to Jesus being tempted by the Devil himself and not give any details, unless his readers already knew the story? You decide.

An interesting thing to see in this passage is how Satan tried to tempt Jesus. The temptations of the bread and at the temple both begin with "If you are the Son of God." What then follows is a challenge to use the power (turn stones to bread) or privilege (the promise of protection) that is accorded to the Son of God.

Now it would seem clear that Jesus did have this power. For example, he was later to do even more. He did not just create bread out of stone, he created bread out of nothing during the feeding of the five thousand.

In the third temptation, Jesus is also challenged to claim what is rightfully his, the kingdoms of the world. But if Jesus rightfully had the power to create bread, demand protection, or claim authority, then where is the temptation?

The answer is found in Jesus' reply. To these temptations Jesus replied that God is more important than food, that we must not tempt God, and that God is whom we worship and serve. It is not the other way around. God is not our servant.

The temptation was to use power and privileges that rightfully belong to Jesus, not for the glory of God, but for his own purposes - to use them in an incorrect way. As Jesus later told the Jews, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself, he can only do what he sees his Father doing" (Jn 5:19).

Another interesting thing to notice in Jesus' reply to Satan is his use of Scripture. In His reply, we can see the authority that Jesus placed on Scripture. The Word of God, correctly interpreted, was all the authority needed to prove His case.

We can also see in Satan's attacks that scripture can be twisted if taken out of context. But Jesus' reply does give us a test we can apply: "Is the result for my own benefit, or for the glory of God?"

There is one potential problems that as been cited in this passage. Even a quick comparison of Mt and Lk reveals that they differ concerning the order of the temptations.

Actually, this is not really a difficult problem, for the Gospels did not always follow a chronological order. Sometimes they are topical (importance owning to its relation to current events) or thematic (relating to a subject or a particular subject.). Luke as an historian and he centers much of his gospel around Jerusalem, and so has chosen to end the temptations there. It is pretty clear from reading the passages that Matthew is following a chronological order [And approaching... (v3); Then... (v 5); Again (v8)]; while Luke does not [And... (v3); And... (v5); And ... (v9)].

Talk about who Luke was and how he got the information we read about: Luke was clearly a careful historian.  He makes sure to give plenty of data to fix the dates of the birth of Jesus, of the beginning of his ministry, if the return of Paul to Jerusalem and more.  He also did interviews with witnesses, as he implies.  Like he says, he “carefully investigated everything from the beginning.”  We do not know who he interviewed.  That would require speculation, but we can assume that he talked to many eye-witesses, as he traveled with Paul to Jerusalem.   Luke may very well have used written documents as well.  Most scholars believe that he had Mark in front of him when he wrote Luke, or one of the sources Mark used.  I have no reason to doubt this theory, but it is just a theory.   So, we can assume that almost certainly he used both eye-witness interviews and written material in producing his gospel.  With Acts, Luke was a participant in many of the events recorded, especially in the last ten chapters.

The idea that the story of Jesus in Luke and the other gospels was borrowed from pagan sources should not be taken seriously.  The idea that Peter and John, Paul and the other apostles would allow pagan myths to enter into the gospels and the letters that Paul wrote is ludicrous.  These men gave their entire lives and their deaths to the Jesus movement because they believed it was true.  There is no other rational way to explain the facts.  Skeptics try to claim that the gospels are a late production in the second century, but this simply is not true.  The three synoptic gospels were almost certainly all written before AD 70, which means within 40 years of the events themselves.  There were hundreds of eye-witnesses still living at the time, who also staked their lives on the truth of the gospel.  Would any of them allow lies, myths and misinformation to be passed along to the churches?  This idea should not be taken seriously at all.

The authorship of Mark’s Gospel is of great importance to those of us making a case for the reliability of the New Testament. Mark isn’t mentioned as an eyewitness in any of the Gospel accounts. How did Mark get his information about Jesus? Why should we consider his information to be reliable? There are several good reasons to believe Peter is the trustworthy source of information for Mark, beginning with the historical attributions of the early Church Fathers who affirm the relationship Mark and Peter had in the 1st Century. Beyond this, however, there are additional evidences within Mark’s text supporting the claim Peter (Mark’s mentor in Rome) is the source for Mark’s information. I’ve described the evidential case in much more detail in Cold-Case Christianity, but this brief summary may be helpful:

The Writing Style Is Consistent With Mark’s Background The traditional view recognizes Mark as a Palestinian Jew who wrote his Gospel using Peter as his source. Most scholars believe the Gospel of Mark demonstrates a writing style and literary syntax exposing the author’s first language as something other than Greek. In fact, the writing style seems to indicate the author’s first language was probably a Semitic language such as Aramaic. This would be consistent with the idea Mark, a Palestinian Jew (who most likely spoke Aramaic) was the author of the Gospel. In addition to this, the Gospel of Mark includes a number of vivid and tangential details unnecessary to the narrative, but consistent with observations of an eyewitness to the events. This would indicate the author had access to an eyewitness such as Peter.

The Outline of the Gospel Is Consistent With Peter’s Outline Papias maintained the Gospel of Mark was simply a collection of Peter’s discourses (or his preaching) as this information was received and recalled by Mark. If we examine the typical preaching style of Peter in the Book of Acts (1:21-22 and Acts 10:37-41 for example) we see Peter always limited his preaching to the public life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Mark’s Gospel omits the private birth narrative and other details of Jesus’ life described in the opening chapters of Luke and Matthew. Mark begins with the preaching of John the Baptist and ends with the resurrection and ascension, paralleling the public preaching of Peter as we see it summarized in the Book of Acts.

The Omissions of the Gospel Are Consistent With Peter’s Influence There are many details in the Gospel of Mark consistent with Peter’s special input and influence, including omissions related to events involving Peter. How can Mark be a memoir of Peter if, in fact, the book contains so many omissions of events involving Peter specifically? It’s important to evaluate the entire catalogue of omissions pertaining to Peter to understand the answer here. The vast majority of these omissions involve incidents in which Peter did or said something rash or embarrassing. It’s not surprising these details were omitted by the author who wanted to protect Peter’s standing in the Christian community. Mark was quite discreet in his retelling of the narrative (other Gospel writers who were present at the time do, however, provide details of Peters ‘indiscretions’ in their own accounts). Here are some examples of Petrine Omissions grounded in an effort to minimize embarrassment to Peter

Most contemporary scholars would venture to suggest that the compiler of Matthew’s Gospel took Mark as his basic source and added to its rearranged plan these sayings of Jesus which were written by Matthew, the apostle, weaving them into Mark’s framework. It is likely, they say, that this original source had been previously translated or rewritten by Matthew into Greek. Then this Greek source was used by Matthew’s compiler, who also added a more satisfactory account of Jesus’ divine origin and some of the passion events especially significant for Jews. Consequently, what we have in Matthew is Mark’s narrative rearranged somewhat and supplemented by extensive teaching material compiled by Matthew himself and by other material on Jesus’ origin and death. Therefore, since the apostle Matthew was a contributing author, and since the book greatly emphasizes the teachings of Jesus, it became easy to attach Matthew’s name to it for authority.[11]