Matthew 4 explained: Tested in the Desert, Then Called Out

Hunger and the first test (vv. 1-4)

Just after his baptism, where a voice called him God's Son, a hungry Jesus is pushed to prove it by using his power to feed himself. He answers with words Moses spoke to Israel after their forty years in the desert: life depends on trusting God, not on bread alone.

The dare at the temple (vv. 5-7)

The devil quotes a psalm promising God's protection and dares Jesus to jump from a high point of the temple in Jerusalem, though exactly which point is meant is uncertain. Jesus replies with another verse: creating danger to force God to prove his care is testing God, not trusting him.

The offer of the world (vv. 8-11)

The final offer is power over every nation, at the price of worshiping the devil, and Jesus refuses with Israel's core command to worship God alone. Christians read this whole scene as Jesus staying faithful where Israel in the desert, and Adam before that, had failed.

A light in Galilee (vv. 12-17)

After John the Baptist is jailed, Jesus settles in Capernaum, a lakeside town in a northern region with many non-Jewish people, which Isaiah had pictured seeing light after dark times. His message is to turn your life around because the kingdom of heaven, meaning God's rule, has come near.

Calling the fishermen (vv. 18-22)

Jesus calls two pairs of brothers from their work with a play on their trade: from now on they will gather people instead of fish. Leaving nets, boat and even their father meant giving up their income and family duty on the spot.

Word spreads (vv. 23-25)

Jesus teaches in synagogues, the local Jewish meeting places for prayer and study, and heals every kind of illness, so that news of him reaches as far as Syria to the north. Large crowds follow him from Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea, the land beyond the Jordan and the Decapolis, a group of mostly Greek cities.

Key verse: Matthew 4:4

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether the devil physically took Jesus to the temple and the mountain or whether these tests happened as a vision or an inner struggle.

Something to think about

When a quick shortcut has promised to get you what you needed, what helped you decide whether it was worth taking?