Soul Food

"And the diabolos said unto him,"Since thou be the Son of Theou, command this stone that it be made bread." And the Iesous said before him,"It is written, that man (anthropos) shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of Theou." Luke 4:3-4.

The Iesous had been taken by the Spirit into the wilderness in order to be tested (interrogated) by the Diabolos. The presence of the Iesous within the cosmos is the will of Theos. He will bring into existence a new being called the church or the called out ones. But we must know who he is intrinsically. That is the purpose of this powerful encounter with the Diabolos. Indeed, the Greek reads that the Iesous was compelled to go into the wilderness and he was tested under the Diabolos. Diabolos is an amazing term and it is made up of 'dia' or 'through' and the verb' ballo', to throw or cast. It means to slander or to divide.

Not only is the Diabolos a slanderer without equal or parallel he is also an accomplished and brilliant interrogator. Notice carefully that the Tempter waits until the Iesous is famished. That is, the Tempter waits until a compelling situation develops and then he attacks with a 'reasonable' solution to an immediate necessity. Never mind that the reasonable solution is outside of God's will and will violate divinely mandated boundaries. Surely God would understand 'why' under the circumstances the Iesous would set aside his will in order to satiate raging physical hunger.

The Tempter's strategy is nothing, if not brilliant. He attacks the area of perceived weakness or need and suggests an answer that is seemingly harmless. The tempter says to the Iesous, "Since you are the Son of Theou, command this stone to be made bread."

The truth of the son-ship of the Iesous is stated and then the alarming lie is smoothly stated in an unalarming manner. To create bread from a stone would be to rearrange the molecules of the stone in a manner appropriate for human consumption and metabolism. But this creative act would create something else too. It would issue in a decisive rupture to the divine plan and dismantle salvation history.

The Iesous, however, had not lost his perceptive power through raging hunger. His reply to the impossible suggestion of the Tempter is formidable and highly instructive. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but every word of God."

An appropriate response for situations of pressure may be sought in the word of God. God will give strength to endure when we submit to his will and do not seek the convenient path of least resistance. God's word is our 'Soul Food.' He feeds us with his word. He does not feed us with our word joined to his word. His word alone is 'Soul Food.'

For more information about Dr. Rich and his teaching ministry, please visit his website.