Challenges to the Life of a Christian In the Light Of Jesus' Temptations: Matthew 4:1-11
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Date
2005
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Tangaza University College
Abstract
The danger of people falling away from God in our days is as high as it was
in the time when Israel was living surrounded by nations who worshiped other gods.
The worship of idols as it was done by the Canaanites may no longer be a problem
for us today but the replacement of God by our own abilities, strength and different
kinds of progress is a big temptation that faces the present humanity. The plan of
God for humanity and nature still encounters resistance in many ways. It remains an
ideal as far as its realisation and actualization is concerned. Total trust and
confidence in God remains a challenge for a society that claims to have moved far
away from the primitive and mythological stages of humanity.
The temptations of Jesus as narrated in the synoptics have been the topic of
many discussions among scholars. Though many things have been said about them
few things have been put into writing. This is shown by the small biography that
exists about the topic. It is true that scholars, when writing on the synoptics, make
some references on the temptations, but it is also true that few scholars have
ventured to take the temptations as a topic of biblical research on its own as it is
done on other biblical passages.
Scholars have interpreted the temptations in different ways. There are those
who think that the temptations are mythological descriptions of beliefs that were
held by the Jewish communities and therefore they cannot make any sense to us.
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There are also those who, though they remove the mythological aspect from the
temptations, see little value in them concerning their applicability to the Christian
life of the present time. They hold that the concepts used in the description of the
temptations are no longer relevant to the present times. However, there is a third
group of scholars who hold that the temptations are historically true and they have
a lot to tell us today. We are going to follow this last position in this work since our
goal is to make the contents of the temptations relevant for the Church's daily
preaching and catechesis.
In order to accomplish our goal, we shall start by clarifying some terms so
that we may have a common starting point of understanding of our topic. We shall
study the passage selected for our study of the temptations, which in our case is
Matthew 4:1-11. After, we shall look at the natural tendencies of the human person
in order to find out in which situation the temptations stand concerning the core of
human natural orientation. Finally, we shall try to look at the implications of the
temptations in the lives of those who have answered the call to follow Jesus. That is,
we shall apply the temptations to the life of Christians.
The content of the material presented in this work does not intend to exhaust
the whole question that can be raised about the temptations but to show in which
way the temptations are valid and relevant for Christians and even for humanity in
general. The material in this paper is the fruits that result from many hours of hard
work, intensive research, personal reflection and prayer. We are going to present our
thoughts within the framework of the position held by different scholars though
without losing the focus of our own standing. Therefore we defend the originality of
the material presented in this work.
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Keywords
Challenges, Life of a Christian, Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus' Temptations