Challenges to the Life of a Christian In the Light Of Jesus' Temptations: Matthew 4:1-11

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dc.contributor.authorIcapango De Almeida, Joaquim
dc.date.accessioned2021-06-10T12:25:10Z
dc.date.available2021-06-10T12:25:10Z
dc.date.issued2005
dc.description.abstractThe 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. I 4 2 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.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12342/1305
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherTangaza University Collegeen_US
dc.subjectChallengesen_US
dc.subjectLife of a Christianen_US
dc.subjectMatthew 4:1-11en_US
dc.subjectJesus' Temptationsen_US
dc.titleChallenges to the Life of a Christian In the Light Of Jesus' Temptations: Matthew 4:1-11en_US
dc.typeLong Essayen_US
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