Loading…

Surprised by Jesus: His Agenda for Changing Everything in A.D. 30 and Today is unavailable, but you can change that!

We all know who Jesus is—or think we do. We see children flock to him and gentle wisdom lovingly pour from him. We see the kindest man in the world. But these pictures are deceptively familiar. In the Gospels Jesus says and does many puzzling things—like shriveling a fig tree or telling followers to keep his miracles a secret. He is hard on his opponents, the Pharisees, but also makes extreme...

does not argue with Satan, nor does he rise up and assert himself as God’s Son, in whom God is pleased. Rather, Jesus takes himself out of the discussion. He deflects Satan’s focus on “me” by quoting Scripture. Quite remarkably, Jesus answers the three temptations with three quotations from the book of Deuteronomy. I doubt that Jesus chose Deuteronomy at random. It seems very likely that Jesus had been meditating on Deuteronomy during his forty days in the wilderness, which would be completely appropriate
Page 48