Bread Alone

It’s long been used as a proof text.
That the Word of God is paramount.
Then slide over to the thesis: read the Bible.

Word of God=Bible

Unassailable.
No room for doubt.
Not even discussion.

This piece is to challenge that almost sacrosanct assertion.

Most first encounter this saying of Jesus from reading the Gospels: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Mt 4:4; Lk 4:4 [NET]) The context was Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness by Satan, in which Jesus was, whilst hungry from fasting, tempted to work a miracle by turning stones into bread. Jesus refused with that reply, citing Deuteronomy 8:2-3：
“Remember the whole way by which he has brought you these forty years through the wilderness so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not. So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. He did this to teach you that humankind cannot live by bread alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord’s mouth.” (NET, underline mine)

The Deuteronomy passage is a reference to events in the Old Testament mentioned once in Exodus 16:1–36 and once again in Numbers 11:1–9.

As the underlined portion in the above excerpted Deuteronomy passage shows, Jesus in his temptation cited it. Together with two other rebukes of Satan’s temptations, Jesus cited a total of three different Old Testament passages.

Thus it has been popular to teach that the best strategy to fight temptation is to read, and better memorise, God’s word, that’s the Bible, because Jesus memorised and cited the Old Testament three times with success.

On the surface it may make sense.
But it just may not be the sense of Jesus in Mt and Lk.

Perhaps taking a slight detour to the Gospel of John may be educational.
In John 6:31-35, Jesus corrects the Jews who were following him that (1) it was not Moses who gave the Israelites manna but the Father, and (2) manna didn’t keep them alive but only the true bread from heaven, which in John 6 is clearly a reference to Jesus himself.
And life clearly is more than just living!

With the same incident of manna, and even the same word of “live/life”, Jesus can draw different significance. Clearly not just studying and memorising the Bible.

Let’s return to the Deuteronomy passage which Jesus cited in Mt 4:4 and Lk 4:4.
Forget for now Bible study.
Just think.

Is it really studying Bible that was on the top of Jesus’ mind?
Why not the obedience and trust to everything that God has said? That’s precisely how Deuteronomy explained it: to see if the hearers obeyed or not!
Trust or not!

Will there be food dropping from heaven tomorrow as He has said?
Well, manna kept showing up.
Those who wished to stock up one day, just in case He couldn’t be trusted for tomorrow, would discover the additional collection rotted and became inedible the next day!

But then He stopped sending manna one day a week. How would we survive?
He said day before Sabbath collection could be doubled and the portion would not rot.
Should we listen?
Do we trust?

Well, the rest is history.

It isn’t a case of reading or memorising Bible verses to fight Satan.
It’s more of a case of taking His words at face value and living accordingly.
That’s the way to life.

Israelites learned that with manna over 40 years.
40 years of teaching that was meant for them to live in the Promised Land where and when manna stopped showing up.

If they lived on bread alone, they were dead for there was no more.

Did they learn to trust and obey?
Again, the rest is history.

Jesus couldn’t have been more clear.
He fasted 40 days; Israelites 40 years.
Both were in the wilderness.
Both were tested.
One generation perished.
The Son trusted and obeyed.

Clearly the Son needs not study the Word of God, the Bible.

Go ahead Christians.
Read the Bible.
Memorise it if you could.
It’s good and pious practice.

Psalms 119 gives you tons of reasons.
There would be no need for Jesus to repeat.