Daily Bible Reading 29th April 2026 // Luke 4:1-13
1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were over, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” 5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.’”
9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
to guard you’,
11 and
“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Satan's offer to Christ, then, is essentially an imitation of God's, and alternative to His. And precisely here do we see its malevolence and danger. For he is offering Christ an alternative way to attain His kingdom, an easier way, a way that involved compromise, a way that by-passed the cross. Put at its simplest, both God and Satan are saying the same thing: 'Ask of Me, and I will give thee....', and the condition is also the same: '...if thou fall down and worship me'. But 'worshipping' God involves obedience to His will, and obedience to His will means the cross. This was the choice that faced Jesus.
There is a remarkable and impressive commentary on this in Paul's famous words in Philippians 2:5ff, where the Apostle says that Jesus 'did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped... but became obedient unto death, even death on a cross' (RSV). That is, Jesus, in saying 'Get thee behind me, Satan...', was saying, 'Not that way, Satan; not thus will I take my power and reign'. Rather, He chose the path of obedience, even unto death, and because He did so, the kingdoms of the world were given Him, and He was given a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. It is obedience unto death that ever leads to life and power - for our Lord and for His Church. How faithful to this principle the early Church was: 'I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified' - the 'foolishness of preaching' - the 'weakness of God' - how easy it would have been to depart from this emphasis in favour of something more spectacular, more 'effective', more 'worldly-wise', more accommodating to the spirit of the world. But the Church, then, resolutely resisted, and therefore conquered, for the weakness of God is stronger than men.