I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 4-5.

    The three temptations which Luke describes Jesus experiencing in the wilderness describe the three basic temptations faced by those who desire to make the world a better place. The first temptation is to supply people’s material needs, making them dependent upon you. They will need to do the “right thing”, or you will cut them off. The second temptation is the temptation to compromise with evil in order to gain political power. Sometimes this is justified by the belief that, once political power is gained, you can go back on the compromise. It never works that way. Once you have justified compromising with evil you can always find a reason to do it again. The third temptation is to harness the power of religion and spirituality. Declare that all who do not fully support your agenda are heretics and servants of Satan. All of these represent attempts to take shortcuts from the hard work of convincing people, one at a time, to surrender their lives to God.

    When Jesus spoke in the synagogues His teaching was different than most religious teachers of His time. He did not refer to other people’s interpretation of Scripture. Jesus went directly to the Scripture and justified His teachings based on what was written there. We should follow His example. This does not mean that we should not study what others have said and written about Scripture, or that we should not use their teachings in teaching others. No, what is means is that we should treat only the Bible as authoritative and trust the Holy Spirit to show us what it means. If you hear or read someone’s teaching about God’s will and do not find it a convincing explanation of what is written in the Bible, set it aside and rely on what you read in the Bible.