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Questions Week 14, Day 3

by David Joynt on August 01, 2017


MATTHEW 4:5-7


One of the most diabolical strategies of the Evil One is to misuse scripture. Scripture is misused whenever it is taken out of context or when it is misapplied to current situations. It can also be abused, and have abusive results, when it is not read from its wonderful center, in the person and life of Jesus. Here the Devil wants Jesus to prove his faith in the caring capacity of God to rescue by voluntarily doing a death drop from hundreds of feet above the Kidron Valley. The Jewish Midrash expected the Messiah to manifest himself on the roof of the Temple. The Tempter wants Jesus to jump start his ministry, avoid acts of humility and the road of suffering glory, and engage in an act of spectacular power. But testing God is not the same as trusting God, and it is love and mercy that draws and redeems us, not airwalks. Following God’s path is not the same as enlisting his power in our agendas.


How much of your agenda has God determined?


Have you seen scripture misused?

Tags: misuse scripture

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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