Not by Bread Alone
From now until Lent the sermons on Sunday will focus on the seven “I AM” sayings of Jesus in the gospel of John. For example: I AM the bread of life; I AM the Good Shepherd; etc. The devotional material the week leading up to a given Sunday will look at Bible passages which use that image. We start this week with three texts that point to Bread.
Deuteronomy 8:1-10
8 This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. 10 You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.
This passage comes from one of Moses’ speeches/sermons in Deuteronomy. The people were about to enter the Promised Land, and God through Moses provided guidance to the people about how to live in the new land.
In vs. 3 we come across these words “one [a person] does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes form the mouth of the LORD [Yahweh].” These are words Jesus uses when he was tempted by the devil. The devil has said to Jesus, “You are hungry and you have the power to turn these stones into bread, so just do it.” Jesus replied with the words from vs. 3.
In vs. 2 of this passage, the people were reminded that God provided them with manna “bread/food” in the wilderness, and now in vs. 7-9 God is about to provide them with a land with much food and many natural resources. As vs. 10 says, they will eat their fill of the abundance of the land. And the people’s response is to be to bless God for “the good land” God has given.
By God’s word – God’s action – the people received manna and now receive the good land. They did not acquire the manna or the land by their strength, it was by God’s hand (God’s word).
Often in sermons on Jesus’ temptation, a division is made between physical food and spiritual food, and that spiritual food is more important than physical food. But given the context of Deut. 8, is seems to me that the point is that the provision of physical food is spiritual, is from God. That God provides us with the food we need, and we are to trust in the God who will provide “manna’, “a good land”, and our daily bread. Our response is to bless God for God’s provision.
PRAYER:
God our provider, we rejoice that you feed us with physical bread and with spiritual bread, that both are the gift of your hand, given to us graciously and abundantly. We bless you for your provision in our lives. In Jesus’ name. Amen.