04/30/2024 – Amen, and what else?
Matthew 4: 5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’
The way we interpret God’s Word, especially those passages the Lord has intentionally uttered in the language of the Kingdom of Heaven, is one of the clearest indications that we belong to Him. When we interpret the Scriptures for our convenience, placing ourselves in the position of hero and vessel of glory, we prove not to be part of his Kingdom. Likewise, when we put God in the position of honor and glory, and our intention is to serve others, especially the humblest, we prove to be children of our heavenly Father. I have heard testimonies from many people, even those who are not disciples of Christ, who keep an open Bible in Psalm 91 (the Psalm quoted by the devil to tempt Christ) in a strategic place in their home. The hope is that these promises will come true in their lives, although in many cases they have opened the Bible, but have closed their hearts to its truth. If we yearn for the promises of this Psalm, we have to pay attention to the condition established at the beginning of it: he who dwells in the shelter of the most high…
We also tend to ignore the promise revealed in this same Psalm: with him I will be in anguish. The Bible explicitly reveals that the path to eternal life is narrow and uphill, and that many are the afflictions of the righteous. A much more aggressive attitude is fashionable in today’s church than leaving a Bible open somewhere in the house: declaring and claiming only God’s promises at our convenience rather than fulfilling God’s commandments and teaching others to fulfill them as Christ ordained.
Matthew 4: 7 Jesus said to him, “It is also written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'”
It is also written… The Lord teaches us that quoting a Bible verse is not the end of a conversation but the beginning. The word amen is not the end, but the beginning of a divine affirmation. In fact, the Lord used this word to arouse the interest of the listeners and to notice the emphasis he would place on what he was about to say. Verily, verily I tell you, words used repeatedly by the Lord to add emphasis at the beginning of a statement, are the translation of the Greek Amen, amen. Instead of saying amen impulsively as a conclusion of an expression, we should say: amen, and what else? In God’s Word there is always more, and we must not stop where it suits us.