Listening to the Meridian Podcast this morning helped me realize that the story of the temptations of Jesus found in Matt. 4 and Luke 4 is a good place to go to clearly see the validity and value of the JST scriptures.
As the Proctors point out in their podcast, it makes no sense to think that Jesus went into the wilderness to "be tempted of the devil." The JST corrects the scripture to say, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be with God." This aligns with numerous examples in the Gospels where Jesus goes into the wilderness or up into a mountain or to a quiet place to pray and "be with God."
Also, in the KJV account, it says that the devil took him to the pinnacle of the temple and to the top of a mountain. Why would the devil have the power to take Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Creator of the Earth anywhere! No, as the JST says, it was the Spirit that transported Him to those places. In fact, in the very first instance cited in Matthew 4:1, the KJV agrees, since it says, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness..."
It is clear that the JST gives us a more correct understanding of what happened to Jesus in the wilderness.
No comments:
Post a Comment