Matthew 4:4

“It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” Matthew 4:4.

After 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, Satan appeared to Jesus to tempt Him. According to Matthew, the first temptation was to make Jesus turn the stone into bread. To this was Jesus’ reply was the text mentioned above.

Jesus was quoting the Old Testament scripture of Deuteronomy 8:3. This is what the verse says: “So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”

The emphasis here is that it is God who provides. Up until this chapter in Deuteronomy, God speaks through Moses and emphasizes many times the importance of God’s people need to obey His commandments. God keeps talking about the blessings to be received when His people are faithful to Him. God does not want His people to make the mistakes that their fathers made. So here in this verse, God is saying that we need to fully depend on God no matter what. God provides.

Perhaps that is what Jesus wanted to be an example as He was tempted. Yes, Jesus could have used His divinity to change the stone to bread. But He chose not to. Jesus chose to depend on the Father to become an example for us. We should follow the example of Jesus. We should continue to be faithful to God and put our full dependence on our Father who loves us.