Borrowed Light

Did Jesus Have Evil Desire?

March 1, 2016Mike Leake 2 Comments

I’ve had a question bouncing around in my head for quite a few years. Nothing that really tripped me up too much—but one of those times when I couldn’t figure out how to get two verses to jive with one another.

First consider James 1:13-15. I grew up on the NIV so I’ll quote that translation first:

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Here is how I’ve always read that verse. Temptation doesn’t come from the Lord—it comes from our evil hearts. We’ve got jacked up desires. Temptation couldn’t take root unless there was an evil desire. Once that evil desire is prompted it will always give birth to sin—which will eventually lead to death. In sum, temptation comes from evil desires.

So what do I do with Matthew 4:1?

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

If temptation comes from evil desires then what does this mean that Jesus was tempted by the devil? It’s the same word for temptation used in Matthew 4 and James 1. We cannot changed this and say that Jesus was tested in the wilderness but not tempted. To do so would do a great injustice to the argument in Hebrews 4:15. No Jesus was tempted much in the same way that we are tempted.

So does this mean that Jesus had an evil desire which drew him into temptation in the wilderness?

No. It doesn’t and here is why…

The NIV unfortunately supplies a word which isn’t in the original. The word “evil” does not actually appear in James 1:14. The word is epithymia. It simply means desire. It’s the same word used in Luke 22:15 when Jesus says that he has “earnestly desired” to eat Passover with his disciples. Certainly this isn’t an evil desire. It’s something he wants strongly—and this is not evil.

What then does James 1:13-15 mean? Consider how the ESV translates the text:

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:13-15 ESV)

Our desires act to lure and entice us into sin. But those desires of themselves are not necessarily evil. So when Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness the enemy was using very real desires. Not evil in the themselves, but still intense desires of Jesus’ real humanity.

When Satan encouraged a hungry Jesus to turn stones into bread he was hijacking a perfectly reasonable desire. Jesus’ desire for food is not evil. But Satan took that desire and tried to lure Jesus away from pleasing the Father. But for Jesus his desire to be fed on the Word of God trumped his desire to be fed on Satan’s bread.

What does this mean for you and I? It means that Jesus understands the pull of sin. He truly was tempted in every way. In fact because he never caved he likely felt the full onslaught of temptation. But he did so without having evil desire…in fact he did so because he didn’t have evil desire.

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Today in Blogworld 03.01.16

March 1, 2016Mike Leake

Is Bibliolatry Valid?

I appreciated this.

10 Ways to Increase Results in Meetings

Very helpful.

13 Benefits of Church-Based Biblical Counseling

We are beginning this at our church.

But Do You Adore Jesus?

It’s a great question, and one I find myself asking frequently.

Wow, this is Thunder assistance coach, Monty Williams, speaking at his wife’s funeral:

When You Smell A Skunk In the Road

February 29, 2016Mike Leake 2 Comments

It was an innocent question. Here it was January and my yard was filled with what appeared to be every leaf in a twelve-mile radius. Something had to be done and so I asked one of my deacons—an elderly gentleman—if he knew any tricks to quickly getting them out of my yard. He’s the type of guy that’s great at figuring that stuff out.

He had informed me the night before that he didn’t know too many tricks on that one. So, I was very surprised the next day when my wife informed me that this guy was in our front yard taking care of our leaf problem. I felt kind of bad—a man fifty years my senior working his tail off getting leaves out of my yard. I thanked him for doing such a kind thing for our family. Here is what he said to me:

When I was a little boy, my daddy told me, ‘if ya see a skunk in the road you’d better take care of it or it’ll stink up the whole neighborhood for months’.

That’s how you say James 4:17 in Southwest Missouri. I thought back to that encounter today when I read Proverbs 24:10-12:

If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?

This verse was really messing me up. I see in my heart a tendency to turn the other cheek. Not to my own suffering, mind you, but to turn my cheek away from situations which seem too bleak to deal with. Situations where folks are being taken away to death and stumbling to the slaughter. I shove down the horrors of hell, the atrocity of abortion, and the other terrors ravaging our world.

Proverbs 24 tells me that this is cowardice. And the Lord isn’t fooled by my silly excuses. And so I spent a bit of time repenting and praying that the Lord would help me to put off the sin of selfishness and to put on the grace of fighting for those who need rescued. I started thinking about specific action points to help with this.

Then I hit a wall…

How do you obey Proverbs 24:10-12 in our information-saturated age in which almost everything seems to be taken away to death?

As I mediated on Proverbs 24, several specifics came to my mind.

Global Poverty.

Abortion.

Unbelief.

Homelessness.

Sex Trafficking.

Those orphaned by AIDS.

The list could go on and on. Each of them could take up an entire life and it only make a dent. I know about all of these things. And I know about them probably in more detail than anyone would have known 100 years ago. Every morning as I scan through my Feedly I’m hearing about tons of cases which fit under the umbrella of Proverbs 24…and I move on to the next thing. Every. Single. Morning.

So how do I rescue them? How do I hold them back?

I can’t move on and say I didn’t know…so where does that leave me?

Then I thought again about my friend and his helpful skunk quote. I thought about how he doesn’t get in his truck every night and drive through the community looking for dead skunks. But if he sees one, he responds. He sees it as God’s opportunity to serve. If he smells a skunk he doesn’t assume that somebody else will fix it—he realizes it is now his responsibility.

I’ve got a ton to learn from his generation. My generation likes to go off and do the epic things and leave skunk cleaning to others. But I’m starting to believe that maybe my friend knows a bit more about being epic than we do. I fear that we’ll waste our lives trying to find that one thing big enough to captivate our awesomeness. And we’ll miss the blessing of loving our neighbors by picking a skunk up off the street.

The next time you smell a dead skunk, consider it your problem.

Maybe a million small and faithful decisions like that will go a long way towards ending those big ugly things like abortion and global hunger.