In Singapore, I often hear people asking each other, “Do you eat to live, or do you live to eat?” Some people eat to fuel their bodies, but for many Singaporeans, life revolves around food. They work, travel, and even exercise, in the pursuit of enjoying good food. Food is not just sustenance, but a source of purpose, joy, and life.
The same question may be applied to our relationship with the Word of God: do we eat the Word of God to live or live to eat the Word of God? We may go to church every Sunday to hear a sermon and regularly read and study our Bibles. Yet, do we eat the Word of God only out of habit or duty? Do we look to Scripture for some boost to get us through the day or to get spiritual points to be rewarded by God? Or does the Word of God give us our joy, purpose, and life? Do we relish the opportunity to hear our God speaking to us in his Word?
A study of Matthew 4:1–4 will help us to live to eat the Word of God. In this brief passage, we see the measure, mission, and means for delighting in Scripture.
1. The Measure for Delight in the Word of God
The measure for delight in the Word of God is found in our response to it in the wilderness of life. In Matthew 4:1–4, Jesus was led out to the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. He was hungry after fasting 40 days and nights. It was there that the devil tempted him to use his power as the Son of God to provide food for himself (v. 3). But Jesus refused to do this and quoted Deuteronomy 8:3: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (ESV).
Jesus understood from Deuteronomy 8 that his experience in the wilderness was a test from God, much like the Israelites had been tested (8:2). The wilderness of testing reveals to us the humbling truth that God is God, and we are not. He is the creator and sustainer of our lives, and we are creatures that are dependent on him for life. Will we trust and obey him, knowing that he will care for us even in the wilderness of this life?
The measure for delight is also found in our willingness to live by “every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Matt 4:4). “Every word” here is the revealed will of God in his Word. To live by his every word means that we will accept all that God has said—not only the parts that we like and find encouraging but also parts that are hard and demanding.
The Bible is not a bunch of made-up stories to make us feel better about ourselves, nor is it a book of rules made up by those in power to control people. All of these words are from the “mouth” of a personal and transcendent God. He is not an idol that does not speak. He is not a far-distant God who drops off a revelation and then hides far away. He is a holy God who speaks and acts to be known. Our delight in the Word, then, is also in the One who has spoken.
2. The Mission of Jesus’ Delight in the Word of God
In quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, Jesus understood his mission in light of the history of Israel’s failure to measure up and keep God’s commandments in the wilderness. In the verse, Moses reminds Israel that God has miraculously fed them with manna so that they might know who is able to provide all their needs. God easily provided for all the needs of his people in the wilderness. What they needed the most was to learn to trust the Lord’s words and keep them. Instead, they chose to grumble and rebel against the Lord (Deut 9:7–24).
While Israel did not pass the test in their wilderness wanderings, Jesus did. In fact, Jesus passed a test that was far more difficult than Israel’s. Israel experienced God’s care and provision for 40 years in the wilderness. They were nourished on manna. Jesus, on the other hand, fasted for 40 days and nights. God was seemingly absent and silent in the wilderness for that time. Jesus became hungry (Matt 4:2).
Jesus could have rationalized a need to take matters into his own hands, especially since there was no explicit prohibition against turning stones into bread. But he delighted in every word that came from the mouth of God and trusted his Father to provide for him, the Father who had spoken at his baptism: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17).
In the suffering of the wilderness and later on the cross, Jesus trusted the Father’s timing, wisdom, and provision to accomplish his plan of salvation. He remained faithful to the mission entrusted to him by the Father: to come as Messiah (1:1), to fulfil all righteousness (3:15), to fulfil the Law and the Prophets (5:17), to give his life as a ransom for many (20:28), and to save people from their sins (1:21). From the wilderness to the cross, Jesus kept God’s Word fully and stayed on mission.
3. The Means to Delight in the Word of God
Through the means of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we, too, can delight in God’s Word. Through Christ’s atoning work on the cross, we can be assured that the words the Father speaks over Jesus, he now says over us: “This is my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.”
As sons and daughters of God, our heavenly Father invites us to ask him for our daily needs (Matt 7:7–11). Because Jesus was faithful to his mission and did not command stones to become bread, we can be confident that our heavenly Father will not give us a stone when we ask for bread.
Our Daily Delight in the Word of God Suppose God were to bring us into a period of wilderness—with no money, power, respect, or recognition. How would we measure up in this test? Would we find our joy and life in the Word of God? The good news of Jesus means that we can. He is our model of the one who delights in the Word of God and our Saviour for all the times that we do not delight in God. Through Christ, let us be people who live to eat the Word of God—daily delighting in God’s Word not as mere sustenance, but as a rich gift that continually gives purpose, joy, and life.
