But he [Jesus] answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”… Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” … Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” [Matthew 4:4,7,10 (ESV)]
God’s armor includes the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation. No soldier, however, would go into battle without a weapon. While a soldier might go into battle without armor as did David when he met Goliath, he’d never go without a weapon. The young shepherd’s weapon was a handful of stones but the Christian’s weapon is the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
The sword Paul describes wasn’t like the nearly six-foot heavy broad sword (rhomphaia) David used to decapitate Goliath or the sword of judgement of Revelation. The sword of the Spirit is a machaira, a small sword, knife, or dagger used in in hand-to-hand combat. While the Christian’s one offensive weapon is small, it is mighty because it can defeat Satan! When Jesus was in the wilderness, He used this powerful sword. The Lord answered each of Satan’s temptations with the words, “It is written…” He needed nothing more than the Word to send Satan packing.
Satan frequently uses his own machaira when tempting people—only his version of the Word is perverted. He’s more than willing to put his words in God’s mouth! When tempting Eve in the garden, the evil one emphasized God’s prohibition rather than His gifts when he asked if God really said she couldn’t eat any of the fruit in the garden. Although Eve corrected him that only one tree was prohibited, she was unsure of God’s words and added that it couldn’t even be touched! When Satan assured Eve that she wouldn’t die if she ate the fruit, the woman was bamboozled; not knowing and trusting God’s word is what brought death into the world!
Long before GPS and cell phones, toward the end of World War II, the allied forces conducted a military campaign to mop up the remaining Nazi resistance in Berlin. When a crucial mission was assigned to one unit, it was essential that each soldier memorize a detailed map of the enemy’s positions in the city. Because each soldier managed to commit the map to memory, the mission was a success. Several years later, the Army conducted an experiment to see if that original feat could be repeated. The participating soldiers were offered an extra week’s furlough as incentive if they could carry out a comparable mission without a glitch. Despite the promise of furlough, this second unit failed to match the success of the first. Could their failure have been because their lives never were in jeopardy? Perhaps one’s survival in battle serves as a greater motivation than a week’s vacation in peacetime.
While I’ve found this story in a variety of sources, I can’t verify its truth. Nevertheless, it makes a great sermon illustration and I found it in a commentary on Ephesians 6:17. As Christians, we are engaged in spiritual warfare. Rather than holding a map of Berlin and Nazi strongholds in our memory, we need the Bible in our hearts. Paul warned us that Satan “disguises himself as an angel of light.” [2 Cor. 11:14] The only way to spot his falsehoods and perversion of the gospel is to know the truth! The sword of the Spirit—the word of God—is the only offensive weapon in our arsenal. The more we read it, the more we memorize it, and the more thoroughly we know and understand it, the better prepared we are to march into battle. We must study God’s Word as if our lives depended on it—because they do.
The Bible is an armory of heavenly weapons, a laboratory of infallible medicines, a mine of exhaustless wealth. It is a guidebook for every road, a chart for every sea, a medicine for every malady, and a balm for every wound. [Thomas Guthrie]
While we now know what is meant by an iota and dot, jot and tittle, or yod and kots, we wonder what Jesus means by “the least of these commandments!” If the smallest letter is as important as the largest and the smallest flourish on the smallest letter in Scripture was not to be eliminated, how can there be a “lesser” commandment? The confusion again comes from reading an English translation of a Greek rendering of the original Hebrew. Jesus probably was using a popular Jewish idiom “mitsvot kalot” meaning “light” commandments, rather than “mitsvot ketanot,” meaning less important or small commandments. While this seems a bit like splitting hairs, it reflects Jewish thinking in Jesus’ day when a distinction was made between “light” and “weighty” commandments when comparing one to another.
What is a jot or a tittle? Found in the King James version, the words “jot” and “tittle” date from the 15th and 16th centuries. “Jot” comes from jota, an alternate spelling of the Greek iota (the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet) and, at the time, meant something very small. “Tittle” was a translation of keraia, a Greek word meaning “a little horn” that referred to an accent mark over a vowel. While those English words were good translations of the New Testament’s Greek, Jesus wasn’t speaking Greek when He gave the Sermon on the Mount. He was speaking Hebrew or Aramaic and the words He used weren’t iota and keraia. He would have used yod, which was the smallest Hebrew letter, and kots, meaning thorn, which was the little curve or flourish at the yod’s top distinguishing it from other letters. The tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, yod sounds like a “y” and looks a bit like an apostrophe.
There are 613 commandments in the Torah/Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). But, as seen in Jesus’ interaction with the lawyer who wanted “neighbor” defined, there was room for interpretation. For example, what exactly does it mean to “honor” one’s parents? When Deuteronomy 11:18-20 says to bind “these words” to one’s hands and forehead and place them on doorposts and gates, exactly what words and how was it to be done? Work on the Sabbath is prohibited in twelve places but is the command limited to the few types of work mentioned? For that matter, what defines work?
Every morning, I receive an email from a Christian site to which I subscribe. Having no interest in Temu, make-up, or a “game-changer” pen for seniors, I ignore the ads as nothing more than “click bait.” Today’s ad from a jewelry company, however, caught my eye with its words, “Just in: Angel Numbers.” Having missed all the articles about them in Allure, Reader’s Digest, USA Today, Cosmopolitan, Women’s Day, Instyle, and Vogue, I didn’t know what an “angel number” was, so I Googled it. Apparently, when you see repeated digits (such as 11:11 on your clock, $9.99 on a price tag, 30303 on a license plate, or a date like 2/22/22), the universe is sending you a message! Rather than a coincidence, these repetitive numbers are a “sign from your guardian angel” (or a dead loved one). Supposedly, the “language of angels,” such numbers are meant to point you in a certain direction or confirm the direction in which you’re going! Of course, a host of psychics, spiritual mediums, and numerologists are more than willing to tell you the meaning of your “angel numbers.” And, as I discovered from the ad, once you find your number, you can purchase it in jewelry!
Jesus was in Perea on the east side of the Jordan when He learned that Lazarus lay on his sickbed. Why didn’t He immediately return when told that his dear friend was sick? While the timeline is unclear, the messenger probably set out for Jesus as soon as Lazarus took ill. Since it was a day’s journey from Bethany to Perea, Jesus would have heard the news late that first day or early the second. By that time, Lazarus already was dead. With Jewish custom requiring the funeral be within eight hours of death, he probably was buried, as well. Nevertheless, even though Jesus knew that He’d miraculously resurrect the dead man, He seemed strangely unconcerned. Rather than immediately return to comfort Martha and Mary and cut short their time of mourning, Jesus waited around on day two and three and didn’t arrive in Bethany until the fourth day.
Devotions of the Heart 