"Man Shall Not Live By Bread Alone"

In the well known narrative of Jesus’ temptation, the Scripture says, “And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:3-4 KJV).

When Jesus was challenged to prove Himself by transforming stones into something to satisfy His hunger, He replied by quoting the Old Testament text in (Deuteronomy 8:3), where God had taught that there were more important things for a person to think about than where his next meal might come from. In its original context, Moses was exhorting Israel to remain faithful to God after they entered Canaan, the promised land. He said they ought to remember their wilderness wandering, a time when they would have starved to death if God had not provided the miraculous “manna” for them.

Moses said God had allowed the children of Israel to suffer hardships in the wilderness and had provided manna for them that they had never known, “that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:1-3). By putting them for forty years in a position of utter physical dependence upon Him, God was teaching Israel that they were dependent upon Him spiritually. By recognizing the origin of the bread they needed to live temporally, Israel was to have learned that they needed the “bread” of God’s truth more than they needed food for the body.

An important truth that Jesus’ temptation illustrates, is that we need (far more than anything physical) fellowship with God. And this fellowship is only possible on the basis of “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). The pity is that we so seldom recognize that need for what it is, and we rush about pursuing this or that “fulfillment” without pausing to identify what it is we are really needing.

The bread that sustains bodily life is one thing, but the "Bread of Life" is something we need at a much deeper level. Jesus Himself said in His discourse on that subject, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you” (John 6:27).

Elsewhere our Lord put it in the form of a question: “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25).

It is true that man lives by bread, "but not by bread alone." Whether our bellies are full or empty matters very little next to the need that is in our hearts. And what our hearts need is to be "full of" is God’s word (Acts 6:5).

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets