Tempted and tried
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
Sometimes ordinary words can be hard to nail down to their precise or intended meaning. Three such words are the verbs tempted, tested and tried. Their meanings depend on the context or how they are used and what their subject might be.
If we limit consideration of these verbs to just their use in the Bible, their exact meanings still can be somewhat elusive. Consider several verses in which these common words appear.
In the New King James Version of Scripture, Matthew 4:1 reads, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Matthew 22:35–36 records concerning Jesus: “Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him and saying, ‘Teacher which is the greatest commandment in the law?’”
In 1 Peter 4:12 we read, “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you.”
In these verses the same Greek term lies behind the words tempted, tested and tried.
‘Drawn away’
This week Theology 101 draws attention to one of these three terms, that of being tempted. We understand being tempted as being enticed to commit sin. As is often summarized, solicitations to sin might come from the flesh within us, the world around us or the devil aligned against us.
James 1:13–14 speaks to the first of these sources, that of our own sinful nature: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God;’ for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.”
Crucify the flesh
Another source of temptation into sin is the world around us. The admonition of Romans 12:2 pleads, “Do not be conformed to this world.” The contemporary wording of this verse in the J.B. Phillips paraphrase yields, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own [mold].” The world’s pressure for Christians to conform to its standards and behaviors (or misbehaviors) can be quite subtle and powerful.
In the third source of temptation Satan’s goal is to get God’s people to slide into sin. To that end Satan gets at us through our own sinful natures which can be enticed by the world around us.
When it comes to temptations, God’s word admonishes His people to crucify the flesh, to love not the world and to resist the devil.
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