🥖 Matthew 4:4 | "Man shall not live...'"

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📧 In today’s email…

• 🤓 Background context on the book of Matthew

• 🥖 The connection b/w spiritual & physical food

• 🙏 A prayer and reading to set the tone for the week

• 🎵 A song to help you meditate and memorize this week

Let’s dig in…

 🧠 Memorize

But he answered, “It is written,

“‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Matthew 4:4

Author & Audience Context: Matthew ✍️ 

• Matthew (author) was a Jewish tax collector before becoming one of Jesus' 12 disciples 💰️ 

• He wrote his gospel originally for a Jewish audience in the 70s or 80s AD

• Matthew emphasizes how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies and was the promised Messiah from the line of Abraham and David. This is one of the reasons why Matthew starts his gospel with Jesus’ family tree 🌳

Spiritual & Physical Food 🥑 

Food doesn’t nourish us until we consume it. 

Holding an apple in your hand will give you no health benefit.

It has to go from outside of us to inside of us.

God’s Word is the same way - we can’t simply hold the Bible in our hands (physically or digitally) and expect it to nourish us.

It has to make it into us - by reading it, listening to it, memorizing it and letting it drive our actions.

In Matthew 4:4, Jesus teaches us that the very words of God provide spiritual nourishment.

Apply & respond: A prayer and reading for the week 📖 

Consider this as you memorize Matthew 4:4 this week:

The world around us tries to sell us on the idea that we will find true nourishment in:

• wealth

• status

• others’ approval

• accomplishments

And sometime, we fall into the trap of thinking those things will satisfy our hunger.

But Jesus shows us the truth:

true nourishment only comes from God

Pray 🙏 

Lord, help me seek not just physical nourishment, but spiritual nourishment from Your Word this week. Amen. 🙏

Read 📖 

Read Matthew 4 slowly, preparing your heart to be worked on this week.

🍽️ Bonus: Read it out loud at your dinner table with family or friends.

Listen 🎵 

Ever wonder why you can remember lyrics from a song you haven’t heard in 20 years? What if we could use that to help us memorize Scripture?

Occasionally, there are songs we find that can help us soak in the verse we’re memorizing.

Here is one based on Matthew 4:4. This one is a bit of a different style compared to what we normally share, but it’s beautiful.

Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Music | Watch on YouTube

LAUGH 😂