Tuesday, October 18, 2016

"Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness" (Evangelicals For Trump Edition)

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.  The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.  “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
    and they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.  “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Hold on. So you're saying that you'll give me the one thing I want most of all and all I need to do to get it is to compromise all the values I proclaimed so strongly up until now?
The devil answered, “Seriously? I mean YES! Of course! After all I'm very well known for always telling the truth and never making outrageous promises I have no intention of keeping! I always keep up my end of a bargain, ask anyone I've ever done business with!
 Jesus pensively mused, “Well on the one hand I've always insisted that even the slightest hint of compromise is completely unacceptable... On the other hand, I get the one thing I care about most so it won't matter much right?”
The devil answered excitedly, “Exactly! I will probably definitely maybe give you the thing you want most and all it will cost you is the moral high ground for, well, ever. Fantastic deal, none better, when it comes to the art of the deal, I pretty much wrote the book!”
 Then Jesus exclaimed “It's a deal!”
Then the devil departed and said, “Well that was easier than I thought...


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