Lent 01: Testing in the Wilderness

Tim taught that the word often translated as “the devil” in the “Temptations of Christ” narratives is a combination of two Greek words that, together, mean, “to throw through, in order to divide.” So, “diabolos is what we call anyone whose intent is to divide or cause division between God, self, other, and the world.” Building on that concept, Tim later said, “the world God imagines for us cannot be established through division and violence.” So, if our desire is to honor this and work toward creating the world as God imagines it, what does it look like to engage in personal, communal, national, or global crises without using division or violence? Is passivity the only alternative? If not, what could active engagement look like? What might its hallmarks be? Would that Kingdom-building engagement look different in, for example, personal settings compared to global settings? Why? How so?

Tim taught that diabolos says to us that the ends justify the means, but that in the way of the kingdom, the means are the ends. How does this principle challenge you as you face struggles and suffering - whether personally, in society, or otherwise? How can you tell if you are engaging methods of division and violence if they’re more subtle in nature? What do you need to look for? What are some of the ways you might engage with yourself when you realize you’re tempted to use division and/or violence to move your own agenda forward? How does that look different in personal v communal v global etc contexts?

Tim characterized Jesus’ response to the third temptation as another way of saying, “the wilderness isn’t a place for testing God; it’s a place for testing us.” Reflect on the way you may think about the concept of the wilderness in general. When it comes to your sense of what “wilderness” is, how congruent is the idea that the wilderness is meant to test us rather than God? Does that fit? Why or why not? Do you think it should fit? Also spend a moment considering times in your life when you’ve felt you were in “wilderness seasons.” Do you tend to think of these times as times in which you waited to see if God would “pass the test” and take care of you? Or do you tend to think of them more as times in which you were being tested? If you are the one being tested, what does “passing the test” look like?