M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Temptation in the wilderness

4 Jesus returned from the Jordan, filled with the spirit. The spirit took him off into the wilderness ² for forty days, to be tested by the devil. He ate nothing during that time, and at the end of it he was hungry.

³ “If you are God’s son,” said the devil, “tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

⁴ “It is written,” replied Jesus, “ ‘It isn’t only bread that keeps you alive.’ ”

⁵ The devil then took him up and showed him, in an instant, all the kingdoms of the world.

⁶ “I will give you authority over all of this,” said the devil, “and all the prestige that goes with it. It’s been given to me, you see, and I give it to anyone I like. ⁷ So it can all be yours . . . if you will just worship me.”

⁸ “It is written,” replied Jesus, “ ‘The Lord your God is the one you must worship; he is the only one you must serve.’ ”

⁹ Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and stood him on a pinnacle of the Temple.

“If you are God’s son,” he said, “throw yourself down from here; ¹⁰ it’s written, after all, that ‘He will give his angels a command about you, to look after you’; ¹¹ and ‘They will carry you in their hands, so that you won’t hit your foot against a stone.’ ”

¹² “It has been said,” replied Jesus, “ ‘You mustn’t put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”

¹³ When the devil had finished each temptation, he left him until another opportunity.

Opposition to Jesus in Nazareth

¹⁴ Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the spirit. His reputation spread throughout the whole district. ¹⁵ He taught in their synagogues to universal acclaim.

¹⁶ He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. On the sabbath, as was his regular practice, he went into the synagogue and stood up to read. ¹⁷ They gave him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

²⁰ He rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him.

²¹ “Today,” he began, “this scripture is fulfilled in your own hearing.”

²² Everyone remarked at him; they were astonished at the words coming out of his mouth—words of sheer grace.

“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they said.

²³ “I know what you’re going to say,” Jesus said. “You’re going to tell me the old riddle: ‘Heal yourself, doctor!’ ‘We heard of great happenings in Capernaum; do things like that here, in your own country!’

²⁴ “Let me tell you the truth,” he went on. “Prophets never get accepted in their own country. ²⁵ This is the solemn truth: there were plenty of widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a great famine over all the land. ²⁶ Elijah was sent to none of them, only to a widow in the Sidonian town of Zarephath.

²⁷ “And there were plenty of people with virulent skin diseases in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was healed—only Naaman, the Syrian.”

²⁸ When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue flew into a rage. ²⁹ They got up and threw him out of town. They took him to the top of the hill on which their town was built, meaning to fling him off. ³⁰ But he slipped through the middle of them and went away.

Jesus’ authoritative healings

³¹ Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee. He used to teach them every sabbath. ³² They were astonished at his teaching, because his message was powerful and authoritative.

³³ There was a man in the synagogue who had the spirit of an unclean demon.

³⁴ “Hey, you!” he yelled out at the top of his voice. “What’s going on with you and me, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—you’re God’s Holy One!”

³⁵ “Shut up!” Jesus rebuked him. “Come out of him!”

The demon threw the man down right there in front of them, and came out without harming him. ³⁶ Fear came over them all. “What’s all this?” they started to say to one another. “He’s got power! He’s got authority! He tells the unclean spirits what to do, and they come out!” ³⁷ Word about him went out to the whole surrounding region.

³⁸ He left the synagogue and went into Simon’s house. Simon’s mother-in-law was sick with a high fever, and they asked him about her. ³⁹ He stood in front of her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. And straight away she got up and waited on them.

⁴⁰ When the sun went down, everyone who had sick people—all kinds of sicknesses—brought them to him. He laid his hands on each one in turn, and healed them. ⁴¹ Demons came out of many people, shouting out, “You are the son of God!” He sternly forbade them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah.

⁴² When day dawned he left the town and went off to a deserted place. The crowds hunted for him, and when they caught up with him they begged him not to leave them.

⁴³ “I must tell the good news of God’s kingdom to the other towns,” he said. “That’s what I was sent for.” ⁴⁴ And he was announcing the message to the synagogues of Judaea.

Scandal and judgment

5 Everybody’s talking about the sex scandal that’s going on in your community, not least because it’s a kind of immorality that even the pagans don’t practice! Well I never—a man taking his father’s wife! ² And you’re puffed up! Why aren’t you in mourning? Why aren’t you getting rid of the person who’s done such a thing?

³ Let me tell you what I’ve already done. I may be away from you physically, but I’m present in the spirit; and I’ve already passed judgment, as though I was there with you, on the person who has behaved in this way. ⁴ When you are assembled together in the name of our Lord Jesus, and my spirit is there too with the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵ you must hand over such a person to the satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.

Get rid of the “leaven”!

⁶ Your boasting is no good. Don’t you know that a little leaven works its way through the whole lump of dough? ⁷ Cleanse out the old leaven, so that you can be a new lump, the leaven-free lump you really are. It’s Passover-time, you see, and our Passover lamb—the Messiah, I mean—has already been sacrificed! ⁸ What we now have to do is to keep the festival properly: none of the leaven of the old life, and none of the leaven of depravity and wickedness, either. What we need is leaven-free bread, and that means sincerity and truth.

⁹ I wrote to you in the previous letter not to become associated with immoral people. ¹⁰ I didn’t (of course) mean immoral people in the world at large, or greedy people, or thieves, or idolaters. To avoid them, you’d have to remove yourselves from the world altogether! ¹¹ No; I was referring to people who call themselves Christians but who are immoral, or greedy, or idolaters, or blasphemers, or drunkards or robbers. You shouldn’t associate with them; you shouldn’t even eat with a person like that. ¹² Why should I worry about judging people outside? It’s the people inside you should judge, isn’t it? ¹³ God judges the people outside. “Drive out the wicked person from your company.”