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Exegetical Considerations
Luke 4:1-13
1st Sunday in Lent
February 29, 2004

1. What is the literary context of this text?

a. How does that context provide an interpretive framework for this passage?

b. In particular how does the depiction of Adam as God’s offspring in 3:38 relate to
3:21 and set up the events of 4:1-13?

2. What are Luke’s sources for this text?

a. How has he redacted those sources?

3. What is the significance of the tense of egeto in v. 1?

a. What does that say about the role the Spirit plays in Jesus’ life?

b. How will that set up such passages as 4:16-30?

4. What is the difference between translating peirazomenos as “testing” or “tempting”?

a. How might its uses (or the uses of its cognate noun) in 11:16; Acts 5:9; 9:26; 15:10; 16:7; 24:6 relate to this?

5. In v. 3
a. What is the significance of the singular litho and artos?

b. What is the thrust of ei plus the indicative (instead of ean plus the subjunctive) in terms of how the devil views Jesus’ identity?

c. Essentially what is the devil seeking to have Jesus do?

6. What Scripture is being echoed in v. 4?

a. Who is being tested in this scriptural echo and how do they faire in that test?

b. How does that relate to this testing of Jesus?

c. What is the rest of that scriptural echo and how does that set up Luke 4:22?

7. In v. 5 how does the use of oikoumenes recall 2:1 and what does that imply about the supposed domain of Caesar?

8. In vv. 6-7
a. is the devil lying or telling the truth?

b. what is the significance of the emphatic positions of soi and su?

c. What type of construction is ean plus the subjunctive and how is that being used here?

d. Essentially what is the devil seeking to have Jesus do?

9. What Scripture is being echoed in v. 8?

a. Who is being tested in this scriptural echo and how do they faire in that test?

b. How does that relate to this testing of Jesus?

10. What is the significance of the final test being in Jerusalem at the temple’s precipice?

a. What is the thrust of ei plus the indicative (instead of ean plus the subjunctive) in terms of how the devil views Jesus’ identity?

b. What does the devil use in vv. 10-11 to test Jesus?

c. How does his use of gegraptai in v. 10 relate to Jesus’ use of the same word in vv. 4,8?

d. Essentially what is the devil seeking to have Jesus do?

11. What Scripture is being echoed in v. 12?

a. Who is being tested in this scriptural echo and how do they faire in that test?

b. How does that relate to this testing of Jesus?

12. How does v. 13 set up the opening of the passion drama in Luke 22?

13. How does this story revolve around the issue of rank and its (supposed) privileges?

a. From the devil’s perspective, how does rank have privileges?

b. From Jesus’ perspective, what are the privileges that go with being God’s Son?