This week’s readings are all from Matthew 1-4. Click here to see a full listing of each day’s reading and the full chapter of Matthew 1-4. Full readings of each day’s smaller segments of the readings will be posted on this site during the week.
Today's Reading
11 “I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one coming after me is more powerful than I am—I am not worthy to carry his sandals! He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clean out his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire!”
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John to be baptized by him in the Jordan River. 14 But John tried to prevent him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” 15 So Jesus replied to him, “Let it happen now, for it is right for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John yielded to him. 16 After Jesus was baptized, just as he was coming up out of the water, the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my one dear Son; in him I take great delight.”
4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After he fasted forty days and forty nights he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, had him stand on the highest point of the temple, 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you’ and ‘with their hands they will lift you up, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” 7 Jesus said to him, “Once again it is written: ‘You are not to put the Lord your God to the test.’”
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clean out his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire!”
Winnowing was the process (still used today) where the grain is separated from the chaff/straw by throwing them in the air repeatedly until there is a pile of grain and the chaff has been removed. The wind (Hebrew ruaḥ = Greek pneuma = English wind/spirit) separates the two by allowing the heavier grain to drop to the ground and the chaff to blow to the side. The grain would be collected and the useless chaff was burned.
4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2
The Greek for devil is diabolos. It's the same root where we get diabolical, and it means 'slanderer.' It corresponds to the Hebrew satan, which means 'adversary.' John has said that the process of winnowing is taking place, and now through the testing in the wilderness, to where Jesus has been 'led by the Spirit', Jesus is undergoing a process that might be seen as a from of winnowing. And he is proven faithful in all the tests.
Notably, Israel was in the wilderness being winnowed for 40 years, and Jesus is in the wilderness for 40 days.