E196 Q203 What is temptation?

Temptation is any enticement to turn from faith in God and to violate his commandments. (Proverbs 1:8–19; James 1:14–15) Support the podcast here on Buy Me A Coffee (similar to Patreon)

Proverbs 1:8–19

^{8  i}Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, ⁹  for they are ^ja graceful garland for your head and ^kpendants for your neck.¹⁰  My son, if sinners ^lentice you, do not consent. ¹¹  If they say, “Come with us, ^mlet us lie in wait for blood; ⁿlet us ambush the innocent without reason; ¹²  like Sheol let us ^oswallow them alive, and whole, like ^pthose who go down to the pit; ¹³  we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder; ¹⁴  throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse”—¹⁵  my son, ^qdo not walk in the way with them; ^rhold back your foot from their paths, ¹⁶  for ^stheir feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. ^{17  t}For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, ¹⁸  but these men ^ulie in wait for their own blood; they ^uset an ambush for their own lives. ^{19  v}Such are the ways of everyone who is ^wgreedy for unjust gain; ^xit takes away the life of its possessors.

Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

There is one text in Proverbs so far from being obscure that its relationship to Christ and his possession, the church, can be grasped without any such trouble. Wicked men are speaking: “Let us unjustly hide away in the earth the just man, let us swallow him up alive like hell. Let us abolish his memory from the earth, let us lay hands upon his precious possession.” This is very like what the Lord Jesus himself, in one of the Gospel parables, puts into the mouths of the wicked vinedressers: “This is the heir; come let us kill him, and we shall have his inheritance.”

Bede

AD 735

“Listen, my son, to the discipline of your father, and do not reject your mother’s law.” Thus far, it argues proverbially from each side. From here on, it begins assiduously to admonish whoever is faithful that he prefer the discipline of the divine law to the flatteries of the reprobate, for eternal death surely follows their crimes, while a crown is given to those who keep the law. Hence, it rightly calls him son whom the father was careful to instruct with solicitude. This statement can be accepted as coming from the person of God the Father but in the name of mother church, who was then called the synagogue, I understand. Observe also that it commands us to listen to the father’s instruction that we not reject the mother’s law for any reason. For it is not adequate that anyone claims to love God and to comply with his precepts if he does not also pursue the unity of the church with fraternal charity, or if he denies that the mother herself receives any of the grace of God whereby we are saved. Even among the Hebrews the spirit that grants grace is known by the feminine gender.