The devil’s temptation of Jesus in the desert took place at the beginning of his public ministry. Jesus chose to continued the message of John the Baptist to Repent and added Believe in the gospel. Jesus could not have been referring to the Gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Some of them had not yet encountered Jesus and Scripture scholars tell us that the earliest writing of the Gospels was 40 – 50 years after the Resurrection. And Jesus, who spoke in Aramaic, would not have used the term gospel, which is an Old English word meaning good news. Jesus knew the consistent message in the Torah to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength AND to love or neighbor as ourselves. That is what God wanted of us from the moment of creation. That is what the prophets repeatedly reminded the Israelites. That is what Jesus lived and taught. Imagine a world in which everyone is doing that. Imagine if we were doing that. How are we doing?
