Twisted Scripture: Reclaiming the Bible from antisemites

Sermon preached on First Sunday in Lent at Servants of Christ Anglican Church, Gainsville, FL on Sunday, February 22, 2026.

Matthew 4:1–11

Good morning, Servants of Christ.

What a great name for a church. I pray that you are all meditating on how to live into that name everyday.

I am the director of the Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People. We are the oldest of the Jewish outreach agencies. We were founded in 1809 by a Jewish believer named Joseph Levi Frey.

We’re in 10 countries, including Israel. We’ve been active in the U.S. since 1982.

CMJ’s work looks a little different in each country. Here in the US we

• Teach the church about the Jewishness of Jesus and the New Testament
• Educate about rising antisemitism as it affects Jesus’ DNA family
• Encourage churches to befriend Jewish people for the sake of Jesus the Messiah of Israel
• And we support the believers in Israel through our partnership with CMJ Israel

Having a right understanding of how we are to relate to our Jewish neighbors starts with ‘rightly dividing the word of truth.’ The New Testament is a Jewish text. The Gospel is a Jewish message first proclaimed to the Jewish people. The Gospel is still for the Jewish people as well as for the nations.

The Gospel speaks to us today because it is the Word of the Living God. Yet, it is a part of a message and story that God has been speaking to humanity since Adam and Eve believed the lie of self-sufficiency and rebelled in the garden.

Today we are going to zoom into a handful of verses in Matthew 4 to see the Jewish context of the Gospel and to consider an error that has led some into antisemitic readings of the New Testament.

In the chapter before our Matthew reading, Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River “and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him.”

Jesus is born of the Holy Spirit. He is both God and man at his birth. At the Jordan, God confirms this to Jesus and others there by the Spirit physically descending on him.

Now, at the top of chapter 4, it says, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness…” Why? To be tempted by the devil. This testing is not a surprise to God.

There is a pattern of God testing and allowing the testing of his servants as he calls them.

• God tests Abraham’s faith by asking him to sacrifice Isaac.
• God tests Joseph by allowing him to be falsely accused and imprisoned.
• God tests David by giving him opportunity to kill Saul in the cave.
• God tests Job to show the enemy that Job is righteous.

That is what is happening here. Jesus is tested to prove to the enemy that Jesus is the Son of God.

A Jewish sage named Rabbi Jonathan said: “When a potter tests [the dishes he made], he does not test the vessels that are defective; for if he barely knocks on one, he breaks it; but what does he test? The choice jugs; for no matter how often he knocks on one, he does not break it. So, God does not [test] the wicked, but the righteous.”¹

Consider that next time you find yourself in a trial, that the LORD is proving to the Enemy that your faith is sound, your love of God secure.

I want us to sit with verse 2 for a bit: “And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.”

Well, “he was hungry” is the understatement of the passage. Of course he was hungry after 40 days!

But why 40 days?

We call Jesus the Christ. Christ comes from a Greek word for ‘anointed one.’ This Greek word christos is translating a Hebrew word for anointed, mashiach, from where we get the word messiah. Kings and priests were anointed, but by the time of Jesus, messiah had become a title full of expectation.

But messiah was not the only title of expectation. In John 1, John the Baptizer is asked if he is “The Prophet.” Twice, after Jesus does and says marvelous things in John 6 and 7, people ask, “Is this the Prophet?”

Who is this capital P Prophet?

In Deuteronomy 18, Moses tells the people of Israel:

15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.

There have been multiple ways to interpret this, and one way was to expect an Ultimate Prophet who was greater than Moses. This expectation is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Samaraitans also were expecting The Prophet, because they only accepted the five books of Moses of Scripture. They have to this day no expectation of a Davidic king. 

Peter says Jesus is the Prophet in his sermon in Acts 3. And Matthew here in the temptation story is also telling us that Jesus is the Prophet Like Moses.

In Exodus 34, when Moses goes up to receive a second copy of the 10 Commandments, “he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water.”

Now Jesus neither eats nor drinks for 40 days and 40 nights.

I’ve always wondered what Jesus was doing for 40 days and 40 nights. Have you? But if Jesus is the Prophet Like Moses, Jesus and the Spirit were in the presence of the Father for those 40 days and 40 nights going over the plan of redemption, reviewing how the Seed of the Woman was going to crush the head of Satan (Gen 3:15) and so regather Israel and the nations back to God.

It is only at the end of the 40 days that Satan appears to tempt Jesus to see if he really believes the plan of redemption he’s agreed to. We see this in the last temptation, when Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and says,

9 “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God
  and him only shall you serve.’”

Have you ever been on the spiritual mountain top where you sensed the presence of God, maybe even heard a word from him. Then you leave the service or retreat, the prayer time or the conference and – BAM – some bad news, some tragedy, some loss, a relationship breaks. And you think, “I was just with God. I was so joyful with God. What is this grief? What is this trial? Why this loss?”

In that moment of grief or confusion, can you hold on to that word, that calling, that encouragement you heard straight from God on the mountain top? Can you prove to the enemy that you still love God with all your heart, soul, and might in the midst of incomprehensible loss?

You don’t need to prove it to God. He knows. Satan is probing whether you know, whether you trust, whether you can hold fast to the promises of God.

In our remaining time together, I want us to consider the second temptation, and how Satan is using similar tactics to stir up antisemitism in our nation today.

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle 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

“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
  lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

This is one of the passages that tells us that Satan knows the Scriptures, but he twists it to his purposes.

Satan is quoting Psalm 91:11-12 but verse 11 is incomplete. The full verse is

11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.

Some translations refashion this to “everywhere you go.” And it can certainly have that meaning. But in the two other places where “in all your ways” shows up in Hebrew, it refers not just to where we walk but the ways in which we live, to morals and behavior.²

So then we could think of the Psalm 91 verse as For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in how you live before God.³

The context of Psalm 91 is about trusting God and thereby living by his ethics:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”

We dwell with God when we accept his kingship. We listen and obey when we trust God. And, of course, Satan is probing whether Jesus really trusts the Father, dwells in the shadow of the Almighty.

I realize there is a tension here. Jesus is God. Jesus is also fully human, tempted in every way like us so that he can be our advocate before the Father… a mystery of the Godhead we will not solve today.

What I want to alert you to is that Satan still misquotes the Scriptures out of context to deceive people. Of late, we’ve seen this happening with people speaking out against Jews and Israel.

Before I continue, I want to make clear that I’m not here to argue on behalf of the State of Israel. That is not my job. I’m not trying to change your mind about the Israel-Palestine Conflict. You are welcome to your critiques or praises of the State of Israel and of Hamas-led Gaza and the Palestinian Authority.

What I want to address is the misquoting of Scripture to attack Jews, particularly our Jewish American neighbors.

In January, a young man raised in Catholic school allegedly started a fire in the Jackson, Mississippi synagogue.⁴ When questioned by police, he reportedly said he targeted the synagogue because it was Jewish, calling it a “synagogue of Satan.”⁵ When he was read his rights, he replied, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”

The convicted murderer of the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh in 2018 also cited “synagogue of Satan” as a justification.

Political commentator Candace Owens also used the phrase “synagogue of Satan” to criticize pro-Israel elements in the the U.S. government.⁶

This phrase is from the Book of Revelation, where it is used to speak of first and second century Jews who persecuted the earliest Jesus followers.

Yet, I’ve just told you of an alleged arsonist, a convicted murder, and 21st century political commentator who have applied it to our Jewish neighbors in our time. These three all claim to be Christians. They all claim allegiance to Jesus Christ, the Jewish man from Nazareth.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus argues with some Jewish leaders and he calls out their hypocrisy by telling them that they are of their father the devil (John 8:39-47). It is wrong to read that and say that all Jews for all time are of the devil. That is antisemitism, aka Jew hatred. It is wrong. It is a sin.

Satan is certainly roving around like a lion seeking those who believe his lies so that he can devour them.

Jesus is the Prophet Like Moses who mediates for us before the Father and who teaches us how to live godly lives. Part of his identity as Prophet Like Moses is that he is an Israelite like Moses. Jesus IS Jewish. Let us not say was, because we are people of the resurrection and we know that Jesus is alive, sitting at the right hand of the Ancient of Days.

And I believe that Jesus, like Paul in Romans 9, longs for his DNA relatives to know him. He has compassion on them. He calls us to minister mercy and comfort to them.

This Lent, go into the wilderness with Jesus to sit in the presence of the LORD. As you read and meditate on the Scriptures, pay attention to the Jewish context. Dig in to see more of Jesus as Prophet, Priest, and King.

And when you hear someone use the Scriptures out of context, especially to malign the Jewish people, respond to them:

It is written: The Jewish people are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

Remember what Paul says:

13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

Go speak comfort to your Jewish neighbors. Tell them you love them for the sake of Jesus.

Let us pray.

O God, our heavenly Father, you manifested your love by sending your only-begotten Son into the world, that all might live through him: Pour out your Spirit on your Church, that we may fulfill his command to preach the Gospel to all people – Jew and Gentile. Send forth laborers into your harvest; defend them in all dangers and temptations; and hasten the time when the fullness of the Gentiles shall be gathered in, and all Israel shall be saved; through your Son Jesus Messiah our Lord.

Amen.

Footnotes

1. Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud & Midrash, ed. Jacob N. Cerone, trans. Andrew Bowden and Joseph Longarino (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2022), 150–151.
2. Prov 3:6, Ezek 16:47
3. For more on this concept from Second Temple Judaism that angels help humans keep Torah as well as the idea that angels mediated the giving of the Torah, listen to What Jude Means by “Slandering Angels” from The Bible Project Podcast, 26 Jan 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWxKJCCee5o
4. Ebrahimji, Alisha, and Caroll Alvarado. “A Baseball Player and Honor Student: What We Know about the Teen Who Confessed to Burning Mississippi’s Oldest Synagogue.” CNN. Cable News Network, January 14, 2026. https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/13/us/stephen-pittman-mississippi-synagogue-fire-wwk.
5. Keene, Louis. “Synagogue Arson Suspect Posted Satirical Antisemitic Cartoon on Day of the Attack.” The Forward, January 14, 2026. https://forward.com/news/796632/stephen-spencer-pittman-mississippi-synagogue-fire-suspect.
6. https://x.com/RealCandaceO/status/2017966480797618613