NOTES for Mat 4:1-11
Why does Satan tempt Jesus at this particular moment? After all, He has already been living on this earth for thirty years. Perhaps the point is that Jesus has just taken our sins upon Himself in the Jordan baptism. And Satan rushes to Him, drawn by the "smell" of sin. Satan offers the most ordinary temptations: bread, miracle, and power. Usually that is enough; people turn out to be very weak. But Jesus, perhaps the first, passes through these temptations, opening for us too the path of resistance to the tempter.
Let us note for ourselves that each time Jesus answers not with His own words, but with the words of Scripture, even when the temptation is expressed in the words of Scripture. How important it is to know Scripture. Perhaps this is one of the reasons we began making this site.