Which of Jesus’s temptations came second?

Matthew 4.5-10, Luke 4.5-12.

In Matthew, the order of Jesus’s temptations is

1. Stones to bread. Mt 4.3-4
2. Jumping from the temple. Mt 4.5-7
3. Bowing before Satan. Mt 4.8-10

And in Luke, it’s

1. Stones to bread. Lk 4.3-4
2. Bowing before Satan. Mt 4.5-8
3. Jumping from the temple. Lk 4.9-12

The gospels are agreed that stones to bread came first, but not about whether bowing before Satan or jumping from the temple came second and third.

Does it matter? Not really. But if you’re a biblical inerrantist, and insist the bible has no errors, one of the gospels mixed up the order.

And if you’re a biblical inerrantist, you’re gonna downplay this fact as much as you possibly can. Because there’s no reasonable explanation for how one of the gospels isn’t wrong about the order of the temptations.

So instead… you’re gonna do the very same thing non-inerrantists like me do. You’re gonna say the order isn’t important. That the authors of the gospels likely put the temptations in the order they did, intentionally—because they were writing to different audiences, and wanted to emphasize different things. The author of Matthew wanted to move from near venues to far—from right there in the wilderness, where Jesus chose to fast; to Jerusalem, the capital of Judea; to the Roman Empire and the world. And Luke chose to end his version of the temptations story in Jerusalem, the epicenter of the Judean religion, to emphasize Jesus’s special relationship with his Father—“if thou be the Son of God,” Lk 4.3, 9 KJV as Satan kept saying.

And okay, this explanation might work for you. But back when I was a little kid, and my pastors and Sunday school teachers kept insisting the bible is inerrant, this explanation absolutely didn’t work for me. Kids are literalists! We knew—from the many times we tried to fudge the truth, and subsequently, correctly got in trouble for it—you don’t get to play fast and loose with the order of events when you tell a story. Parents, historians, cops, and courtrooms don’t allow it. Nor should they! So why does Matthew or Luke get to?—and how can you say the bible’s inerrant when you’re saying one or the other of them deliberately introduced an inaccuracy?

Nope, doesn’t work. That is, till you’re older, throw up your hands in frustration, and decide what the heck; we’re gonna accept that either Matthew or Luke changed the order around… yet still call ourselves literalists and inerrantists, because the Fundamentalists in our churches seem to be really insistent that we remain literalists and inerrantists. If we’re not, they might call us heretics, or get us removed from our ministries. So, best to keep up that appearance as best we can, and call ourselves literalists and inerrantists even though we’re not really.

Oh, and please don’t bring up Jesus’s two genealogies either.

If you’re not an inerrantist, it’s not a problem.

For those of you who’ve been reading my articles on biblical difficulties, y’might notice most of the reason a lot of these passages are considered difficulties, is because people demand we inflict a precise, super-literal, modernist mindset upon it. One which is inappropriate for ancient literature, because they rightly cared far more about accurately telling us who God is, than accurately recording all the other, not-as-relevant, details. But we care about details—and we insist God likewise cares about details, because he’s so much like us, isn’t he?

In any case you regularly see how these “literalists” deal with the discrepancy between the gospels: They treat it as irrelevant. Doesn’t matter what order Jesus’s temptations happened. Hey, if it mattered, Matthew and Luke would list them in precisely the same order!—and they don’t, so it doesn’t matter. It’s all the same to them, and Jesus.

And whenever inerrantists teach on Jesus’s temptations, the order entirely depends on which gospel they’re teaching from: Matthew or Luke. Of course, if they’re not already going through Matthew or Luke, which gospel they choose to preach from, kinda tells us exactly which order they prefer the temptations took place in. Some preachers love the idea the temptations ended with Jesus telling Satan “Get thee hence,” Mt 4.10 as it does in Matthew—even though they’ll totally choose to quote Jesus’s variant statement in Luke, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Lk 4.8 It’s more popular.

Other preachers are Luke fans, for one reason or another. It’s longer, it’s got more stories, it’s Part 1 and Acts is Part 2 of Luke’s history of Christianity; Luke has its fans. As does Matthew. So for them, they’ll emphasize that order, and love how it ends with Jesus’s “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Lk 4.12 Especially since Jesus is the Lord our God; some of them are so focused on Jesus being God incarnate, they won’t even catch that Jesus is talking about his Father.

But while the strict inerrantists in their audience are wondering why the gospels list the temptations in two different orders, they’ll downplay the difference as much as they can get away with. Because the last thing they ever wanna say is “Matthew is the correct order and Luke isn’t,” or vice versa. It’ll scandalize and outrage the strict inerrantists—as if the strict folks have any better explanation whatsoever.

Now yeah, sticking your head in the sand might work for them… for now. Never did for me. And after I got hold of books about bible difficulties, and saw all the other discrepancies the inerrantists likewise stick their heads in the sand over… well, I learned to stop trusting the inerrantists.

But in this particular area, they’re right: It doesn’t matter which temptations came second and third. It only matters that Jesus resisted them and defeated the devil.