Archive - September 4, 2008

After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost

September 4, 2008 in Poetry with 0 Comments

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.

Matthew 4 – Times of testing

September 4, 2008 in Bible Study with 0 Comments

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.”  Let’s take a look at that sentence for a few minutes.  We know who Jesus is, but to what Spirit is the author referring?  That would be the Spirit of God which descended like a dove and lighted on Jesus back in 3:16.  What is the desert referring to?  The word used here can mean: desert, wilderness, lonesome, waste, desolate, or solitary.  It seems likely that this verse is saying that the Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness that surrounded the Jordan where John was baptizing.  But it also seems likely that there is a connotation of Jesus being led into solitude and even loneliness.

Jesus was led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness for the express purpose of being tested by “the devil.”