If we distill the very esssence of this statement of Jesus, then we must assume( if we believe), that there is a "Word" out there and it is God's! There are many words out there but the ones that are "needful and necessary" to sustain life are the ones we must hear. Say for example, Jesus failed to hear the Father's voice his word and daily leading, what would have been the outcome? He would have eaten the bread of the Devil, instead of the Word of God and we would not have the precious Savior we do have now and every day we as Christians avail ourselves of to lead and guide. It is especially necessary and needful today because there are many words that we are bombarded with daily that fail to deliver what they promise. People I believe live day to day eating tidbits of life, instead of the feast promised in his word. We search daily for those things that promise to give health, increase age, heal, give hope and just about anything that offers what we need....security in a world without it. "Hope is the essence of things not seen, so Paul, preached on, Think people needed hope in Nero's time? And if they were Christians all the more so.
The very nature of evil (and the one who is called and the Father of lies and a thief from the beginning (The Devil still steals today). It is no myth and are we now too modern and to advanced to believe such things,? But take a look at the heart of man.
I think people in America do have a dream and every day the average person works to attain it and in so doing exhausts themselves in trying to apprehend it and like water, it slips through our fingers. Money, time, and energy seem to always beckon us and wear us out. Pursuing words that are empty and hold no permanent value. Sure Jesus could have eaten right then and there in the Desert that was devoid of all things of life, except he didn't an kept his frame of mind and the Devil went away empty.
As Christians we sift through our daily lives and we pray to the one who offers a better word and a more necessary and needful one and we eat of his body, (think sacraments) and we can be sustained with an eternal frame of mind instead of a material and here and now frame of mind.
If a Church and a body of believers do not do these things, and listen for the word out of the mouth of God, do not go with them. Promises apart from those things, preached in the Gospel or anything else added to it to enhance it or make it more tasteful is not necessary or needed. Music is nice, schools are good, activities are fun, but if that is all Church has become a place to go to on a Sunday or Saturday or Wednesday night and the heart is left in the Desert hungry.....then it was not needful nor was it necessay.
What was the Cross for anyway? For our pleasure? NO it was for Salvation from and enemy kingdom, darkness, death, lies, empty promises, and Sin that separated us from the Word of life. Jesus reversed all of that and so we have an obligation to find his word and his life and tell others of it and find the Daily bread that will sustain us in a world that is increasingly evil and hard to live in. Too much disparity too many words. If anyone took the time to re-read the transcript of Benjamin Nenanyahu's speech about the threats he and his country faces... annihilation... that is sobering. His words cut to the bone and I don't believe for one minute he is fooled by the regimes in and around him. They want to destroy. That is what the Devil does.
The very first temptation were words, " surely you will not die?
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