Transactional Temptation

by Bill Ireland

This is the final installment of my reflections on Jesus’ temptation and their significance for ministers and congregations.

The final temptation the adversary waved in Jesus’ face is easy to comprehend. Grasping it requires no great leap of imagination. The devil took Jesus up to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of this world. He swept his arms across the broad panorama and said, “All this can be yours. You can have it. If you bow down and worship me, you’ll have enormous power and can accomplish whatever you wish.” If Jesus would only swallow his pride, bend the knee, and give the devil his due, Jesus could be in charge of the world.

Of the three temptations the adversary put before Jesus, this one is the most transactional and the most insidious. In essence, the devil bargained with Jesus: you give me this, and I’ll give you that. Worship me, and I’ll give you more power than you ever dreamed of having. Jesus was tempted to take the ultimate shortcut; take what the devil offered and avoid suffering. Take the easy way rather than the hard way. While such transactions may be appealing, there’s always a cost—when we put our souls up for sale, we lose something important, something crucial to our identity and mission. The key question is this: what am I willing to give up in order to get what I want?

Temptations of this variety frequently show up for ministers and congregations. Here’s an example: A member of your church makes an appointment to see you. Once the meeting begins, the member makes clear that he or she will underwrite all the costs involved with building a new building or making some long overdue renovations. “I’ll fund all of this as long as you put my name on the building or on a very visible plaque.” Tempting? You bet! The downside is that this person has a less than savory reputation in the church and in the larger community. If the needs of the congregation are great enough, we may tell ourselves, “This is the only way we’re going to get this done. Might as well take the offer.” This kind of transaction forces us to ask ourselves, “What’s my price? What am I willing to give away?” As with Jesus, this kind of temptation invariably requires taking a shortcut.

The same kind of thing happens in congregations. When churches become anxious (particularly over their future and their survival), they can also yield to transactional temptation. We’ve seen this movie before. In the face of shrinking attendance, the church decides it has to embrace a new style of worship or make some other radical change. Or the church begins blaming the pastor for the current state of affairs and then works to force her out and bring in someone new. Whatever the reason, a congregation can panic and trade away the things that set them apart and make them unique in an unthinking quest to salvage the future. All of these are quick fixes that frequently promise more than they can deliver. This transactional approach presumes that “if we do this, then that (more people, more money, etc.) will happen. As a result, a church can sacrifice its identity on the altar of expedience and forget their calling.

An even more chilling transaction is how the church in North America has exchanged power for witness. A candidate for office appeals to people of faith for their vote, promising in return that he or she can use government power to “protect” the church. This infatuation with power politics and “getting our guy elected” comes at the expense of our willingness to follow Jesus. Unfortunately, in this transaction, the church comes out the loser. As one writer put it, “Today politics is changing the definition of what a Christian is. We’re setting the Bible aside and using a different standard.”i Without realizing it, we have made a deal with the devil and exchanged the power of the Spirit for worldly power. As long as this arrangement continues, the church will lose the gospel in the bargain.

The scenarios are but a few among many. Making such transactional bargains leads us to embrace the dictum, “The end justifies the means.” With Jesus, the means were always as important (or perhaps even more important!) as the end. How we fulfill our calling matters. To be faithful to Jesus, we must resist the temptation sell ourselves out for something less than his kingdom.

i Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, The Power and The Glory (New York: HarperCollins, 2023), p. 37.