Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone

Matthew 4:4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

I promised my readers a story about the Armenian Business men in my post a couple of days ago.

We were doing door to door evangelism in a village near our city. Michael had gone to get the car, so Caleb and I walked up to the next house off the main road. However, it wasn't a house but some sort of business. The metal door was unlocked, so I thought, why not? I slowly pushed open the metal door, and half stepped inside.

To my right, was a large open space, but male voices were coming from my left. I stepped in a little more to look in the direction of the voices. There was a small room off to the left side, and the door was ajar.

At a glance, I could tell there were several men sitting around a table, which sort of surprised me, and my heart jumped a little (Caleb was still out at the gate, so Dad would know where we were) When I looked more closely and they also saw me. I didn't feel a dread or fear, so I said a quick prayer and walked on into the doorway of their small room. I spoke to them, and made eye contact with each of them, and they all spoke back. I was then inside the room. I quickly made a few observations. Well, we were trained in security and contingency. These things come back in situations like this.

They were all men. They were not Russian. The table had some money laying around an one larger stack. There was one man at the head of the table, who had a ledger or some sort of accounting book in front of him, and he had the biggest stack of money, so I spoke directly to him while glancing at the others. I told him that my husband (my big tall, strong protective husband) hahaha-nah, I didn't say that)and son and I were going to every house in the village to give out Bibles, and I saw your business and wanted to give you one too. He quickly said, "I'm Armenian, do you know of Armenia?" I said of course I did, and told him that I knew Armenia was very proud to be a Christian country, and that we had several Armenian friends when we lived in Moscow. Then he said, "Well, I don't read Russian" (with a sheepish grin). I glanced down at his notebook in front of him and said, "Well, you sure speak and write it well." He held out his hand and too the Bible I was handing him. I asked him if he had children and he said he did, so I gave him Children's Bible. Then he waved his hand around the table and said to give them one too. I told them that God had a plan for them, and it is written in His Word, and told them to read for themselves. He said he would love an Armenian Bible and to come back next week and bring him one. I told him that I knew we had some other languages, but that I would tell my husband, and if we had one at our church that he would be happy to bring him one and come and talk to him more about Christianity.

There was one guy standing in the doorway, and after I gave him a Bible, he spoke to me. He said come in here and give her one, walked past me into the open room. At the end of the room, was a Russian lady. By this time, I could smell the fresh bread, and realized it was a bread bakery. He led me over to the lady and she was very cold and distant. (I still think their business was something other than a bread business, but Michael assures me that my imagination has run wild and that Bread is a legitimate business)

I introduced myself and asked her how she stayed so thin, working in a bread factory, the smells were so tempting. She smiled and I talked with her a bit, gave her a Bible and children's Bible.

As I was leaving, the guy asked me to wait, ran over to the bread cart, and got me a loaf of bread, and thanked me for the gifts.

John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst."


We are praying that we will be able to find an Armenian Bible to take back and for those dear men to read the Bibles and have a hunger for God's Word, and see Jesus as the "bread of life" and believe in Him.