The Bible Recap - Day 276 (Matthew 2) - Year 3

Episode Date: October 3, 2021

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap. Yesterday, we read Luke's account of the birth of Jesus, and today we get more information from Matthew's account. Jesus is born in a village called Bethlehem in a kingdom called Judea. At the time, he's born, all of Judea is under Roman rule and occupation. Imagine a large and powerful country takes over the country where you live.

Station soldiers in every major city is involved with every level of your government and makes you pay taxes to support that occupying army. That's what's happening here. Rome is in charge of things and they put again in here the great in charge of Judea. Herod is a great builder, making port cities and aqueducts and even renovating the second temple complex so that it's much bigger and more magnificent. For a while, he's even the

president of the Olympics, but in his later years, he becomes jealous and paranoid. For instance, he spends six years building a massive fortress in the middle of the desert in case enemies attack and never spends a single night there. He kills his sons, so they won't take over his throne, and he even kills his favorite wife, then mummifies her in honey when he later regrets it. He is driven by fear, which prompts him to try to control everything around him, which is where we find ourselves today. We're at Herod's palace and some foreign wise men show up on his doorstep and say,

hey, we're here to see the new king. We saw a sign in the sky that let us know he's been born and we want to worship him. Can you type his address into Google Maps for us? Herod puts them on ice while he tries to figure out a plan. Then he calls them back in and says, now that you mention it, I'm just as curious as you are. So when you find him, drop a pen and send it to me

because I want to go worship him too. But it turns out they don't need to use their GPS because God sends the star again to help them out and it leads them to Jesus. Hooray! Now let's stop and look at a few of the details more closely. First, what is a wise man? Are they kings like the Christmas carols says? Do they wear

crowns? We don't have any evidence of that. Most scholars think they were probably astrologers who worked in the court of a king. If you were with us on days 256 and 256 and 57 in the Old Testament, these wise men might be kind of like the guys in the book of Daniel, who are on King Nebuchadnezzarim team. Second, are there three of them? Probably not. There are three gifts, but there are probably lots of wise men. And their names are never given in scripture. Third, where is the east? We don't know.

The commentaries I read give rational support for multiple options. Iran, Babylon, and even Turkey, despite the fact that it's north. Most estimates have the wise men traveling anywhere from 500 to 2000 miles. But since it doesn't matter enough for Scripture to specify, we'll leave this open-ended.

What we do know is that whoever they are and wherever they were from, they had access to the Hebrew scriptures, because they know the prophecies, and they're roughly quoting Micah 5,2 when they show up to talk to King Herod. Fourth, what's the astronomical phenomenon they saw? They call it a star. I've heard people say it's a comet. If it is a comet, it definitely isn't a normal one, because over the course of this passage,

it appears, disappears, reappears, and moves, then rests in one spot. There is a theory I find interesting, but that I definitely hold with an open hand. Astronomers in the East recorded a major astronomical phenomenon in 6 BC, which is one of the most probably years Jesus was born, along with 5 BC and 4 BC. And this phenomenon occurred on June 17th, in the summer. Maybe that's the star they saw, so maybe that's Jesus' birthday? Who knows. By the way, if you want a detailed timeline of everything that happens surrounding the birth of Christ in the first few years of his life, check out the timeline overview

we've linked to in the show notes today. So, the Wisement set out from the East because they see a sign in the sky and they begin their long 5,000 to 2,000 mile journey to Judea from wherever, it probably takes several months, which means I'm sorry to say that unlike the shepherds, neither the wise men nor the star, are at the cave on the night Jesus is born. In fact, verse 11 says they come to his house to see him, and it calls him a child, not a baby, so he's back at home by the time they arrive. Feel free to adjust your notivities accordingly if you're so inclined. They worship them and give him gifts, and Mary stands off to the side with her chin on the floor. Then, before they leave, God warns them in a dream not to go back to Herod, so they take another route.

Herod is furious when they don't come back. They don't even send a text, so he makes an order to kill all the children aged to and under in the whole region, because apparently the wise men had tipped him off that the new king would be about two years old by now. But God sends Joseph a message in a dream warning him about all this, so they pack up and move to Egypt, which is outside Herod's jurisdiction. Not long after this, in 4 BC, Herod dies, and God gives Joseph another dream. They head home, but when they find out that Herod's son has replaced him, Joseph decides

they should just start over in a new town. They've had a lot happen in the past few years. The fear and shock of an unplanned pregnancy, the shame from the locals, marriage, a large group of unexpected foreign houseguests, death threats, moving countries twice, not to mention finding out that they're the parents of the Messiah. In all of this, what was your God shot today? I notice God's protective nature and the length he goes to in order to provide for his people according to his plan.

He sends dreams and angels and angels in dreams, and not just for Joseph and his family, but for the wise men as well. We are already seeing how Jesus is the king of people from among every nation. These wise men came from a foreign country to worship him. These non-Jews followed a star and traveled for months to give expensive gifts to a toddler because they believe what God's word said.

Jesus is already drawing people from among every nation and he's still in diapers. Then God protected the wise men on their way back home. And God protected Joseph's family when Herod turned to murder. And he's protecting you and your heart as evidenced by the fact that he's drawn you into his word today.

He's guiding and guarding you right now. Does God's protective nature mean bad things won't ever happen to his kids? No, in fact, he spared the life of his own son at age two, but 31 years later, things go quite differently. God's protective nature means that whatever things do come our way. He can be trusted.

He's attentive. He's at work on our behalf in all things. And he's where the joy is. Tomorrow we'll be starting the book of Mark. It's 16 chapters long. We're linking to a short video overview in the show notes to help set you up for success. Check it out if you've got 9 minutes to spare. Uh oh, did your podcast not load today? Of course not.

You're listening to it right now. But someday, that's going to happen to you. So here's what you need to know. Plan ahead. You have four options. Are you ready? Number one, refresh your app or restart your phone. Number two, in your app, scroll back to last year's episodes. The content is almost entirely the same.

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