Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Matthew 2:1-12 (Wise Men from the East)

You know, when you read the Bible with the revelation that every Word is Holy Spirit-inspired, any small detail can speak to you!

Matthew 2:1-12

Wise Men from the East

- v1. "Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king..."

I realised that you can be born at the wrong time in the wrong place, but when God is for you, who can be against you?

Jesus Himself was not born in the most ideal of times; wouldn't it be better for Him to have been born after Herod had died? We might thank God that we weren't born during World War II, or into a not-so-ideal family, but even if you were, what's there to fear if God's hand of protection is upon you? Jesus was only a baby and He was protected!

I'm pondering a few questions from this story:
1) Who are these Wise Men from the East? The Amplified Bible says they are astrologers. From China? And how do they know that the star was a sign for the "King of the Jews"? Does this imply that Judaism was already prevalent in other parts of the world then? And the irony is that these Gentiles are more ONZ than most people in Israel....

2) If Herod already knew that the baby was born in Bethlehem, why didn't he do the search himself? And why couldn't he just get someone to tail the wise men instead of expecting them to come back to him???

1 comment:

Yvonne Loo said...

Hey I checked up on a Bible dictionary that I have at home and it says that Magi are 'Eastern wise men from Persia, Babylon, or Arabian desert'. They are 'priest, and astrologers expert in interpreting dreams and other magic arts'. They knew Scripture quite well too (see Matt. 2:5).