We use this term often lately to talk about Saddam, but have you considered Herod? Yea, Herod “the Great”, who built Masada and expanded the Temple.

In verses 16-18 of Chapter 2, here is a guy who is running a dictatorship, and sees a possible threat to his kingship in a “baby”! A baby that probably even if it was a valid threat, would not be so until at least 10+ years!

So what does he do, when he finds out that the Magi left without informing him of the Babies location? He does what any lunatic would do in that case…he orders ALL babies killed in the region!?! What!?! First off, it can’t that hard to find out where 3 rich foreigners went to in a small town, just ask around. Then lock them up, or something!?! …but no, just kill ’em all! Of course, this is the same guy that killed his wife and two sons as well.

Now think you are there that night, watching TV, just got your son to sleep after him crying for 6 hours (parents can relate). All of a sudden, crash opens the door, soldiers come in, take your baby, and say he must die! You ask why, and they say…”The king said so. He thinks some baby is going to be king at some point” WHAT!?!?

This is evil, and this is the land and times that Jesus, our Savior, was brought into. You may think things are sick now, but let me tell you, they were sick then! It makes you rethink yourself when you say how bad things are, and realize that this is and always was a sinful world we live in. It makes you realize our need for Jesus!

In verses 13-15 we see the obedience of Joseph, in doing what the Angel of the Lord told him. Now I know what you are saying, “If an Angel appeared to me, I would be moving as well, more from fear than obedience!!!” Well that certainly could’ve been part of it, but if you read what it says is that an Angel appeared to him in a dream. When is the last time you did what your dreams told you? How many of us would’ve woke up and said, “Hey Mary, I just had the weirdest dream! By the way, whats for breakfast?”….

But Joseph did not even wait for morning, he got up, woke his wife and infant (and if anyone is familiar with waking your wife and a sleeping baby during the night, this took a great leap of faith in itself!) and left, on the donkey (not the train or plane or heated car) and headed toward Egypt.

…all because of a dream.

– ’nuff said, this guy was obedient, and had some real trust in God to lead his family out alone. BTW, ever walk in the middle of the night through the wilderness? This guy was obedient!

If you read Matthew 2:9-12, it really blows by some amazing stuff, which considering the length of the Bible, makes you realize the awesome stuff that is in there, for its size.

1) First you have the wisemen following a moving heavenly object to where it finally comes to rest at a place such that they know exactly where to find the child. If you read Luke and the other gospels, you realize at this point he is not a newborn, but still a baby. It is an amazing picture in your mind to picture this, and more amazing to see it depicted as it says. Most amazing is that it really happened!

2) Now you have highly respected wisemen coming into your house, ‘overjoyed’ when they see your baby, and hitting the floor to worship him! I dont know about anyone else, but I would have had out the Louisville Slugger and been chasing these guys out and down the street! Weird stuff, but obviously, all part of God’s plan and the folks knew it.

3) Then…it’s like the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes at the Joseph residence! They pull out gold, perfume, incense…all real expensive stuff! All signifying something different about Jesus and who he is (see this clip I found online which explains it well):

Gold, which was the usual offering presented to a king by his subjects, represents his office as king (obviously). Frankincense, which was used in worship at the temple, represents both his divine nature and office as most high priest. Myrrh, which is one of the ingredients in the holy anointing oil described in Exodus chapter 30 used to consecrate the things in the temple used to minister unto God, and was also used to anoint the dead, represents his role as the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of man.

4) Then there was the warning in the dream to not go back to the King who TOLD them to do so. This must not have been any whimsical dream that one of ’em had, but a real clear dream that they all had conferred, and decided upon. They were risking their lives at this point disobeying, if I know anything about Kings…

So in a short few verses there are some really cool things! Take your time when reading the Bible and think about each verse! There is a reason its in there, and maybe the reason is that God has a specific message for you.

In Matthew 2 is the story of the wise men. The first verses point out their trip to see Herod to find out where the Christ is. (BTW, a real cool version of this story is in the first chapters of Ben-Hur)

you can see Herod on the seat of his chair, “Say what? The King of who? umm…oh yeah, let me look into that for you. I need to worship him as well.” This is a guy who has a large ego, and a real tight grip on his Throne. He is jealousy of anyone who may jeopardize that.

It makes me think of me, being too comfortable of where I am at, or when someone is excelling in something that I am good at as well. All of the sudden, the competition spirit comes out to show them I am better. Competition is good, but for the sake of keeping hold of a title cause you “need” that to feel good…thats bad.

The right thing to do is to be happy with/for that person for their accomplishments! WOW! That was easy to say! Tough to do…definitely need the Holy Spirits help with that! (…after a while, you realize, what good thing do we NOT need the Holy Spirits help for?)

Verse 22 of Matt 1 mentions a reference to Isaiah. It started me thinking about how I have always heard that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament about a Messiah for the Jews. Off to Google to find this, and much more describing each one in detail, so as you read down through them you realize that this is not just some air-filled statement, but has merits for proof in the Bible:

“There have been described in the Old Testament 300 prophecies of the first coming of the Messiah and 500 of the second coming, all of then made hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus and fulfilled to the letter in Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

George Heron, a French mathematician, calculated that the odds of one man fulfilling only 40 of those prophecies are 1 in 10 to the power of 157. That is a 1 followed by 157 zeros. Compare it to this; your odds on winning the state lottery are 14 followed by 6 zeros.

Another mathematician, Dr. Peter S. Ruckman, claims the odds of being fulfilled only 60 of them by the only person who claimed to be the Son of God, and who died on a “tree” on Calvary, and who rose the 3rd day are astronomical!… not just one in one trillion, but one out of ten to the 895th power. That is a one over a one followed by 895 zeros.”

Those are some odds! Of course, if it all was God’s plan to start, then it was really not by chance or odds at all….was it 😉

(BTW, here is a list I found: http://www.teachinghearts.org/dre17hdan09b.html)

Moving ahead in Matthew, the first thing after the chronology is about Jesus’ birth.

It always amazes me that its been about 400 years since any prophet or direct revelations from God. Then all of the sudden, Joseph’s wife, who was engaged (or something more serious, as they did not seem yet to be married, but he may need a divorce) became pregnant. Can you see the discussion between them?

Mary – “Joseph, I’m pregnant, but I have not been with a man, it is from God. An Angel appeared to me and told me so! I swear!”

Joseph – “Uhhh…yeah, sure!? Gotta go!”

Definitely a hard pill to swallow, but he is a righteous man, as the Bible states, and is going to do a really nice thing by keeping it quiet, and just separating. It is curious that God waits to let Joseph decide what to do, prior to sending an Angel to him. The Angel could’ve come to him earlier and let him know, or both of them when having dinner one night. God used this tough time in Joseph’s life to test him, and Joseph did not disappoint! In fact, this allows us to see what a righteous guy he was, since not a lot is said about him after.

I hope I can pass the tests when they come my way. I know I have disappointed God many times, but I think I have done the right thing many times as well!

Here’s to doing right, by God!

I am currently in a BSF study in the book of Matthew. It is a real good study, though I seem to be missing more times than I had planned.

An interesting thing was right at the beginning. We took time to go through the lineage that is at the beginning of Matthew, and there were a couple of interesting points:

1) There are some key women in Jesus’ lineage that are actually pointed out (whereas they typically aren’t, due to Jewish tradition of heritage through male). Rahab the harlot who helped Joshua at Jericho was Ruth’s Mother in Law. Ruth, of course, was David’s Great Grandmother.

2) We always refer to Jesus as the Son of David, and refer to his lineage to David and other great men like Jacob, Isaac and Abraham…but have you ever noticed that some of his ancestors were Terrible men? (note the capital T) Rehoboam, and Abijah, his son, did all types of bad things as king (see 1 Kings 14-15), Jehoram, Uzziah (2 Kings 8)…etc.

take away what you would from this, but I liked the fact that God’s Word places significance on great men and women alike, even though in those days, women were not placed in such high honor as men. It shows me a God who stands by his Word which teaches that “we” are His children, and he loves us all.

Also, even though you may come from some terrible ancestry, or have had a bad past, etc. God still has a plan for you, can use you and loves you!

Its a pretty good lesson, from what seems (at first glance) a pretty mundane piece of scripture!

Did you ever think about this…or have someone ask this?

In Matthew 24:14 (NIV) it says, “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come”, which infers that everyone must hear the Gospel before Christ returns. Mark 13:10 (NIV) also says, “the gospel must first be preached to all nations.” How could it be preached to everyone, when someone is born every 5 seconds, and there are still people who are dying who have never heard in remote locations…?!?

Well, its not an easy one to answer, but at this point, what I believe is that God reveals Himself to people in 2 different ways.

First and foremost is through the Gospel of Christ, and the acceptance of that Gospel. This is really the only way to God that we should worry about, as it is our call to spread the Gospel through the world, as the body of Christ.

Second is through some revelation from God, that only He knows how it works. This is based more on Romans 1:20, which says “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” This implies that no man has an excuse as God is evident in His creation. Since we know God knows the hearts of men, He knows who has seen and understood.

So what about the person grown up on the South Pole with a tribe of wolves…see the second way above, and I will leave that to God.

For everyone else, I/we should be doing what we can to let others know of Him, and the good news!

I am not sure where I heard this, but in re-reading it, it makes a lot of sense. Anyone can say, God is Good, but how do we see his goodness. 3 ways are mentioned below:

1) God’s Mercy is his Goodness to those in distress.

– How often have you been in distress? For me…alot! Seems like I always have some issue that I would like God to take care of for me, whether physical, emotional or spiritual. …and you know what? His Mercy has always been there, if not to relieve my burden, at least to help me endure it.

2) God’s Grace is his Goodness to those who deserve punishment.

– Pretty obvious here. God’s Grace is what allows us to be saved from the punishment of hell. This is the most obvious and greatest display of God’s Grace.

3) God’s Patience is Goodness to those who continue to sin.

– I am a Christian, and I still do wrong. I still sin. I still deserve punishment, but God’s Patience is there , understanding, forgiving and His Spirit is there to help me learn and do better.

So is God Good? Yes! Do I love Him for it? Yes! Does he love me? Yes! Do I deserve it? No! Does that matter to God? No!

He loves me for who I am, and I love Him for that.

“When someone says that they are not into worship, it is not true! Everyone worships something, the question is, what are you worshiping?!”

The word “worship” is prone to interpretation, but per a Webster definition, worship is, “extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem <worship of the dollar>” I thought the last point was interesting, which is the most common worship that most people in the world do, including committed Christians. It is hard not to worship something like a dollar, that is such a requirement or need in our culture.

If it’s not money, is it a person, or is it work, or is it some type of fun hobby…?

Time to put the focus and worship where it needs to be.