Why is the story of Herod and the Magi and child Jesus in the Bible? Well, we covered one reason at the tail end of the last conversation. And that is, I think it's supposed to model what it looks like for a wise person to size up the situation and respond with wisdom. Jesus is credible. And no matter what context you're coming from, even if it's weird and foreign and seems like it's should be an outsider thing, and like, oh, that's not how people sign up for Jesus. Well, apparently it is. And even if it's uh quirky or different, we see a great example of outsiders for whom this was always intended signing up to follow Jesus when we look at this story. I think another reason that this story needs to be in the Bible is to answer an obvious question that everybody would have been asking when they picked up this document describing stuff 40, 50, 60 years after it happened. And that is, well, what about when they killed all those babies? Remember when the king went nuts and he sent government goons around to knock on our doors and just kill our babies because he had some weird paranoia issue or something? I hated that. That was just terrible. How did uh your Jesus kid survive that? Because it sounds like he was born at exactly that time. And well, I guess there are two answers or two things that this story being in here tackles in regard to that. One, Jesus wasn't just a potential victim of that story. Jesus is what lit a fire under the king to make him behave like that. So I don't know if that make people feel better about it or worse about it, but it would certainly help them connect the dots. And two, the next story, the escape to Egypt, is going to give us an account of why Jesus wasn't caught up in that horrible slaughter that Herod carried out. So another reason that I think this needs to be in here is to demonstrate a connection between the scattered Jewish people and Gentiles from the farthest reaches of the world to the story of Jesus. This is not a regional religion, but almost everything up until this point of history had been a regional religion. You have patron gods, local deities. Remember, Diana was associated with Ephesus. Well, they called her Artemis. You've got uh, who is it, Apollos, her twin brother, associated with the site at Delphi. And likewise, you know, nobody would ever think of going and signing up for the religion of the Egyptians. If you're not Egyptian, that's their deity. But Jesus is not just claiming to be the king of the Jews. Matthew is not just painting him as the king of the Jews. He's the king of everything. He's the redeemer of all this stuff, and it doesn't matter how you look or how you sound or language you speak or where you're from or what year you were born, he is king of the world, maker of the world, and king of you. So, right off the bat, we've got to start to make a connection and to draw in that connection as we work through Matthew. This story helps accomplish that, not just with the farthest reaches of the world and somebody you might identify with an outsider, but specifically it makes a connection with a whole other half of Judaism that was unfolding in old Persia. Remember, a whole bunch of people, when Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonians and let the Jewish people go back to rebuild, you know, Ezra, Nehemiah, all of that stuff in the Old Testament, hundreds of years before Jesus, a whole bunch of people didn't want to go back. And they'd been there for uh, I don't know, a couple hundred years as a family. Well, not quite that long, but they've been there for a long time and they'd learned the language and they were doing their religion there and they were making money and things were fine. So they didn't want to go home, and they didn't go home. And as a result, you really have two big pockets of Judaism, well, really frankly, three, because there's one in northern Egypt as well. And this story would draw in those ever-divergent expressions of Judaism and pull it all back to the place where all of those arcs, all of those themes, all of those ideas from the Old Testament are converging, and that is in the person of Jesus. Another reason that I think this story has to be in here is to contrast the response of effectively pagan space wizards with the Jewish religious leaders and their king. Okay, we've already talked about Matthew isn't ever really affirming the practice of astrology, but maybe the reason that it isn't overtly condemned either is because it can just sit there as a neutral. This can be read as Matthew saying without saying it. Hey guys, look at this. Pagan space wizards were able to do the math on the Messiah of the Jewish people, an ethnicity they're not even a part of in a language they don't even speak, but your own king and your own religious leaders couldn't do the math on it. Are you kidding me? I suppose one of the obvious take-homes here is shrug. Well, that's what power does to people. It makes common sense and thoughtfulness not happen. You got power, you got an institution. Pretty quickly, every one of your thoughts and all of your energy goes to preserving that power and preserving that institution instead of looking to see things that might be truer and realer than your own authority. Additionally, this is in here, I think, because it demonstrates that even the notion of Jesus, because he's just a child here, he hasn't done anything yet, but even the notion of God re-engaging with his people is a threat to Herod, because Herod cannot simultaneously be king of everything and a sovereign and have Jesus be that. It's a threat to the emperor, because the emperor cannot be the one true God king of all the world and have Jesus be that at the same time. There are conflicting claims here. Now, look, Jesus doesn't want a stupid throne. I don't want it. He doesn't want his stupid throne. He doesn't want stupid temporal power. I mean, if he had it, he'd be a footnote on history. We might have a coin or two still floating around with some kind of warped Jesus face on it, like, oh yeah, he was king of something for a while or whatever. I mean, come on, if it weren't for the fact that we know Jesus, we wouldn't know any of these kings from the first century in this obscure part of the world. He could have traded out everything about him that mattered for political power, but he had no interest. Instead, Jesus was a different kind of king. He wanted to redeem, to overhaul that whole system, not just of politics, but of power, of force, of violence, of evil, of institutional injustice and human fallenness across the board, and to replace it with this kingdom that we're gonna learn more about as we work our way through the book of Matthew. Is that a threat? Oh, heck yeah, that's a threat. It's a threat to everything. Because in a way, we're all kind of like Immorton Joe or Herod. We're making lemonade out of lemons. We're aware of the human problem, whether we'd use that language or not. We're aware of sin, whether we'd use that language or not. And we know it's screwing stuff up. And all of us are trying to make something good out of it and carve out our little niche and our little place to provide some sense of security in the midst of it. Here comes Jesus, and he's like, none of you are safe. There is no security in this. Your governments, your money, your power, none of it is safe. None of it lasts. The only place where there is life and truth is in this eternal kingdom that Jesus is coming to explain to us. So, yeah, Jesus is a threat not only to Herod, but Jesus is a threat to us. He's a threat to everything. It might seem weird because Jesus is doe-eyed and nice and he has perfect silky hair and great posture, and he just says nice things and always walks around like he wants a hug. But the reality is if you look at his claims, it strikes directly at our own notions of our own authority and our own sovereignty over our lives. We will die. We are imperfect. We don't know all the things. We can't time travel to solve our problems. We cannot build a government or vote for the right kind of power to fix everything. Only a flawless, immortal, timeless, perfectly gracious, perfectly just king with a kingdom to match could really scratch the itch and solve the problem that we all just flail around at. And that might sound like a harsh indictment of how life is, but look, even if you're somebody who comes at this from a more skeptical position, and man, I can relate to that, we gotta admit that's kind of what our situation is. Some of our flailing against it is more successful than others. Some of it's just embarrassing, but the reality is that the role Jesus is claiming to carry is one that is a threat to our own notions of personal sovereignty. So why is this thing in here? It answers some historical questions that everybody would have had. It demonstrates a connection with Gentiles and diaspora or scattered Jews. It contrasts the response of pagan space wizards with people who should have been able to identify Jesus as the Messiah right away. It's there to demonstrate that Jesus was a threat to power, even though he didn't want their stupid power, and that Jesus is a threat to us. I think it's also there to just continue to hint at this theme that Matthew will develop much more aggressively as we go along that Jesus is king. King of the Jews, uh, sure, and that he's king of the everything, and that he's maker of everything, sustainer of everything, master of people, and that ultimately it's given to him to judge and rule, and that is a message of hope. If it doesn't sound like a message of hope to you and you're like, weird, that was weird, that sounded apocalyptic and bizarre, and I don't like listening to this anymore. Hey, I understand. But at the same time, it's got your attention, doesn't it? And it's at least worth gaming out, if nothing else, to understand what crazy religious people believe, or maybe to take a fair look at it and figure out that there's some truth to it that affects our lives as well. I'm getting excited about stuff. That's weird. I don't know if that's okay or not. Thanks for indulging me. Whatever the case, I love talking about this with you. I love that I am feeling from you the permission to just game it out. And if I say things that sound maybe slightly accidentally sacrilegious, that's okay because we're trying to be honest and do eyes wide open faith. And if we think different things, eh, we think different things. But it's really fun to have a place where I can game this out in a way that is real. And I'm just doing this for your benefit. I hope that comes through all right. I'm not like writing this stuff and being like, there, that'll teach them how the things are. I get to prepare every one of these and it pushes me and it makes me think, and it changes me. And so I guess I owe you a lot of gratitude for that. Yeah, I also want to say thanks to the people who support the program at patreon.com slash the TMBH podcast. Uh, that makes all the difference in the world and makes it so that I can try to make content that I want to listen to and that I think you want to listen to, instead of chasing after a bunch of internet algorithms or other things that might confound and screw up what we're trying to accomplish here. So thank you for making that go. I can't wait to get into this account of Mary and Joseph and the child Jesus escaping to Egypt. There's a whole lot more here, and it just keeps ticking boxes. So look forward to catching up with you soon. I'm Matt. This is the 10 minute Bible hour. Catch you in a bit,