In the next 15 seconds, I'm going to endorse both an awesome audio Bible app and a rated R Action film. I feel really good about myself for doing it. This week's sponsor for the podcast is Dwell. It is fantastic. A lot of people are giving me really good feedback on it. We've been trying this out for a couple of weeks with them as a sponsor. I hope you go check out the Dwell Bible app. You can get a seven-day free trial on Android, iPhone, whatever you use. Second endorsement. Have you seen Mad Max Fury Road? What? Seriously? Never? Okay, just turn this thing off, pull over your vehicle. I don't care if it's in traffic and you're on your commute. I don't care if this is a workout. You just stop what you're doing and go and rent that off some digital provider and watch Mad Max Fury Road beginning to end, and then you can rejoin me. This is the best action movie in the history of action movies. In addition to being well-acted and well-written and super fun, they just actually did all of the stuff in this show. It's unbelievable. And the whole thing is basically just one gigantic chase scene. It's a blast. But it is really helpful to understand the plot because it's a lot like the passage we're looking at in Matthew chapter two. The main bad guy in Mad Max Fury Road is this guy named Immorton Joe, lives in this post-apocalyptic future, everything's deserty and awful. And he's got this little enclave where he's got these hordes of followers who, through years of inbreeding, are just a complete disaster, and they're dying for water. Water is the most precious resource. And what we find out is that Immortant Joe is withholding this water from all the people and only giving it away sloppily and stupidly in order to maintain control over them. Well, along comes Max, this outsider, and Imperator Furiosa, played by Charlie's Theron. I never know how to say her name. And through a series of events, they end up trying to break the whole system that Immorton Joe has running. And Max and Furiosa pose a threat to Immorton Joe's hold on power. That means he's a bad guy. He doesn't want things to be better. He wants power. He doesn't want redemption. He doesn't want healing. He's taking advantage of a disastrous situation in his world's alternate history. And anyone who would threaten the lemonade he's making out of lemons has got to be dealt with. That human mentality, that version of evil is exactly what we're dealing with in Matthew chapter two when we get to Herod and the Magi. Now, the magi are these wide-eyed wanderers who have made their way across the dunes to follow this star or planet or comet or nobody really knows what it is, but there is some astronomical phenomenon that's occurring that caused them to take this huge trip at huge expense, and they get as far as where Herod is hanging out, and they connect with him in Jerusalem, and they seem to be there out of goodwill. Herod probably knows about this. I mean, this is amazing news. We'll just talk with him. But Herod doesn't know about it. And so tension ensues when Herod, the immortal Joe of this situation, realizes this is a threat to his precarious position, his tenuous hold on power. But he's smart enough to read the social situation and know, I don't want to irritate these guys or tip my hand. I need to let them use their space wizard magic to figure out where this baby is so I can kill him. So here's how it goes. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, Where's the one who's been born, the king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. That's right through the front door, isn't it? When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. I wonder what disturbed means in this context. Were people disturbed, like, no, we love Herod? Because that's not what the historical record indicates. Disturbed here, I think, could just as easily be read as agitated. Herod is agitated in the negative sense. Jerusalem is agitated in the what does this mean sense? When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers in the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. In Bethlehem and Judea, they replied, for this is what the prophet is written. But you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel. And that's a reference to the prophet Micah in Micah 5 and verse 2. Okay, a couple of things here. Isn't it interesting that everybody knows, or at least the fancy religious people, they know about all of this messianic stuff. They've studied the scriptures, they've read the signs, and they know the exact town where the Messiah is supposed to be born. They know where he's supposed to come from, Judah. Well, this is the promise that was made. So Israel, of course, is the people group, and then there are a bunch of tribes within that. And Judah is like the primary tribe of the southern of the two divided kingdoms that we've talked a lot about in the history of the people of Israel. So it says, then Herod, verse 7, called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and make a careful search for the child. And as soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and totally not kill him, so that I too may go and worship him. And the Magi are like, that guy seems credible. I'm glad he's as excited about this as we are. We'll totally tell you later. Or at least they maybe were smart enough to play dumb and play along with what was going on with this king, because it it seems like he's really eager to do damage here. And also, what king would be cool with a new king of the Jews, someone who sits on his throne coming along? I would be really interested to understand the social dynamic that was going on in the room between these two parties. What role did linguistic barriers maybe even play here? But whatever the case, that is the testimony we've got. And we get into verse nine. After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. We talked about the physics of that, and I will continue with I have no idea how that works, but because of the way this all played out, I mean, really, needle in a haystack, baby, toddler in a haystack. It's just crazy that this method of tracking somebody down could actually work. That strikes me as providential. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh. There are a whole bunch of ancient sources that suggest that those would have been typical gifts given to royalty. Some other people theorize that the gifts themselves triangulate the point of origin as being Persia. Some people also argue that maybe Arabia is where they were from, and a small minority position on their point of origin suggests Eastern Anatolia or modern-day Turkey. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they return to their country by another route. So this is weird because their story is bookended, right? You see this a lot in Jewish literature, in the Gospels. We're going to see a lot of this kind of structure, bookends and chiasms. We'll talk about chiasms later on. So their story starts with a premonition's not the right word, but with receiving a message that would appear to have been supernatural. It ends with them receiving a message that would appear to be supernatural. Both of these messages affect their decision making and cause them to behave in a way that is in keeping with God's redemptive plan. Aha! I think that's one of the themes you're supposed to take from it. Have you seen those cheese ball awful church signs? I mean, I'm glad that church marquee signs exist because it gives me something to laugh at and to feel smug and better about myself over. Like, haha, everybody else is so much worse at Christianity than me. Look at those stupid signs. I would never do something like that. So there is benefit to it because it fuels, you know, my pride and sense of superiority. But there's also benefit to it because every now and then they're actually kind of clever and they stick with you. And one that has been on church signs since the dawn of time, since the invention of church signs, is wise men still seek him. Oh, and I get it, it's a little bit cliche, but also it's really in keeping with this passage. I think the original audience and us as the modern secondary audience are supposed to look at this and be like, those guys were smart. And they were outsiders, and maybe they arrived at conclusions about Jesus and his importance in ways that are weird. Okay, that happens. But they knew a good thing when they saw it, they knew truth when they saw it, and they responded rightly on the front end and on the back end to this king that they believed was legitimate. Likewise, pay attention to this story and emulate these wise sages, whatever your starting point might be, and see that Jesus is who Matthew is telling us he is. It's a fascinating, dramatic story that could have ended with a toddler getting murdered. Ugh. It could have ended with all of the hope that we're building up to in the Old Testament in the first chunk of Matthew, just going away with one casual command of a king and some goon from the brute squad coming over and doing something vile and then getting on with his day. But instead, this, again, vulnerable, tenuous situation is providentially cared for by God. And we're starting to see a pattern develop that causes the attentive reader to believe that God is behind this thing and that it cannot be prevented because of that. This redemptive plan through Christ is going to go all the way through to the end. And nobody, as we read along, not the good guys, not the bad guys, not the neutral people, can do anything to obstruct it. Okay, once again, thanks to everybody over at Dwell for sponsoring this week of the podcast. You guys are awesome for getting behind what we're doing here, and you have an awesome thing that you've made. If you haven't checked out that app yet, please do so. There's a free trial. You can search Dwell in any app store and get there that way. I think you're gonna love it. I especially encourage you to go through and try the different voices. They have four different people who have read through the entire Bible in very different ways, and you're gonna find one that you really like. I particularly like Felix's style. I assume he's from a country in Africa, but his accent is fantastic. And for me, it particularly reframes the Old Testament stories in a different and fresh light. And I've really enjoyed him. So, Felix, if you're listening, nice job. You're very, very, very good at reading the Bible. All right, thanks all of you for being here and kicking this around with me. We're gonna be on to the next episode in the birth narrative of Jesus, and it's not gonna be too much longer, and we're actually gonna get to hang out with Jesus himself, with him saying and doing stuff. And let's be honest, that's when this really gets juicy and exciting. Thanks for being here. I appreciate you enormously. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do it again soon.