How to Study the Bible: Luke 1:26-38

What we'll do this Sunday and next Sunday is is kind of pick a sample practice passage and go through it and kind of ask a lot of questions and then say, how would you find this? How would you answer the questions? That's kind of the approach we'll take. So on this one.

Here we're in Luke chapter 1 verses 26 through 38, which I have here quoted from the New American Standard. And if you have another translation that you use, that's fine. I'll just kind of start through some questions. Just to give a summary, this is the account in Luke chapter 1. where the angel Gabriel brings the news to Mary. And so we've got the account of some narration and then some recording of the statements and questions between Mary and Yes, that's right.

Very much on purpose. It also happens to be one of my favorites in terms of a passage. I just think it's a really precious passage with centuries of history and Bible background and all kinds of promises in the Bible and here is this probably very young peasant woman if if you if you want to look at a comparison probably someone Kaylee Kays or Erica Hemingway that plays the flute and occasionally the piano about the age that Mary would have been so I mean this so this is you pick a girl about like that and picture them in here in this little small podunk town That was typically what happened at that time, wasn't it, Bill? What's that?

The age. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean that would have been, in other words, she was betrothed, that would have been the age. Roman Empire made a legislative, you know, no less than 12 years old. No less than 12, that's Roman Empire law. And then you have the Jews' own traditions on top of that.

So they didn't live to 21? No, no, no, none of that, none of that, you know, wait until you get older stuff. They didn't live as long either. Typically not. People on average did not live as long. And typically, as is common today, typically the women would outlast the men. And it was not uncommon to have a guy die in his 40s and 50s. It was also, it was not unheard of for a guy to last into his 80s. But it was also pretty frequent that someone would die younger.

Hi, here we go. We got just the four of us so far, so if you want, you can each grab a handout and just kind of pull up a chair here and we'll proceed assuming we got the small group. Yeah, just grab a comfortable chair. There's some that are a little nicer than others. That one right there is a great one. Remember there's two handouts. Make sure you got both of them, okay? Yeah, there's two of them, so make sure you've got one of each.

And we're talking about Luke chapter 1 verse 26-38, and this particularly has to do with the angel Gabriel giving Mary the news. And this is our practice passage. that we're, of course, choosing because it's seasonally appropriate as well. And I also admitted it's one of my favorites because I just think it has such grand themes in it. At the same time, here's this very young peasant woman, you know, who's getting this news.

So, hello. Sure. We have a small group, but just go ahead and grab where there's chairs here. You can just kind of sit around and we'll we'll keep it a smaller, closer group here, anticipating that we'll have a number of folks out and about. No, back there. Make sure you get one of each so you can track with us here.

And if you have something of the sort, I'd recommend being able to write here, pen if somebody needs one. Okay, so we're going through this passage with the angel Gabriel and Mary and so the way I have it is a little bit of room for you to write there and then a series of questions.

The first one was who was Luke and why did he write? Are there comparable books in the Bible that will help us understand the way Luke writes and his use of language and other things? Okay, all right. Is the book of Acts and why is the Acts a good book to compare? to the Gospel of Luke. Why Acts? Is it a good book you say? No, I said why is it a good book to compare with the Gospel of Luke?

Because he wrote it. He wrote both books, okay? So it's Luke's own pattern of writing and even seems to have written to the same guy and with similar purpose, just kind of continuing this account. Yes, okay. I think it's because he was not a Jew. Yeah, Luke is probably the only New Testament author, not a Jew, a Gentile. Couldn't you say the only Bible author? Possibly, I think there is a possibility that Job was written by a non-Jew. Because it appears to be a contemporary of Abraham, and of course Abraham was kind of the proto-Jew. There wasn't any Jews around and he didn't seem to be directly related to Abraham. So there would be at least those possibilities of Job in the Old Testament and Luke as Luke and Acts.

Let's take for instance, I don't know none of that. How am I going to find that out? Are we going to find out what? Well, how do I know that Luke is a Jew? Or he isn't. He isn't. Okay, the bottom line is you look up where does Luke's name show up and you find out in Colossians that there's a separate listing of these people are Jews and Luke isn't in the list.

And so you have that. And that brings up the other point and that is what else do we know about Luke? That's right. And that's also from that same passage in Colossians. You look it up. Luke, the beloved physician. That's where he's named. So I call him Dr. Luke. And that's fine. That's what he was. And something else. What else can we say about Luke? And where would you find it out? Well, think about it. Who did Luke spend time with? Paul. Paul. And how do you know that?

From Romans. From Romans or from? From Acts. From the Book of Acts, right. And what you see is he uses us and we during those portions where he's right alongside Paul. That's right. one of the chapters in Acts. Towards the last half, he uses us and we, and he's actually right alongside him. The other thing is that at the very beginning of the Gospel of Luke, the earlier part of this very same first chapter, he tells Theophilus, he says he went and checked out these stories carefully.

He even at one point in the book of Acts makes a copy of an official Roman letter between the Roman commander in Jerusalem and the governor over in Caesarea Maritima. And he copies the content of that letter. So he digs for documentation and interviews. Wasn't he a Greek also? Theophilus was a Greek name. He's writing to Theophilus. John Mock, who's an author, has even suggested that Luke and Acts were Luke's defense submittal on behalf of Paul. And that's why it ends Acts the way it does.

So anyway, if you look at it, most of the information about Luke, how do you find out about it? You look in the Bible. We mentioned a comparable book would be the book of Acts, and that's an excellent comparison. Would there be any other comparisons you could make with other books that would be good comparisons to Luke's Gospel?

Do you mean like common theories? No, just the books of the Bible. Books of the Bible. Yep, that's it. You've got the other Gospels, right? You've got Matthew and Mark and Luke, they're called synoptic Gospels because they have a lot in common. And so there you have a point of comparison. And then you've also got the Gospel of John, which would be of a slightly different character, but another good point of comparison. So you've got all the Gospels to compare with Luke, plus the Book of Acts, all is good background to look at that. So that's a good start.

Then what did Luke mean by in the sixth month? In the sixth month of what? Of a year? Now in the sixth month, the angel was sent to God, from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth. That's six months of a certain king? Well, it's interesting. This is one of those things where I pulled the thing and I put it out of context. The prior passage tells about Elizabeth. So it's interesting. He didn't say in the sixth month of this king or the sixth month of Mary's pregnancy, now here's why you're pregnant, right? It relates to Elizabeth. So that's where context, okay? Context. So when you say, how would a person find out?

And notice almost everything we've looked at and the answer to here is you find the answer in the Bible. Right in the Bible itself. And that's a key point in our studying scripture. Use the Bible to the max because the Bible itself has points of comparison, resources, and references. If you're looking at what's the best resource for studying the Bible? The Bible.

There we go. Yes, that's right. There are other handy things like concordances, and you can look up a meaning of a word, and this thing helps on grammar. But in the end, the Bible should be your first resource. OK? All right. How about the third question? What does the Bible have to say about angels, and how do you find out? Does the Bible have a little bit or a lot to say about angels?

A lot. Yeah, a lot. Yes. And Pete Gillins' footnote. Oh yeah, Ezekiel. What's the New Testament book that has the most about angels? Revelation? Yep. Bingo. Revelation all over the place. From the first chapter to some of the last. And so lots. One of the things I did when I was back at Tyndale was go through and look at all the passages in the Old Testament about angels and what were the terms that were used about angels. And it turns out they show up in the creation.

Job 38.7 says that the sons of God sang in glory to the Lord as He created things. You find a fallen angel, Satan, showing up in chapter 3 of Genesis. We talked about Job being a parallel book and we find both Satan and unfallen angels in the book of Job. We find different words used, some is just translated angels. What are some other words that are used for angels?

Other terms? Cherub? Yeah, there you have cherub. What else? What's the other one? It starts with an S. Seraphim. Seraphim, okay. A seraph is the singular, seraphim or cherubim. That I am ending is the plural. You put an S on most English words, but I am is the Hebrew way of pluralizing in most cases. So yeah, that would be the plural. What else? Messenger. Yeah, sons are simply called a messenger. And you find another one we're going to run into in Genesis called the sons of God.

And it's also the term used in Job. So, you can go through, there is a massive amount about angels in both the Old and New Testaments, from the earliest chapters all the way to the last chapters about angels. They're often involved. I think it's interesting to realize who angels are. Okay, let's talk about that. A created being. Yes, yeah. To serve God.

What's interesting, we talk about God as spirit, okay, and yet when we look at it, what are other spiritual beings, or who are other spiritual beings? You have what scripture reveals as angels and mankind are other spiritual beings, but all other spiritual beings than God are created, right? All are created.

And whenever you hear a bell, he gets his wings. Strike that from the record. Oh boy! Yeah, and that's one other thing. There's lots of mythology about angels. So, one of the things, you know, talk about people, they died and became an angel. Well, that's not the way it works, you know. So, and, you ever hear of Bell that gets his wings? So anyway, there's all sorts of mythology. And, of course, you have people praying to angels and all kinds of things of that sort.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, she went and got her wings. Yes, oh yeah. Got her angel wings. Yeah, I don't think we'll need wings. So anyway, but how do you find out about angels? The Bible. As a matter of fact, looking a whole lot of other places is probably not going to be terribly helpful. Why? It wouldn't be taken out of context. Yeah, if there was one problem that's taken out of context, why else? Full of myth. Full of myth, yeah. There's a huge accumulation of myth about angels. So, yeah.

Gabriel is only one of two faithful angels, this is question four, mentioned by name in the Bible. Why is he mentioned by name here? Matter of fact, this is the only place in the whole New Testament. Why is he mentioned by name here, do you think? It's the only place in the New Testament that an angel is mentioned by a name? No, that Gabriel is mentioned by name. He is mentioned in Daniel by name in the Old Testament, Daniel only. He is mentioned in the New Testament here only. It's interesting, we've only got Michael and Gabriel, and only those two names.

What is interesting is if you look at other literature of the New Testament and afterwards and back in the late Old Testament times, the literature that we have oftentimes gives other names to angels and gives more powers to angels and things of that sort. And a lot of the other literature gives a lot more elaborate detail than scripture does on hell and heaven. And so it's interesting, a lot of those things, other literature outside the Bible gives a lot of detail. What's interesting is that scripture is almost deliberately conservative about revealing angels' names, telling us what heaven's like and what hell's like.

And so I think one of the things that's real specific here, this is a very limited passage. And here's Gabriel and that's it. And then, not a whole lot of other mention except for Daniel. So, what you find here is that the focus of attention is not upon angels, but specific here, specific in this case, Because the Lord doesn't want us worshipping angels. Okay? The Lord doesn't want us worshipping angels.

So specific here would be to support the factuality of it. So this isn't just some angel, this is this one, a specific one. So it supports the factuality of it to give a specific name. And there's something else to it too, and that is that you see with the angel Gabriel named, that Mary also, because it seems like Gabriel and Mary are the only ones in on this conversation, that Mary also has assurance. This isn't just some random statement, but this is the guy and this is the one. So she's got some assurance that this is the real thing.

This is the angel, and you've heard about him. He's out of the book of Daniel, which also is a book about Christ first and second coming, especially second coming. Was it Michael, the protector of Israel? Yes, specifically of Israel. Yes. And so Gabriel had to have some specific job also. Yes, yeah. And that's the thing. Angels, we do see them having specific assignments. And this is consistent with that. Where he seems like he has a specific assignment here. Do you hear the archangel? Is that Michael? Michael, yeah. Archangel? What's an archangel? Yeah, and arch is a prefix used a lot in dignitaries. For example, that prefix arch or arch is used for Zacchaeus, who's a chief tax collector. So he's a chief angel, if you will. He has a position of authority given to him.

And this one's here, it says the angel, and then the angel said to her, and the angel answered, but they don't use his name again. Yeah, it's interesting, here's this angel Gabriel showing up, but they don't keep saying, you know, Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel, what's the angel? So the focus, it identifies him, but the focus is not on the angel. And the focus isn't, well, let's start worshipping this guy. Let's start making requests of him. But you know specifically who it is, but the focus is not on Gabriel.

So, for Mary's assurance and for fact-finding? Yeah, for Mary's assurance, we can see it for our own case that this is very specific. you know, and it's not just some big story. Here's Mary and she's saying, she's telling, here's a clue, the last time Mary is mentioned in the whole Bible is Acts chapter 1. Okay? And then after that, no longer named again. She, according to extra-biblical tradition, went with John up to Ephesus. and died there.

And so that's the account. Luke, who also, it appears, went there, may have actually sat down personally with Mary, since he's able to record about her all the way into the Book of Acts. Tell me the account, Mary. I want the story because I want to get the whole thing down right now. So give me the account.

So that's why this would be, she would say, you know, it was the angel Gabriel. He identified himself. This is what he said. This is what I said. And so he very well could have gotten this directly from Mary's testimony, which I'm sure she remembered very well.

Right? Wouldn't you? You mentioned naming rather than just saying an angel. Yes. Yes. But naming Gabriel. Yes, naming Gabriel. Specific. And that's one of the things, there are places in scripture where you see, boy, this author is really specific. And I think a part of that is just to convey factuality. This happened here. It happened during this time. So and so were in witness. That kind of thing.

Does it mean anything that the angel was sent from God? From where was he sent? Well, yeah. The angel wasn't just kind of hanging around and saying, I think I'll go talk to Mary. Right? I think they dwell in the third heaven. Yes. Yes. They dwell in the third heaven, God's heaven. Yeah, in other words, their place of ministering is substantially there in the third heaven, and the Lord sends them from there.

And as a matter of fact, going through Revelation, one of the things we found is that repeatedly things, including angels, were sent from heaven. nothing is ever sent from earth up to heaven. People on earth don't go say, well, take this, you know, but it's the angels are sent.

From where was it sent? From God, from the third heaven. Question six, was being sent characteristic of angels or was this an atypical role for an angel? What do you think? Yeah, it seems characteristic. As a matter of fact, the word angel is angelos in the Greek, and it means messenger. And in fact, sometimes that's the word used for messenger. So the word angel means messenger. So the idea of being sent is built into it. So this is certainly a typical role. It was a special role. There's no question about it. but it was typical. It wasn't some bizarre occurrence.

All right, now let's look at the questions on the top of the next page there. Where's Galilee? Because that's the next thing that pops up there. Where's Galilee? How would you know? What's the history of Galilee? Northern part of Israel. Okay, northern part of Israel.

Can we say more specific than that? You're correct, but more specific than that? It's close to the Sea of Galilee. It's close to the Sea, all right. And which side? would be on the west? Yes, on the west side of what we call the Sea of Galilee. And they frequently have used other names for it. Sea of Tiberias was one of the names. So it would be on the west side of the Sea of Galilee, between Galilee and the coast.

So that's one thing. The name Galilee, is this the only place it shows up? Or does it show up earlier in the Bible? And how would you find out? I'd use a concordance. Yes, that's right. You'd use a concordance. I wonder if that name Galilee shows up? Pull out a concordance. Look it up. In fact, it does. One of the phrases you may have seen in the Old Testament or heard from here is, Galilee of the nations. That's where it's mentioned.

Interesting what happened to the area around Galilee is that the Assyrians came in 722 and over a seven year period of time they just stripped out Galilee because remember the whole northern kingdom got hauled off? Galilee, other areas got repopulated, but Galilee remained almost entirely unpopulated from any instance that we know until about a century before Christ was born. Just stripped. Because the Assyrians, when they stripped it, they stripped it big.

And so the people who repopulated were oftentimes of various tribes, which is why you see Joseph and Mary, though both of David, And where's David from? Bethlehem. Bethlehem in the southern part, south of Jerusalem. But they lived up there in the northern area. Why? It was part of this repopulation that didn't happen until late. So these people were not long-timers that Joseph and Mary came from, but they actually have maybe been there only a few generations at the most. Okay. Now, where is Nazareth and what else do we know about Nazareth? Why Nazareth? Okay, Nazareth is in Galilee. Good. Well, it's a small town in Galilee. Very small. Yeah, still a small town. Nazareth was in Galilee.

It was on a ridge overlooking a valley that's, you ever hear of the Battle of Armageddon? That valley where the Battle of Armageddon and the North End will take place. So here's, you imagine Jesus just looking from where he's working. looking for where he's growing up, looking down there and knowing this place right down here is going to be a bloodbath.

Is that something? The valley is on the west side, but the Sea of Galilee is on the other side. Yeah, here's this ridge. You have this valley going to the south and heading off one direction and the Sea of Galilee off to the east. So you've got that.

In Jesus' time, estimates of population between 80 and up to about 300. So, a little Podunk town, about the size of the town I lived close to when I was going to high school. A little Podunk town. Everybody knew everybody. So here's this little town of Nazareth. Why Nazareth? Is there any significance to it? It's five points of Denver. One thing is that the Old Testament would indicate that he would be a Nazarene. So, interesting.

So, he had to be there also, but however, be born in Bethlehem to satisfy Micah 5.2, which was the verse that the Jewish scholars went to when the wise men came, the Magi, and they said, where is he going to be, where is he born? As a matter of fact, where did he already yet born. Where was he already born?

And they look up what we call Micah 5.2, because they didn't have chapters and verses, and they said Bethlehem. In fact, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, because there was a Bethlehem right near Nazareth.

And it was the one in the southern part. So it was even that specific. Okay? Interesting. Yes. You said there was a Bethlehem just to the west of that. Yeah. Another little town. Yes. Bible says Judea. Yes, the Bible is specific. The difference is not. Mary, very pregnant, is about 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. 90 miles. Either riding the donkey or walking, because they didn't have any money for a camel. Yeah, and I'll tell you one other thing. Even a donkey may have been expensive. You know? Here's something else.

We got, Gabriel brought the news to a virgin. Why a virgin? And why does that matter? The Old Testament says so. Yeah, I mean, what? The Old Testament says so? Yeah, you're correct. Where does it say that? 7.14. It's 7, double that, 14. 7.14, okay? Isaiah 7.14 says that he would be born of a virgin. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. And that phrase, bear a son, also shows up in these passages about Christ's birth. And we're going to see that upstairs. So that's why it matters, because it was predicted that he was a virgin. But why else would it matter that she was a virgin?

Yeah, it's not Joseph's. Yeah, this isn't Joseph's. As a matter of fact, it said he kept her a virgin until after Jesus was born. By the way, that was exactly according to Jewish tradition. It wasn't just, you know, hey, I'm not touching this gal, you know. But it was Jewish tradition. You do not have sexual relations with a woman either during her period or while she's pregnant. So yeah, they were just, you don't do that. So that is exactly, according to tradition, is exactly what he did. So this must be a virgin birth. Another reason I think is it's humanly impossible. Yeah, that's right. This doesn't happen. No. Yeah. OK, here. I have a question. Yes.

I've heard in the Old Testament that there was not a name Yes, there was. As a matter of fact, what you can do, because it's online, when I studied through Isaiah 7-14, and you'll find various claims and whatnot, I go through the reasons why. This is very specifically exactly what they had in mind. As a matter of fact, the translators of the Greek Old Testament, who translated about two centuries before Christ was born.

So you can't accuse them of any kind of bias or influence. They translate with the exact same word that's used for virgin in this passage. Plus, the word that they say doesn't mean a virgin. It's the word that means virgin and one of the proofs of that being, aside from looking at other comparable uses, is the fact that the translators looked at that and translated it using the exact same word for virgin that he used here.

And so when they look at what's the best word, that's it. So anyway, that's a mistaken impression that a lot of people have. And as a matter of fact, commonly I hear that from people who are skeptical or trying to criticize scripture. And basically it's they're wrong.

Okay, what did it mean to be engaged in the culture of the time? Because our engagement has no legal import unless somebody wants to write something up, but naturally doesn't have any legal obligation to it. What was meant at the time to be engaged or betrothed? The culture was they would select, the father would select in preparation?

That's right. That's right. Which, because I had somebody ask me this just this last week, well, why didn't, you know, why did Joseph have to, you know, worry about divorcing her? Oh, then you're right. They had this one year period of time you would get engaged, and that was a legal engagement. As a matter of fact, to break the engagement was a divorce. It was a legal divorce document, and you had to go through the same process as if you were married to break the engagement.

In fact, there were two different courts you could choose. You could choose the court that was no fault. That was the court of Hillel, Grandfather Gamaliel, who was Paul's teacher, and he was quoted in the New Testament. Hillel had the no-fault divorce.

That's probably what is meant when it said Joseph determined to put her away quietly. I'll choose the no-fault divorce so they don't ask questions. Because I can just avoid the shame for this girl and that's it. The other was Shammai where you had better have a good reason because you've only got about four valid reasons why you can get a divorce under Shammai. And if you don't have that, you're not getting a divorce.

Plus, it's not quiet. It's a public thing. You're going to stand up in court. And what would happen, they'd have judges that would ride circuit to different small towns like that. And they'd show up, and here you'd be around all the whole village, whoever wanted to attend, and say, we're breaking this off because Mary's pregnant. She's, whoa! You know, what?

So anyway, that would be putting her away quietly. Yeah, that would be putting her away quietly. Go to the Hillel court where they don't ask questions. You want to put her away? No questions asked. So it had legal import, required a divorce just like you were married.

Joseph actually was in a very peculiar position. Oh, incredible. Small town, everybody knew what was going on. Oh yeah, that's right. Everybody knows what's going on. No secrets. No secrets. Yeah, there's absolutely none. You did that? Yes, that's right. And by the way, what time are we talking about these events took place? What time is this? When is this, that this is happening? The time of day or the next month? The year? Yeah, more like what's happening around the world.

In Israel, who's the king? Herod's the king. He died in the middle of March, about the 13th or 14th of March, my recollection, of 4 BC. And so since when the wise men approached him, the star had already appeared and the baby had already been born. So the wise men weren't there with the shepherds. But one of the things that was happening then, one of the things that was happening was that the The wise men are there asking, you know, where's this king of the Jews to be born?

And Herod says, I've got my own questions. And that is, you need to tell me exactly when this, because I need to know what age kids to kill. And I want to get it, you know, so there's no chance that we're going to have this king of the Jews born. So, or live. So, was it also because of the economy? Now, Herod was sent from Rome. Right. And they were really, people were downtrodden. Oh, as a matter of fact, this was in the middle of a series of Galilean tax revolts. Yeah. Also, Herod was a great guy. Yeah. He killed his mother. Oh yeah. And three sons. Yes, oh yeah.

In fact, it was said of Herod by the Emperor, by Emperor Augustus, okay? Emperor Augustus said, he used a Greek play on words. He said, using the Greek play on words, it is better to be Herod's pig than Herod's son, because the words for pig and son sound similar. So anyway, yeah. So here's this nasty guy, Herod.

He taxed him like crazy. He had a gazillion building projects. And he said, oh, by the way, we're going to fund the whole Olympics during 12 BC. So the Jews are going to pay for the Olympics. We're going to fund the Olympics because that'll make everybody happy. So anyway, piles of taxes. It took from about 20 BC to early 60s AD, about 80 years to finish the temple upgrades that he had in place. So when Jesus and the apostles were walking around, it was still under reconstruction.

Where do I get all this information? Okay, well that's a very good question. First of all, you gather as much as you can right out of the Bible itself. Second, you can look this up where things like Bible dictionaries would have a lot of those kinds of information. And you get various sorts of Bible history books that we've had reference to in here. So yeah, let's start with the Bible itself.

Okay, now. What time are we talking about? Oh, here's one other thing. Where did the wise men come from? They came from the East, right? They came from what was then the Parthian Empire. Probably Persian. And it was, yeah, the old Persian Empire. Now, here's the deal.

Herod had been put in there because the Parthians actually came in in 40 BC and drove the Romans out of Jerusalem. The Romans were really ticked. They said, never again. We're not going to have that. They put Herod in place after that because they said, this guy is nasty. He'll keep them out. And they knew Herod was nasty, but they said, that guy will keep. Herod, here's your assignment. Do anything you want, but keep the Parthians out of here. So they put Herod in there. So here's Herod, and they put him in there because he's nasty. They know he's nasty. So here's Herod and he goes and starts all these heavy taxes, building projects, including a lot of military projects and fortresses and observation points to look out for the Parthians. Right east of Bethlehem, you can from Bethlehem see this Mountain, where they found his tomb by the way, where he carved off the top and put a fortress on the top as an observation point to look out for the Parthians.

Guess where the wise men come from? Parthia. So he's very interested in anybody coming over from the Parthians, especially when they're talking about asking for the king of the Jews. So you imagine, it says in the passage not here, all of Jerusalem was troubled at these wise men coming in and asking questions. These guys are from Parthia, oh no. These guys, whoa, you know, this is trouble.

So this was an intense time. There had been tax revolts. The Romans were having people go to their hometown. So here's Joseph and Mary having to respond to a census requirement. So this is just a mess. Terrible time. Awful time. With the nastiest ruler you could imagine.

We're going to talk about that upstairs in the next service. The wise men were magi. Magicians, astrologers. It is not quite the full sense because as we'll see they were during the latter part of the Old Testament period actually put under the leadership of Daniel. and that had an impact on why they were here, as we'll see when we get upstairs.

It had an impact on why they showed up. Why are these guys coming out of Parthia? How do they know the King of the Jews and why now? What sense does this make? Now, when they came, were they afraid for their lives? Was it something that came in? No, but you can imagine that they'd want to come and be fairly open about their coming. If they were sneaking in or anything, that would be not good.

And here's a big caravan, yeah. You know, we three kings were way off. They were wise men. They were kings, they were wise men. And they probably came a long ways around the Fertile Crescent. And they had a caravan full of food and a whole bit. Yeah, there may have been dozens of camels, okay? Dozens of camels bringing these guys in.

And notice that they were quite open with Herod about what they were doing so as not to be suspicious because, boy, the first thing Herod's going to think, you know, here's dozens of guys coming out of Parthia, you know, and they're asking questions and, oh man, what a mess, you know? So everybody is, like, major uptight. really uptight. And so these guys, you know, hey look, we're here looking for this guy called King of the Jews, you know, it's one of you. Of course, Herod's not a Jew.

He's descended from Esau. Okay. Is that as you mentioned, Daniel. Yeah. These wise men that came from there probably knew something about the Bible. Yes. And what we'll see upstairs is almost certainly they did. Yep. Almost, that's fine. Almost certainly they did. But you can imagine, here's this great political turmoil and here is tax revolts. They went through several tax revolts including probably about the same year that Christ was born was one of those tax revolts that was a bloody suppression.

When Herod came in, the Jews went to about triple the taxes that they had before. And so that's why by the time Christ comes and he has his ministry, a great number of Christ's parables and stories were regarding money. Why? Because, boy, the taxes were heavy, heavy duty.

And so you have this intense political time, all sorts of turmoil. There were people around who remembered when the Parthians had come in and pushed the Romans out. So this was a really uptight time. So, quite a time. Anyway, here's what we're going to do. We've run out of time. We've got a lot more questions to go through. We're going to just use this for next week. Just continue through this.

Because I think it's real helpful for us to ask these questions and look through and talk about where do we get the information. What does the Bible say? Because the reality is, all the stuff we've been talking about, it comes into play in a passage like this. And obviously seasonally appropriate. But I am profoundly impressed by what is available in Scripture to back this up. what perspective we can gain on it and what we can learn about it and know.

And I am profoundly impressed about the character of Mary in this, who was, to give you a comparison, probably about the age of Kaylee or Erica. A peasant woman in a small podunk town of about 80 to maybe as many as 300 people. And I'm astounded how well she remembered and likely told directly to Luke who said what when and what happened.

Just amazing. For the record. Yes. You're talking 13, 14, 15 kind of age. Better young before they get corrupted. Yeah. And and and. Not being married by age 15 for a Jewish woman, that's like getting a little late. About that early teens kind of age bracket would be the most likely. for Mary. Barefoot and pregnant at 16. Oh, yeah. Easy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's pray. We've run out of time, so we'll just continue on with this next week.

Lord, we thank you. What tremendous insights into this passage and into what took place. As we step into this passage and think of the the surroundings, we would think, oh boy, if I wanted to have this one baby that had to be safe and kept safe and alive and continued on to fulfill your purpose, boy, We would not have chosen such a delicate, tumultuous situation, politically and militarily sensitive, with the Jews having little power and influence, and yet that's the time you chose. And Lord, we just are thankful as we look at here. We can see your wisdom. We can see your deliberate revelation of the truth for us. And we just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.