MATTHEW 2 - Bible Study - 2BeLikeChrist

everyone walking back to to be like Christ we're out here in social distancing land staying away from people if you are watching this later on this is actually during March of 2020 during the corona virus pandemic and so we're out here I found a place and there is nobody for a long ways so we're gonna talk about Matthew chapter two before we do that if you haven't picked up the notes online the same notes I'm reading off of go to the website to be like Christ calm I'll leave a link down below or up above if you're on Facebook and you can grab these notes and if you haven't already read the chapter it's a good thing to do before we start but if not we're gonna read it anyway so Matthew chapter two so we already talked about in Matthew chapter one held how Matthew starts off his his book with the genealogy to credential Jesus as being a genuine candidate for the for being the Messiah and in in the very first part of Matthew chapter two we're gonna see another example of how he lays out his case for Jesus's legitimacy so let's read verse one he says now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King behold wise men from the east came to Jerusalem so you might read somebody's biography and it mentions where they were born and most of the time it's like it's meaningless information just kind of like a fun fact but here it's not meaningless at all because the Jews expected that Jesus was going to come from Bethlehem because of a prophecy in in Micah chapter 5 verse 2 their expectation is seen in John chapter 7 verse 42 where it says has not the scripture said that Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem the village where David was so there was an anticipation that he was coming from Bethlehem that comes from Micah chapter 5 verse 2 but you O Bethlehem Ephrata who are too little to be among the clans of Judah from you shall come forth for me one who is to be a ruler in Israel whose coming forth is from of old from ancient days so in saying stating that Jesus was born in Bethlehem he's making again laying another piece of his case for Jesus's legitimacy now let's read verses 2 through 6 well we'd better read verse 1 again just to kind of keep the flow now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King behold wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying where is he who was born in King of the Jews for we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship Him when Herod heard that Herod the King heard this he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him and assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people he inquired of them where Christ was to be born and they told him in Bethlehem of Judea for so it is written by the prophet and you O Bethlehem in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of judah for from you shall come a ruler who will Shepherd my people Israel so again a quotation of that that verse and Micah so in in this chapter there's not a whole lot of nitty gritty doctrinal details to dig into it's a lot of narrative and it's a story that most of us are familiar with and so I'm just gonna hit some of the high points some of the the interesting historical facts too that help us to understand this chapter a little bit better so who is herod this would be a reference to Herod the Great who was a ruler in Palestine in about 40 years before Jesus and a little bit into the the very beginning of Jesus's life but he was gone before Jesus became an adult I have a really detailed video on Herod the Great on my channel that you can search for I'll try to leave a link if I can remember and that'll give you a lot more details but just for now well we'll just say a few key points he reigned for 34 years in in Judea he was actually a half Jew I believe that was his mother who was from a jamia which is southeast of the land of Palestine and he convinced the Romans that he was able to keep peace in Palestine and he was given authority because he convinced them of that and one really interesting note in terrible note about Herod the Great was that he was a really gruesome individual he killed many people he even killed many of his own family he was always concerned that that people were going to her or his relatives were going to overthrow him and try to take his power and so he killed his sons he killed one of his wives is really a mess so that's that's the the guy who he's in political control when Jesus is born into the world and then he's kind of underneath the Roman Empire which is leading the world at this point so then we have this introduction to these wise men and these are really interesting characters in the Bible because we don't know hardly anything about them it just says that they're wise men and they show up here and they don't show up again anywhere in the scriptures and how vague the scriptures are about these men is really interesting but there's some interesting facts that are revealed in that vagueness as well so we don't have a whole lot of details we don't even know how many there were it's it's commonly thought that there are three wise men but the Bible text doesn't actually say that that's assumed because they brought three be it three gifts to Jesus but might have been 10 or 15 or I don't know two so there's there's plural but we don't know how me and so to my knowledge there is no mention of these wise men in prophecy or of the star that they see when they come to locate the Christ there's there's no prophecy to my under to my knowledge and correct me if you know of one that references this and so again we just don't have very many details and that's interesting because it does reveal something to us that are is confirmed in some other biblical scriptures and that is that it seems like God had some dealings with and and even gave some revelation to nations that were not Jewish for those of us who have been Bible students for a long time we think about God's dealings in the Old Testament we think that pretty much they they all have to do with the Jews or you know relate to the Jews somehow and here we find that apparently God has given some kind of revelation to these wise men who are from the east we don't know how far east they they came from but he's he's spoken with them somehow and given them this information and so God had dealings with people who weren't Jews in the Old Testament and that's confirmed through some other biblical stories as well you think about Melchizedek now kissa deck is a priest of God but he's a priest of God before the priesthood is even established because he meets up with Abraham and Levi through whom the priesthood would come isn't even he's not even born yet right so God has some other dealing over here with priests that isn't revealed to us in the scriptures I think about Jonah and Nineveh God sends him to Nineveh and you think well why why is God sending prophets to a Gentile nation in a Gentile city we don't know exactly why but apparently God had some dealings with those who were not Jews I think it's important to remember that the Bible is a narrowed in perspective of God's work with the Jews for the plan of redemption God in the Bible is kind of notorious for only giving us what we need to know and not everything that we're curious about and so we find out through through these these circumstances like the wise men that perhaps God had a lot of dealings with other people but we're just not privy to them because he's only telling us the story of the Jews Redemption is going to come through the Jews and that's what's important for us to know and so he just leaves the other details out even though we're really curious about what those are so just an interesting point that we can kind of pick up on there you notice that the wise men arrived after Jesus's birth and so as we read down through this chapter you you can actually find out that that it's a little while after the birth of Jesus that the wise men arrived on the scene and so they're they're probably not at the manger like all the pictures we see around Christmastime they probably arrived later on and I imagine Jesus wasn't Jesus's parents weren't keen just to hang around the manger much longer than they - so they probably met him elsewhere all right let's read verses 7 through 12 then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared and he sent them to Bethlehem saying go search diligently for the child and when you found them bring me word that I too may come and worship him after listening to the king they went their way went on their way and behold the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was when they saw the star they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother and they fell down and worshiped him and then opening their treasures they offered him gifts gold frankincense and myrrh being warned in a dream not to return to Herod they departed to their own country by another way so Herod ask these wise men he said he wants to know when the star showed up and then when he finds out that the king of the Jews is supposed to be born that this is a sign of his coming consistent with Herod's character he's concerned that someone is coming to overthrow him and so he sends the wise men secretly to find the child and he wants them to come back so that they'll report where the child is so that he can kill him get rid of him get rid of the threat so after departing from here the star appeared and they led them to the house of Jesus or the house that Jesus was in and they presented him with gifts and I thought it was interesting we know what Gold is obviously that's not a secret to anyone in the modern world but most of us unless we're into oils probably don't have a great grasp on what frankincense is and what Murr is and where they come from and so I included just a little bit of information on that I thought it was interesting so so both of them come from a tree and they're the resin that comes out of a tree and I've included in the notes some pictures there frankincense comes from the boswellia tree there's a bunch of different varieties of that tree but it lives in West Africa the Arabian Peninsula in India and so kind of all around that that Bible land and then you'll see there's a picture of it growing out and in the desert so it must be pretty Hardy and then the resin when it's dried looks like that second sure there on on the notes kind of like little yellow rocks and then myrrh also is a resin that's extracted from a tree and it's used in perfumes and incense and I know this are I read that it can also be mixed with wine to become a painkiller or people used it almost as like a drug so you'd have you'd cut you'd have you know alcohol which is a depressant and then you have this like pain killing effect in the myrrh and you mix those two together and a lot of people drank it is like a recreational kind of drug so this is native to Somalia Oman Yemen and Ethiopia so kind of the same areas there that that Far East northern African area and then Arabian Peninsula and then the the picture of kind of the tree that thorns on that trees is there and then the resin dried up resin is pictured there as well so the wise men apparently didn't know that they had been duped by Herod or what he was planning to do and so God appears to them and he actually tells them don't go back to Herod go home another way and so they do and Herod never finds out about the child so he's going to take alternative measures to try to extinguish the threat and we're gonna read about that in verses 13 through 15 they're actually 16 to 18 yeah okay so let's take a look at verses 13 through 15 and this will be I think the first map that we've had in our notes I I liked maps I know a lot of people hate maps but to really get a grasp of the Bible you've got to at least tolerate maps you know if I can give somebody just some simple advice on geography it's just to have a basic understanding of of the biblical land it'll really help help you understand the Bible so much better and it brings a lot of insights that you wouldn't otherwise come across so let's read verses 13 through 15 now when they had departed behold an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said rise take the child and his mother and fleet Egypt and remain there until I tell you for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him and he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remain there until the death of Herod this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt I called my son so God appears to the wise men and he tells them not to return to Herod he then appears to Joseph and he says you need to flee because Herod is going to try to kill Jesus and so he does that and you'll see on the map there kind of the journey he obviously didn't go straight through the sea but that's where he was headed down from Palestine into Egypt which is about 200 and 200 and 250 miles so no quick trek and especially not for somebody who had just had a baby so that's where he's going he's going down into Egypt and it's again to fulfill the prophecy as listed in verse 15 out of Egypt I called my son so again to the Jews that's an important point if Jesus had indeed come up out of Egypt that would fulfill a qualification that probably not many people could have claimed so in in what we find out is that Herod then dies finally and wait we're missing something oh no it's gonna be in the next couple verses so they go down into Egypt and they were probably not there more than a few years and what we see in the next couple verses is what Herod does but Herod will die not probably not more than a couple years after they go down to Egypt they're probably not in Egypt very long and but they're down there for protection from what's in verse 16 through 18 and then Herod when he heard that he had been tricked by the wise men became furious and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under according to the time he had ascertained from the wise men then was fulfilled what was spoken by the Prophet Jeremiah a voice was heard in Ramah weeping and loud lamentation Rachel leaping weeping for her children she refused to be comforted because they are no more ok so there's quite a bit in this these couple verses here when Herod realized that he had been tricked his plan is one that's just terrible it's basically genocide of babies two years old and under and he says he came up with that age range based on the time that the Wiseman had come to him so it was apparently a good bit of time here before the between the birth of Jesus and when this takes place he just because he kind of rounds it off to two years I probably guessed a little high just to be careful but good section of the time here it's not something that happens you know overnight probably so he's basically going to kill any male child two years old and under and so he actually does this he goes about it and kills these children and there's a lot of Bible critics who say that this event never happened you'll hear that quite a bit Herod never did this because they can't find any secular record of this genocide and I think there's several reasons to reject that and to say that this is legitimate did happen the first one is it's completely consistent with the character of Herod the Great there is there is no no real historian who would argue that this would be out of character that he wouldn't be capable of doing something this terrible he did some horrible things and this would not be out of the ordinary for him especially considering he was so worried about people threatening his throne alright so then I think the second reason is just basically that the Bible has been challenged and criticized over and over and over again when secular history falls short of being able to confirm the biblical records and over and over and over again as new discoveries have been made the Bible has been confirmed to be true and so even if we don't have any secular record or any record exterior to the Bible right now the possibility that that could arise sometime in the future seems very high and the Bible itself has proven that it can be trusted as a historically accurate document the testing that the Bible has been through has been more rigorous than any other historical document people only criticize it because of the implications of accepting its truth so there there's no reason to question that this event actually happened there's a prophecy in verse 18 another one you know you notice how many of these Mathew throws in here and it's a little tricky to understand maybe but let's read it again it says a voice was heard in Ramah weeping and loud lamentation Rachel weeping for her children she refused to be comforted because there are no more so rachel was one of the mothers of the twelve tribes she was married to jacob leah was kind of her counterpart is her sister but also kind of her her she was kind of the other mother of the twelve tribes and so rachel was was very prominent in the the lineage of the twelve tribes obviously so she's kind of their mother and she we need a little Old Testament history to be able to understand this prophecy so Rachel died when she was giving birth and she was buried in the territory of Benjamin around a place called Brahma which is a city that's north of Jerusalem in your map I highlighted that for you so take a look at the notes there and her and her and Jacob at that time where her husband were traveling to Bethlehem the city that weren't Jesus is now being born in you can read about that in First Samuel chapter 10 verse to Genesis chapter 35 verse 16 through 21 in Genesis 48 verse 7 those references are in your notes and the this this is a prophecy that comes from Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 15 so Rachel lives back in Genesis this prophecy is in Jeremiah and now it's being quoted in Matthew what's going on here so just keep in mind Rachel's represented kind of the mother of the nation and she's weeping because of the sorrow of her children why is this quoted in Jeremiah well because the first time this is is fulfilled or I used to talk about the a mother weeping for her children is when her children the the the nation of Judah gets taken away into captivity in Babylon she's weeping because her children have been unfaithful to God and now they're being punished and they're suffering and so a mother weeps for her children that's why it's in Jeremiah but now he's quoting it again as really a second fulfillment in that the children of Rachel right the great great great grandchildren of Rachel the babies are being killed because of Herod's cruelty and so they're suffering and you can imagine the mothers who were suffering in in Judah because of this event and so there's again there's this this weeping because of the destruction of her people and you'll notice that Bethlehem is just south of Rama and when Herod did this terrible thing he was killing babies all in that region and so that region would have been affected by his slaughter and so you find Rachel in her tomb not far away from Bethlehem weeping because of the slaughter that's going on all around her so that's kind of how that prophecy ties in all right so then we got our last section of Scripture here and that's 19 through 23 but when Herod died behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt saying rise take the child and his mother and go to the Land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead and he rose and he took the child and his mother and he went to the land of eat Israel but when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod he was afraid to go there and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee and he went and lived in a city called Nazareth so that there was so that what was spoken by the Prophet might be fulfilled that he should be called a Nazarene ok so the angel appears to Joseph after Herod dies says alright Herod's dead he's not seeking the child's life anymore you can go back to your homeland so that's what Joseph does instead of going back to Bethlehem he actually goes up north to Nazareth and I won't I don't have a map in the notes right now but I'll add one to show you where Nazareth is to show you where Galilee is and it says that the reason that he he went there was because he was afraid of a man named ork Elias who was the son of Herod so to understand who our Kalia says you got to dig a little bit more into the history of this this whole time period the Herod's it's not it's a title not just a name of a single individual so there was Herod the Great Herod Archelaus Herod Antipas and they were all related and ruled Judea for a time and so arc elias herod the great son has now assumed the throne and Joseph's afraid of him so he moves locations so arc Elias is the actually okay so you have this isn't gonna work the dirt is too dry new plan herod the great now from him you've got I got you've got our Goliath so this is the guy that we're talking about our Goliath now he has a son or he has a brother named Antipas this is in your notes if you want a more clear rendition and then they also have a half-brother named Philip okay so whose so Herod the Great he died right he died death that's what death looks like and then our coleus is now on the throne and this is who Joseph is afraid of okay so that's that's pretty straightforward now you may recognize some other names here and namely Phillip so these two guys actually have kind of a strange relationship you'll read about Phillip in Matthew chapter 14 verse 1 through 4 we'll read about that later but it says well he's the one who John the Baptist who killed John the Baptist Phillip is here wait let me make sure I got that right oh no no ok I got that wrong all right so this is the guy who kills John the Baptist Antipas does and the reason is is because he's married to a guy he's he's married to a girl Phillip was married to a lady named Herodias all right so these two were married but what happened was Herodias actually left Phillip and went over here and she wanted to be married to Antipas and so John the Baptist condemned this relationship between Herodias and Antipas and do you remember what happened Herodias gets her daughter to ask Antipas to kill John because barodius is angry that John has kin her because it was actually Herodias who decided to leave not Philip who put her away so she did this thing and Josephus even right she'll see the quote on your notes he says her Herodias took upon her to confound the laws of our country and divorced herself from her husband while he was alive and was married to Herod Antipas so she did this thing and that's right they're their brother-in-law's right so here's this woman like bouncing around husbands but it's like within a the same family and even Josephus is like this is not right Josephus was a first century historian he's you know he's not even a Christian and he's like this is not right and so that's how that all plays in so the guy in charge right now is arc Elias but these other characters phillipan Antipas have a role a much lesser role in the Gospel of Matthew but it's interesting to see how they're kind of all related and so are colitis rained for nine years after the death of his father before he was removed by Caesar Augustus or Octavian when he came to be the Caesar of the Roman Empire and following his removal after nine years the Land of Israel became a formal province of Rome and that's when it took the name Judea so I hope that my beautiful drawings here have helped you understand a little bit and you can take a look at the notes for little better clarification thanks for watching and I'll see you guys in two days when we do Matthew chapter 3

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Id: pjoJaH0-KrM

Length: 27min 54sec (1674 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 03 2020