THE VISIT OF THE MAGI

Mat. 2:1-2 ..."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 king of the Jews?  For we have seen His star when it rose and have come to worship Him.'"

      In what are now western Iran and southern Russia there was in ancient times a country named Media, which at one time was powerful and expanded an empire across a part of the Middle East.  One of the tribes that constituted Media was the Magi.  Later, when Media was absorbed in the Persian Empire, the Magi led a revolt, which ended in failure.  Thereafter the Magi ceased to have ambition for power and prestige and gradually became a tribe of priests.  As the years passed, they became in Persia something like the Levites in Israel.  No sacrifice could be offered unless one of the Magi officiated.  They were the ministers of Zoroastrianism, the official religion of the Persians. They came to be honored, even revered, as the holiest of all men.  It was believed that God (Ahura Mazda) manifested supernatural power through them.  In fact, it is from this idea and their name that we derive our word "magic."

      The Magi were looked up to as men of great learning and wisdom, for they were skilled in philo-sophy, medicine, and natural science.  They were employed as the teachers and instructors of the Persian kings and upper class.  It may seem strange that such men, who were evidently outside the circle of Israelite culture and the religion of Jehovah, should have set out from their country to a distant land to search for a king.  Many ancient records tell us, however, that about 2000 years ago in the Middle East there was widespread belief that somewhere a king would be born by divine inter-vention and would establish a worldwide government of peace, prosperity, and happiness.

      The point to be made here is simply this:  These Magi, who were known as wise men, set out on 

a long, distant and difficult journey to search for Jesus, whom they accepted to be King of all kings.  There is a great lesson here for us, wise men sought for Jesus then, and those who are truly wise have sought for Him ever since.  In fact, this can be taken as an excellent definition for "wise men."

      As in many other things there is a great deal of difference between the meaning of "wise men" in God's revelation and its meaning on the human level.  To us a wise man is someone with a Ph.D. from a renowned and highly prestigious university such as Oxford, Harvard or Princeton, who has written scholarly books on advanced topics.  To us a wise man is someone who made a breakthrough in scientific discovery and has been awarded the Nobel Prize for his achievement.  To us a wise man is someone who is recognized as an authority in a specialized field.  He is someone who knows more about a given subject than almost anyone else in the world.

      This is how we view wisdom on the human plane, but from the perspective of God's revelation this human identification is often far in error.  A person may have achieved these remarkable distinctions and yet, in a very important sense of the word, not be wise at all.  From God's view wisdom is not based on advanced university degrees, or on scientific or technical brilliance, or on the authorship of books that are studied as standard texts by other scholars.  There is an entirely different definition of wisdom that prevails in God's revelation to us, and it proceeds along the line of what we read in Mat. 2:1-2.  These wise men sought Jesus as a Visitor from heaven, and anyone who follows their example is at least pointing himself in the direction of being a "wise man."

IMMANUEL: GOD WITH US

Mat. 1:23 ... "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name IMMANUEL, (which means, GOD WITH US)."

      Joseph was an humble carpenter of the village of Galilee called Nazareth and a descendant through David of Abraham.  He had pledged himself to marry a village girl named Mary, who was also directly descended from Abraham and David.  Mary was betrothed to Joseph, which means that, although they were legally bound to marry, they were not yet enjoying the intimacies of married life, (v. 18).  God selected them to be the human parents of His own Son, Jesus Christ, whom He was about to send to earth to accomplish the critical mission of saving mankind from sin and its condemnation, (v.21).

      God's plan was to send Christ by a miraculous conception, whereby Mary would conceive by the action of the Holy Spirit without the cooperation of a human male at all, (vss. 18, 20).  Had Joseph not learned about this, he would naturally have been affronted when it became known that his select bride was pregnant.  In fact, before he was so informed, he was already making plans to divorce her to preserve his own honor, (v. 19).  But God intervened, and sent His angel to enlighten Joseph completely on what was happening and to tell him to proceed with his plans to make Mary his wife.

      In recounting this history many years later the inspired biographer Matthew made an important observation, that all of this was the fulfillment of ancient prophecy.  He pointed out that the virgin birth of Christ had been foretold by Isaiah (Isa. 7:14) some 700 years previously.  This was to be the first evidence of Jesus' divinity, for birth by a virgin is unique in the annals of human experience.  Although there are many myths about other virgin births, they are unauthenticated and otherwise embellished with the wildest sort of details.

      It is nothing more than speculation that Jesus was born on Christmas Day, December 25.  The first mention of any celebration of Christmas is in about 325 A.D., and there is no evidence that Christians paid any attention to this date before that time.  In fact, there is no agreement today on the calender date of Jesus' birth.  Although western Christianity takes it for granted that December 25 is THE day, the Eastern Orthodox Church claims January 6, while the Armenian Church observes January 19.

      When the prophet said, "They shall call His name IMMANUEL," he actually meant that this was to be a divine title rather than the Messiah's personal name.  That was to be JESUS, a derivative of the Hebrew YESHUA, meaning "savior."  In fact, He was probably familiarly called "Jesus bar Joseph," (i.e., Jesus the son of Joseph), for this was the common way in which the Jews referred to a man, (see Luk. 4:22, Jno. 1:45 and 6:42).  The title "Immanuel" is very significant, since it means "God with us."  The word "incarnation" is also used to express the same concept, for it means "in the flesh."  God sent His son into the world of humanity as one of us, clothed in flesh as we are, so that He might experience life as a man and be able to die as the perfect representative Man to atone for the sins of all other men who are by no means perfect.

      A second enormous benefit to us in Jesus as Immanuel, God-incarnate, is pointed out in these self-explanatory words, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin," (Heb. 4:15).  Because Jesus experienced life in the flesh, He can be sympathetic with our human condition in His role as our Intercessor (Heb. 7:25) and Advocate (I Jno. 2:1) before the Father in heaven.  (See also Php. 2:5-9).

INTRODUCTION

Most of you who read this probably know me, but in this first post I want to introduce myself.  My name is Burton Whited, and I am a retired educator and minister.  In education my position was that of a high school math teacher, but I also taught physics several years and German several years.  After 27 years in Nashville (TN) Public Schools I retired, went to Friendship Christian School in Lebanon (TN), taught 15 more years, and retired again.  I was the minister of a Church of Christ in Davidson County (TN) for 15 years and of a Church of Christ in Sumner County (TN) for 17 years.  For 8 years I served congregations in Monroe County (AK) and in Putnam, Cheatham, and Wilson counties in TN.  In all, I was a church minister 40 years at the same time I taught in high school.

To prepare for these dual professions I studied a total of 7 years in these universities:  Tennessee Tech, Peabody-Vanderbilt, University of Tennessee, David Lipscomb, Harding Graduate School of Religion, and Tennessee State.  I earned the B.S. degree, M.S. degree, and a year of certificated study beyond the master's degree.

My wife and I have been married 52 years and had three children, one of whom is now deceased.  My wife was an elementary music teacher, our deceased son was a physicist who worked for Bell South, our other son is a truck driver, and our daughter is a kindergarten teacher.  We have three grandsons.

Now for the purpose of this blog.  It is designed for people who love the Bible and want to increase their Bible knowledge and understanding.  Each post will feature a relatively short essay on a text in a chapter of the Bible.  The first will be in Matthew 1.  Successive posts will proceed chapter by chapter, in order, through the New Testament.  The final post will be, of course, in Revelation 22.  In all, then, there will be 260 posts (essays), for that is the number of chapters in the New Testament.  Each post (essay) will be equal in length with the rest and will require 5 minutes or less to read.  Although each post will focus on the select text in a chapter, it will relate to the rest of the chapter.  These posts will therefore take the reader on a tour through the entire New Testament.  I propose to complete at least two per week, thus it will take about two-and-a-half years to make the entire tour.

In these essays I use the NASB (New American Standard Bible) unless otherwise noted.  I began using it about 35 years ago and generally prefer its readings.  I have completely read through most of the popular Bible versions, some more than once.  Through the years I have carefully compared readings among them.

In these essays when I refer to Divinity, whether in a name, pronoun, or descriptive word, I will capitalize the word.  In this way I intend to emphasize the sacredness of any word that denotes the members of the Holy Trinity.

These 260 essays are already written.  In fact, I began composing them in 1988 and finished in 1998.  It was my original purpose to publish them in book form, but have recently been persuaded to use the blog presentation.  I hope a great number of interested people become regular readers of this material and find it of great benefit in expanding their Biblical knowledge and perfecting their understanding of its message.  God bless you if you engage as a reader-student.