Christmas Misconceptions: What Luke 2:1-14 Does and Doesn't Say

We just got through the Christmas season and we probably heard a lot of different stories about Christmas. They're very popular on TV and just regular folklore. So today I want to talk to you about Christmases.

What most people get wrong about this Christmas story. We've heard it over and over and over again and I'll explain to you what what this is all about as we go along. So the first thing you probably heard about that there was no room at the inn, right?

Mary and Joseph were traveling around from place to place to place and the innkeeper would say no no no room here no you got to move on and then they would go to another place and on and on and on until they finally found someone to let them in.

So why don't we do this? Let's read the narrative and see what it actually says. Luke chapter 2 verses 1 through 7. In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria and all went to be registered each to his own town and Joseph also went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David to be registered with Mary his betrothed who was with child and while they were there the time came for her to give birth and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn.

So when you read that what clues can you get from the narrative? And the people who've heard already don't spill the beans. So what clues can you ascertain from that paragraph? All right keep eating. First they went each to his own town and that's important in the context and the culture that they had back then.

Another clue Joseph was of the house and lineage of David. That's going to come into play. And finally the term while they were there gives us a time stamp as to when the birth narrative actually happened.

And there was no place for them in the inn. That's going to be crucial to know what that word in means because again this is what we heard over and over. They went from place to place to place and there's no room for them at the inn.

The innkeeper turned them away. No we're not allowed to have you know a little baby Jesus born in our in our inn. Right they didn't know it was Jesus and there was no way in any way like that. So let's continue on.

Doug Greenwall says this obviously pertaining to there's no room at the inn. This is how almost every contemporary Bible translates Luke 2 7. This widespread use of inn conjures up an image of Joseph and a very pregnant Mary arriving in Bethlehem so late on the eve of Jesus's birth that a no vacancy sign greets them at the only motel six in town.

Not only is this not true to Luke's text nor his context but it also keeps us from grasping the full glory wonder and significance of the coming of the Christ child. To more fully appreciate that first Christmas we need to take a closer look at the various contextual clues that Luke gives us in this most familiar and well-known Bible story.

So a lot of people think oh Joseph and Mary they went to the comfort inn. Not so much. That's not what this is about. Okay the clues. Here we go. Prior to the night of Jesus's birth Luke deliberately tells us that Mary and Joseph have already been in Bethlehem.

He says while they were there. It wasn't that they stumbled upon into Bethlehem and then looked for the inn. They were there already. The time came for her for Jesus to be born. We don't know when they arrived in Bethlehem nor where they have stayed until the birth night but one thing is clear from Luke's words.

This couple did not first arrive in Bethlehem late in the day or night of Jesus's birth. You guys following? Make sense? Okay and in a recent article New Testament scholar Stephen Carlson explains that the Greek word for inn in that passage is kataluma and he convincingly argues that better translations would be place to stay, guest room, or upper room.

Okay so this term kataluma is going to be crucial to what actually took place. So I looked it up. There's another place in Luke where he uses that word. On the Passover, this is Jesus talking, tell the master of the house the teacher says to you where is the room where I may eat the Passover with my disciple and he will show you a large upper room furnished.

Prepare it there. Now that term guest room is kataluma. So do we think that Jesus was turned away? No I shouldn't say that. They were preparing a guest room. He was going to celebrate the Passover in a guest room.

That would be similar to what Mary and Joseph were not able to stay in when they were in Bethlehem. So they weren't turned away from an inn, a place that would charge them to stay there overnight. There was no room in the guest room in the house that they were staying at.

In a commercial establishment like an inn that we think of overseen by an innkeeper, there were no rooms to rent, no privacy, little security, and just one large common area. The inns were rough and tumble environments often inhabited by caravan or rogues plying the trade routes.

These scoundrels often brought to these open lodging areas all the ambience of a biker bar today. On top of that Bethlehem was way too small a city to have inns. It was not a top ten destination spot.

So it wasn't like people constantly traveled through Bethlehem on their way to somebody else and would stop there. Bethlehem was like a little aside. You wouldn't pass through Bethlehem unless you were going to Bethlehem.

So there wasn't this commercial inn that most people have in their minds. When Luke Rick makes reference to these kinds of inns, he uses a very different Greek word, pandoxion, the word used for inn in the Good Samaritan story.

Remember the Good Samaritan put him up in an inn where there was people and they would take care of him. One thing is clear, no self-respecting man would ever bring a pregnant woman about to give birth to a pandoxion.

Pandoxion would look more like a truck stop, a place where you would go just to rest a night and then move on. It wasn't a comfort inn, so to speak. So that's not something that happened in the birth narrative.

The picture of a desperate Joseph and Mary being denied lodging isn't the picture that Luke paints. Luke's not saying that there were no rooms left in a dank hotel. He's saying there was no room for Jesus in either a guest room, which would have been very small, or the upper room of the house where Mary and Joseph were already staying.

Remember, Joseph was there because he had relatives in the city. That was one of the clues that I had said. He went back to be registered where? To his own hometown. He was of the lineage of David. So him going back to Bethlehem would be, he would have family there and he, again according to the custom, would stay with his family.

That's going to come into play in a second. And the text never mentions a stable, only a manger. Jesus wasn't born in a stable. This detail gives us an idea where Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were staying though.

First century houses in that part of the world had two levels. That's why it's called the upper room. The upper level was where the family lived and the lower level was where the animals were kept during the night for protection and warmth during the winter months.

There was no room in the upper room, so Mary gave birth in the lower room. Jesus was born in the lower level of the house and then placed in a manger or feeding trough. Okay, let me show you what this looks like.

This is what most people think the birth narrative was. You have the three kings, there's normally a little shepherd, there's the little shepherd guy. Okay, Mary and Joseph, Mary just gave birth and now they're all hovering over the manger.

That's what we think it was. This is what it actually was. So this is a picture of a house in Bethlehem which would typically have an upper room, an upper level, and a lower level. The upper level is where everybody would sleep and kind of like a living room area.

The lower level is where you would keep your animals, the animals that were most valuable to you because having a big flock wouldn't fit all in there, so the ones that were most valuable to you, you'd keep in there and you'd keep the food and that's where you would store them.

That's where the manger would be. Okay, here's a real upper room, lower room. This is an actual picture of a house in Bethlehem. Upstairs is the upper room. Okay, so this is probably built into the side of the hill.

Down here is the lower level, the lower room. So when Jesus and Mary, when Luke says there was no room for them in the inn, that word inn is upper room, there was no room for them up there, they had a lot of guests.

People were coming in from all over the territory to be registered, so there was no room for them to give birth to a baby in that area. So they came downstairs and went into the storage room where they kept the animals and that's where she gave birth and then laid him in the trough, the feeding trough that they would have for the animals.

This is a little open courtyard area. Make sense? You ever see something like that before? Me either. Okay, next, there weren't three kings at Jesus's birth, right? Let's read this. 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 has been born king of the Jews?

For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him and assembling the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

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 Judea, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

So you read that and what's missing? The number of kings. It never tells you the number of kings in this particular passage. It just says kings, right? It doesn't tell you how many, and we're going to ascertain why they think it was, well, some people say it was three kings, right?

Continuing on in Matthew, Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared and sent them to Bethlehem saying, go and search diligently for the child and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him.

So Jesus is born already. Herod is sending them to go find the baby. So they were not there on the night of Jesus's birth, right? After listening to the king, they 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 and going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh, and being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

So the gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, people say, oh, three gifts must have been three kings. Each king gave a gift, but that's not what the scripture says. Could it have been three kings? It sure could have.

We know that it was more than one. According to John MacArthur, these magi who came from Babylon would have came with a whole entourage of people. He said a thousand. Now, I don't think it's a thousand because if a thousand people started converging on Bethlehem, King Herod would have an army meeting them, right?

But I do think it was a good number of people. Magi don't go out without people coming with them, food, supplies, all that stuff that they would need with them. So it's more than one king, but we don't know how many more.

So first, we don't know that there were three. Could have been more, could have been less. Like I said, John MacArthur says there's lots. And anyone want to take a guess as to why the magi would come to Bethlehem looking for the star?

Where were they coming from? Yes. Yeah, it begins with a B. Babylon. They were coming from Babylon, the east. Who was deported to Babylon? Daniel. And he what? He became the teacher of the magi. Magi is also a name of a tribe.

So as he's educating them about the scriptures, he told them about Micah 2 .5, right? That there's going to be a king that's going to be born, okay? And he must explain to them because they're astrologers that there would be a star above the place where Jesus was born.

That's why they traveled. They saw the star and that's why they traveled all the way there. Now again, scripture doesn't tell us that specifically, but the question would be, why would magi from Babylon be coming all this way to see who?

The logical answer is Daniel conveyed that information to them. So the number of magi is never mentioned in the biblical accounts. Matthew simply says, now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod, magi from the east arrived.

So again, it's probably that the number three comes from the three gifts that are there. Then there's more, right? The magi were not present at the birth of Jesus. We just talked about that. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem.

This is after Jesus is born. Also in that same passage, Matthew uses the word paideon, I should say, to describe Jesus. Paideon is translated child, which references an infant or toddler, not a newborn.

The magi came after Jesus was born, approximately two years, a year to two years after he was born to see him. Neither were the shepherds there. The shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem to see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. So they weren't there for the birth, but they were there before the magi were. All right, let's go back to Luke 2. Now I could read this for you, but I've been reading a lot and I just want to harken back to my childhood and let's let Linus read it.

What Christmas is all about? Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night, and lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them.

The glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid, and the angel said unto them, fear not, for behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord, and this shall be a sign unto you.

Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.

That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie.

Brown. It really is an excellent verse to tell you what Christmas is all about. And I don't know, I should have mentioned it before. Did you catch what Linus did? He dropped his blanket when he read, fear not.

He dropped his blanket. In other words, his security, the thing that he was holding on to for his security, he let that go. Fear not. It was trust in God. So there's another thing that Linus says here.

He says, where is it? Oh, we'll get to that in a second. So the shepherds are there and an angel said to them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good joy. They were filled with great fear, right? And generally we think this is the picture of the shepherds out in the field and it sounds something like this.

Now I'm sure that that could frighten some people, you know, angels singing, that probably would startle you. But the scripture says they were filled with great fear, like terrified, such that the angel would say, fear not, don't be afraid.

We also get the fact that Luke tells us a multitude of the heavenly host were praising God. What does that word host mean? The heavenly host. God is known in the Old Testament as Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of the hosts or the Lord of the armies.

He's Jehovah Sabaoth. This was a heavenly host of warring angels, if you will. Okay. It probably looked more like this, right? So you have this angel who's a warring angel, right? He's part of the armies of God.

And then he's accompanied by all of these angels, basically like Gideon when he was surrounded by the angels who were fighting. That would cause me to be terrified. That's not something to be like, oh, okay.

Like the heavenly host singing. I'm sure that was startling. I'm sure that still surprised them and they probably were frightened. But warring angels like this would strike terror. Did you have a question, right?

Oh, I have no idea what they look like. I would have no idea. All I would know, all we know is that it was a host, a battalion. That's another word for armies, a battalion of angels came. Okay. Again, I think that would be more in line with the great fear that they would have.

Yes. We're going to get to that in a second. No, no, no, no. That's a good question and it's a great lead in. You got to tell everybody I didn't plant you there to say that. Okay, good. Good. So we're going to continue on.

So the Lord of hosts is the Lord of the armies. And why would it be a battalion of army angels, so to speak? Well, Revelation gives us a clue and it says, a great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and on her head, a crown of 12 stars.

She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth, right? This is about Jesus coming into the world. The church, Israel bringing forth Jesus and another sign appeared in heaven.

Behold a great red dragon with seven heads and 10 horns and on his head, seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she bore her child, he might devour it.

She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and his throne. So we see she was about to give birth and the enemy, Satan, right?

Is there ready to devour the child. That's not the typical Christmas verse you talk about at dinner, right? Ready to eat Jesus. So here's Jesus. This is more like what the scene would look like. You'd have this great red dragon perched waiting to devour Jesus.

That's why Jesus coming into this world is a declaration of war. This is God saying, declaring war on the enemy. Okay. And saying, I'm going to build my kingdom here. We have the new heavens and the new earth.

He is now going to bind the strong man, which is Satan. He's going to judge him. Now the ruler of this world has been judged and he's going to cast him out. Now the rule of this world will be cast out.

So this was a declaration of war. So God sent a battalion, a host of angels. Okay. To protect Jesus. Okay. And the church as she goes into the wilderness. Okay. So we also see, and we're going to get through, go through a couple of things.

Linus doesn't quote this particular version of the scriptures. We see it says glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is blessed. Linus says, peace upon all men. Now I'm very, very glad one of the brothers looked this up.

He says, the King James says it's peace on all men. And this thrills me to no end because I tell everybody all the time, don't listen to what Joe just listened to what I say. Check it out. Make sure what I'm saying is correct because I can make a mistake.

Now, in this particular instance, we look at this and I went to Bible hub, this 32 different versions of this particular verse, right? Some say peace on rest, peace, goodwill towards all humankind. Here's what we know.

22 out of the 32 translations favor with whom he is pleased. Okay. Peace on earth with those on whom his favor rests. So that would lead you to believe it's not peace on earth for all men. In other words, not everybody is at peace with God.

There are still those who are enmity with God. It's a textual variant, and it's going to really depend on which manuscript you're reading. The Alexandrian texts favor this reading. The Byzantine or the Texas Receptus, the King James favors peace on earth to all men.

So now we have to weigh all of the scriptures to see which one would fit better. And when I look at Matthew 10, 34, it says, this is Jesus, do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword, right?

To separate mother, brother and sister, mother and father, right? Because the gospel is going to divide people into two categories, right? Sheep and goats, believers and unbelievers. So I believe that obviously Jesus is the prince of peace.

So peace came to earth. Now it's up to the person to repent and place their faith in Christ and be reconciled to God. So in one sense, it's peace on earth to all men because Jesus now makes peace available.

In another sense, it would mean no, it's peace upon whom his favor rests, which would be those people whose faith and trust is in Jesus as Lord. So thank you for checking it out. This is good. Continue to check out everything I say because I can be wrong.

So 22 out of the 32 translations favor, and these are the more modern versions, NASB, ESV, Legacy Standard Bible, Net Bible, the ones we were pretty familiar with. It's King James, New King James, Young's literal translation that hold to the other translation.

Okay, moving right along. All right. So Luke, and this will be a sign for you, you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths. And do you ever see a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths? Now you have. All right.

So this is what you think of when you see a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths. And why do you put a baby in swaddling cloths? So they don't touch their face, right? We used to call it the baby burrito.

We do all of our kids like this. So they don't touch their face and scratch themselves and stuff like that. So why would this be the sign that God would give the shepherds? Shepherds are kind of like the lowest strata of people at that time, like the bottom layer of people would be shepherds.

Why would God give them this as the sign? You're going to see a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths. What would that mean to them? They're shepherds. Well, word has it that they're Levitical shepherds. In other words, they're raising sheep that are going to be sacrificed at the Passover.

So people who were traveling from all over the world, Jews who were traveling all over the world to go make their sacrifice for the Passover would come, they would buy a sheep without spot or blemish.

So the shepherds, word has it, tradition has it, they would wrap their lambs in swaddling cloths so that the lamb would not blemish himself. He wouldn't kick himself. He wouldn't get bruised. This would be an acceptable sacrifice for the Passover.

Okay, they were known as Levitical shepherds. So the moment the shepherds who were raising sheep that were going to be slaughtered for the Passover and put swaddling cloths on them, the moment they went and saw baby Jesus with swaddling cloths, they would have made the connection.

That would be the lamb that was sacrificed. This is a fulfillment of the prophecy in Micah 2 .5, out of Bethlehem will come forth one whose origins are from old. This is a fulfillment. Jesus is the lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world.

Now, because I'm on high alert, I did have to double check this story to see if it was true. It comes out of a book written by Alfred Erdschein. It's called The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. He makes this connection through his reading of the Mishnah.

Now, there are some people online who look at it and say, we don't see that in the Mishnah. He says you do. I can't verify with 100 certainty that this is absolutely true. What I can tell you though, that the shepherds seeing the baby in swaddling cloths, that would be something that would impact them.

They would recognize and know that if you're sacrificing a lamb, it would have to be without spot or blemish. This would point them to Jesus being the Messiah because it would have to be someone who was without spot or blemish.

So I do hold that this has more truth to it than not because they were raising lambs for this very purpose. Okay? Make sense? So the bottom line is this. We also know Luke 3 .22. So glory to God in the highest and peace among those with whom he is pleased.

In Luke 3 .22, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, meaning Jesus, like a dove at his baptism, and a voice came from heaven. You are my beloved son. With you, I am very pleased. So those with whom he is pleased would be Jesus.

He's the one whom he's pleased. First Corinthians 15 says, in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. God's favor rests upon you when you are in Christ. When Jesus was baptized, the voice from heaven said, this is my son whom I love.

With him, I'm well pleased. When you are in Christ, your life is hidden with God in Christ, and now his favor rests upon you because you were in a proper relationship with Jesus. So out of all the things that we may have heard about the Christmas season, don't miss this one thing.

Don't miss Christ. He is the point of the whole holiday. He is the fulfillment of all the birth of all the prophecies in the Old Testament. He's the one who came, who is before the foundation of the earth, chosen to be crucified and come into the earth, into the world to save his people from their sins.

So that pretty much does it for the mistakes that people make with regard to the birth narrative. Do we have any questions, concerns, anything that didn't jive? Yes, Maria. The other genealogy is traced through Mary.

There's two. I forget which. You have Matthew. There's another one. It comes through Mary. I don't exactly know where it is, but one is Mary's genealogy. One is Jesus' genealogy. In fact, the Matthew genealogy goes 777.

It actually skips some generations because Joseph is going to be his father. So it has to be somebody from the house of David. Joseph's lineage is through David. So it's legitimately his stepfather. Obviously, Jesus doesn't have an earthly father because sin comes through the seed.

The seed only comes through males. So we couldn't use Joseph's seed. That would be sin stained. So that's why the Holy Spirit overshadows Mary, impregnates her, and Joseph is now the legal father of Jesus.

So if you're going to trace... We'll put it this way. Isaiah says the Messiah is going to be born of a virgin. How then could any of them... How then could the Messiah have any earthly father trace his lineage back to David if it's going to be of the lineage of David, the one who's going to sit on David's throne?

It would have to be a stepfather if the woman's born of a virgin. So even Jews who say, that can't be his father. Why not? If the virgin is going to give birth, he has no earthly father. It would be whoever the legal father was at the time that would be attributed to that lineage.