WWUTT 1345 Q&A Shepherds, Wise Men, and Drummer Boys

Who came first, the wise men or the shepherds? Was Luke wrong about the census when

Quirinius was governing Syria? And where did that little drummer boy come from? The answers to these questions,

When We Understand the Text. Merry Christmas from your friends at When We Understand the

Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of God, that we may marvel all year long at the wonder of Jesus Christ, the

Son of God, who came to the world to save sinners. Subscribe to our podcast at www .wtt

.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. I think this might be the first time that this episode has fallen on Christmas Day.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So we get to do our Christmas episode on Christmas Day, and Becky gets to be in here for it.

Welcome to the show. Thank you. And a special thanks to our babysitters. That's right.

We did get somebody to watch the kids for us so that we could get on this program.

So thank you to the Bucks for watching our children, that we could get away and record this together.

And also, hey, Merry Christmas to the Leslie family. You Leslie kids, you got homemade doughnuts today.

Oh, that's nice. Did you not see that run of tweets on Twitter? No. Okay, so Michelle Leslie, who we've talked about on this program before, great supporter of When We Understand the

Text. She said that her kids got together and they connived, they planned that on the same day at the same time they would all text their mother,

Michelle, and tell her, hey, remember when you would make these homemade doughnuts? I was just thinking about those homemade doughnuts on Christmas.

You should make homemade doughnuts on Christmas. So at the same time, on the same day, she started getting texts from all her kids.

And apparently Andy Olson in Minnesota got in on it too, because he also texted her and said, you know,

I was just thinking about some homemade doughnuts. Oh, that's so funny. I'm sad

I missed out. We're pretty close now. You didn't catch all of that? We can go just hop on over and visit her.

We're right on the Louisiana border now. We are. So we can just head on over there. Yes. Go get us some homemade doughnuts.

I wouldn't mind. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to us. I mean, we would be there just to see her and her husband.

Oh, you're right. Right. Yeah. Not the homemade doughnuts. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Those would just be. I'm really curious.

I've never had a homemade doughnut before. My mom has made some. I mean, technically.

And they're really good. Technically, if you go into a doughnut place and it's a family run business, didn't you get a homemade doughnut?

Kind of. It's just mass, mass quantities done. Yeah. They do a lot more because they have bigger ovens.

So it's a little different. Yeah. But, yeah. Pretty much. A homemade doughnut. What would be the difference between a homemade doughnut and heading on down to.

We'd have to go visit the Leslie's and find out. This is the truth.

Well, hey, thank you for. If there was any left over. Thank you also to everybody for your support and encouragement in kicking me in the pants and making sure that Becky was going to get in on this episode today.

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, goodness gracious. You guys are sweet. Should we go through the list of names? You saw it on Twitter.

I didn't see all of them. We're tired of listening to you. Get Becky in on the show. It was

Neil from South Carolina. There was Fred Butler. There was Chris Honeholes. There was.

I think that's off the top of my head. Yeah. But, I mean, yeah. It was a thread of people that were going. So sweet.

Come on. Where's Becky? Enough of this. Enough is enough. We don't listen to when we understand the text for Gabe.

Get Becky on this program again. Oh, that thread. Okay. Yeah. You do remember that now. I do. Yeah. It just popped in there.

My light comes on every once in a while. This is our first Christmas as a family somewhere other than Kansas.

We have always had Christmas in Kansas. We've never gone anywhere else for Christmas. Right. Because I always did a

Christmas Eve service at the church, so we had to stick around for Christmas anyway. Yeah. And now we're in Texas.

Still Christmas as a family. Still doing that together. Sonya joined us last year. Yes. That was fun.

Yeah. But that was still at our home in Kansas. Now we're in Texas making a new home here in the second largest state in the

Union. Yeah. That's true. That's right. Because Alaska's the first. After Alaska. Alaska's the biggest state. So here we are making a new home in East Texas, having some new

Christmas traditions. What are your favorite traditions that we do? I don't know that we ever have really had consistent traditions.

Yeah, no. I think every year we think about, what are we going to do next? We're just kind of like, oh, this sounds like fun. Yeah. I think so. No, that's not quite true.

I mean, we've always went to go look at the lights. Yeah. We always have done trips to see lights.

Always have a tree. Yeah. Not a real one because I've got allergies. Which we got close to not having one this year. Yeah. Becky, especially pine.

She doesn't do well with pine. I can't even do pine saw. No. I remember when we first got married, my mom always did floors with pine saw.

You used it in the entire house. I did. And I was like, I can't go home. My wife doesn't want to come see me anymore.

I can't breathe. She just doesn't want to come home. Every hard floor surface in the house,

I did with pine saw. Yep. Oh, yeah. Becky had a fit. A fit. An allergy fit.

An allergy fit. Yeah. My eyes were watering shut and red and swollen.

Yeah. So something about the smell of that. She just couldn't do it. Yep. So we don't do a real Christmas tree. No. We got close to not having a tree at all this year.

We did. It was real close. Yeah. Because of all the stuff that we moved. And then I made you go. I'm like, no, go. Yes. Go get this tree.

I almost got a real one. I was, you know, I'm just going to tough it out. I'm going to do it. We're going to see what it's like. But then Becky found a fake one for.

About the same price. A pretty good deal. Yeah. So I went and picked up the tree because of all the stuff that we moved down here with, we either did not think about putting our

Christmas stuff in the storage shed in place we could get to it, or we just didn't bring it at all. And the tree was one of those.

We decided we're not going to hold on to this tree. Oh, we've had that thing for. The whole marriage. Yeah. Pretty close to 10 years.

It was a gift from my mom. Yes, it was. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. So, okay. So I'm doing waffles on Christmas morning.

We do that every year. We do that. Yes. And I try to do a variety. Amazing waffles. Thank you.

Yes. I'll have banana walnut waffles, bacon waffles. That was my dad's recipe.

And that was really like one of the best things my parents ever made. Other than their kids, you know, but it was the bacon waffles.

Here's some humble pie. Hey, I didn't say me. I wasn't just limiting it to me.

That's true. There's five others. There's five others. I was the oldest. I just came first. So the bacon waffles.

Yep. What else? Oh, you just regular waffles with like blueberries and syrup and stuff like that.

Anyway, that's Christmas morning. We've done rainbow waffles, but I don't think that was Christmas. That wasn't me. I think y 'all did that.

I didn't do those. Yeah. That was a mess. That was a catastrophe. It wasn't terrible. But whenever you cook them, like after you actually cook them, the like purple turns to brown.

It's just like it loses all of its pretty colors. All the color was gone. Yeah. It's like, oh, well.

What is this? You know, it was pretty. I tried to do that thing. You'll see these videos online every once in a while.

Somebody will put like a pancake batter in a squirt bottle. Yes. And then they'll make the patterns of the designs and stuff.

Yes, you have tried that. I've tried to do that. It looks terrible. Yeah. It's like not even close. It's so funny. I love the attempt, though.

I tried to do Yoda, and it comes out like Mickey Mouse. Yes. Yes. My parents would always do the smiley face.

And the pancakes. Yeah. And it always turned out that I've always tried, and it's like somebody has a black eye.

Yeah. Like doing a crazy face or I don't know, crying.

What other tradition do we have that's a Christmas tradition? We like to sing carols.

We sing carols, which we haven't done this year other than at church, but I haven't gotten the guitar out. It's just different when we've just moved, and where's all of our stuff?

You're trying to sort things out and find your things. I made sure that the guitar stayed out.

Like it wasn't going to end up in piles of everything else. But then when we got into the house with it,

I think it ended up under everything else. Anyway, so it's not in storage. It's not like off to the side, but it...

It's off to the side. I made sure that it wasn't piled up on. Yeah. In the way of anything else.

But it's kind of buried because I stacked boxes around them. Yeah. So they are still kind of in there.

Well, this year, this is also the first year, as long as I've been a pastor, we did not do a Christmas Eve service at all.

Right. Yeah. Now, if I was still in Kansas, we would have done it, but...

It's a little bit different. Yeah. The reason why we didn't here is because, I mean, there is the COVID risk and we want to put emphasis on Sunday morning.

So we don't want to do anything that would jeopardize our chance to be able to meet on Sunday. Yeah.

So Christmas Eve just isn't priority. Out of safety, we decided this year not to have a

Christmas Eve service. So then we got to record this episode on Christmas Eve. That's right. Freed up our day a little bit.

But yeah, so this, as long as I've been a pastor, this will be the first year that we did not do a Christmas Eve service.

Always look forward to that. Nobody really was like, oh, good, we don't have to do

Christmas Eve this year. I think everybody was, yeah, everybody was broken hearted about it. But we understood.

There wasn't any complaints. It was just like, yeah, we know. Yeah. It happens. This is that kind of year.

Yeah. I'm just kind of curious what next year is going to look like. Yeah. You know, speaking of which,

I have had some questions that have been sent in to me. This wasn't going to be really part of our Christmas questions here, but since we're on the subject,

I figured we could touch on it. Okay. Sure. I've had a couple of questions. I didn't put them in my list because I wasn't expecting to answer these today, but related to stuff that I've talked about and they've heard

James White talk about on the Alpha and Omega podcast, well, The Dividing Line is what he calls it,

Alpha and Omega Ministries, The Dividing Line is James White's program. But we're dogging on, you know, wearing masks don't really work.

And talking about the vaccine, what in the world is in this thing, you know? And we've had a few people that have written in and have said, you know,

I might be from Canada or Australia or one of these places where it looks like the government is going to require everybody to get the vaccine or they might force it on our kids.

So is it going to be a sin for me to get the vaccine? Because I don't want to lose my kids.

Oh, okay. And I just want to answer that question outright and say to you, no, it is not. It's not going to be a sin for you to get the vaccine.

Definitely not. I'm not going to until it becomes like, we're going to make you do this or else.

And then at that point, it's like, I'm not going to put up a fight against that. But as long as it's volunteer,

I'm not just going to roll up my sleeve and stick my arm out and say, poke me with this thing that's going to have some after effects five years from now.

Stop. I mean, it's just it's just because we don't know hardly anything about it.

We don't. And you've seen videos of people passing out after they take it and people are having some after effects.

Yeah. But there is a risk with any kind of vaccine, though. There is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And also,

I know there's different companies that make the vaccine. So there there might be a certain company that has something in it that isn't agreeable to people.

And the other company does or something like that. So just do your research. Yeah. If you're going to take it, do your research and make sure the one the place that you're going to go to has that safer vaccine.

Yeah. The thing that concerns me as a pastor and as somebody who even has this ministry where we're helping people understand the word of God and find an application for it.

The thing that concerns me is going to be the ministers and churches out there that are going to tell their congregants, you can't come to church unless you get vaccinated.

That would be sinful. Yeah. That would be wrong. You don't place that kind of requirement upon somebody to come to church, especially for a disease we're talking about that has a ninety nine point nine five percent survival rate.

Yeah. No joke. This this is not the plague. It never has been the plague. It has not been all that much worse than a really bad flu season.

Yeah. And that's I mean, you know, you're talking the flu pandemic from back in 1918, the

Spanish flu pandemic. Oh, yeah. This is not that. Right. This isn't anywhere close to that. But we have reacted to it.

I believe the government in particular has reacted to it in some crazy ways, as though the

Constitution, the rights that are afforded to us in the Constitution are null and void if there's ever a pandemic.

Pretty much. Yeah. Which is just ridiculous. They cannot tell you not to go to church. But likewise, churches should not be imposing upon members of their own congregation that you have to do this, this and this.

Right. Regarding this pandemic in order to come to church. But also as congregants, don't don't be pushy as far as, well,

I'm not going to wear a mask, but I'm going to cough on everybody. Yeah. I mean, like, be respectful. Yeah. Don't quarrel about it.

Yeah. There are those who have taken the Romans 14 principles matters in terms of conscience and they have used

Romans 14 to say that the ones who are weak are the ones that are most susceptible to the virus, which that's not what

Romans 14 is about at all. Romans 14 is about conscience. It's not about physical weakness to a virus, but they're taking

Romans 14 and applying it in that way and then imposing upon everybody else. So you have to wear a mask to care for the weaker people that are in our congregation.

And that's that's to say you have to wear a mask in order to come to church. And that's not that is not a biblical requirement.

So churches should not be imposing that upon one another. I'm just I don't like not being exposed to just illnesses in general, because that's how you build your immunity.

Right. We've always talked about that. I've always been taught that, that the more you're exposed to, the more you build your immunity.

So with us avoiding everything, how sick are we going to get when we finally get sick?

There have been some guys on YouTube and Facebook and places like that, doctors who have said things like that, and they just get smeared whenever they say, and I'm going, this is what

I heard. Don't smear me, please. I don't want to be smeared. I like my wife just the way she is.

Please, please don't smear her. And it's it's like I've heard this my whole life.

But yeah, that makes me so concerned. As we're in the culture, then we develop that immunity.

You get that herd immunity and things. Now, there are folks that have compromised immune systems. Of course, they need to play it safe.

We need to be careful with them. Right. But it doesn't mean you lock down the entire country for the sake of people who have compromised immune systems.

Yeah. What we are told in the scriptures, in Hebrews, Chapter 10, verse 23, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

If your church has been closed, open it back up. If you have not been attending church, play it wisely, assess, you know your biology.

I do not. But don't look for excuses not to go to church. Right. Find a way that you can go and be with the body of Christ, for that is what we've been commanded to do.

Definitely. We cannot love one another as the Savior has taught us to. And we talked about this on the program.

Oh, I can't remember. Was it my Wednesday devotional or something like that? Going through 1 John, Chapter 3.

But we cannot love one another as we are instructed to love one another unless we are together, unless we're with one another.

I mean, how do you know that somebody else is struggling? Not everybody speaks out about their struggles, but whenever you see them, you can tell that their smile isn't what it normally is.

They look more tired than normal or something is wrong, you know, so then, you know, to check on them.

How do you know that if you don't see them, if you don't talk to them? It's just it doesn't.

You can't be part of the body when you're separating yourself. Yeah. As we studied on Romans or on Wednesday in Romans 12, 12, seek to show hospitality.

Yes, that word means that we're actively looking for ways that we can serve and care for one another.

Definitely. One of the worst myths that has come out of this whole pandemic of 2020 here, one of the worst myths out of this that people have believed is that locking down and staying home is loving your neighbor.

Oh, my goodness. No, it's not. That is such an absurd abuse of that. If that is true.

Why is suicide so high? Right. Drug abuse, drug overdoses. It's gone up.

Drinking and alcohol abuse. All of this stuff has gone up and it's because we're forcing people to stay away from one another.

Right. So this is not loving each other accountable. And you just you get back into your old habits of of sinful, you know, your sinful back into your sinful habits.

Yeah. When you're just left with yourself and your own sinful thoughts. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we need one another.

Absolutely. So loving your neighbor is going over to your neighbor's house and checking on them. Even if the government is going to institute some kind of a lockdown order, you have to stay in your house.

You can't go anywhere, which that's wicked. That is wicked. The government does not have the authority to that.

That's imprisoning people is what it's doing. Doesn't matter if it's in your own home or not. They just don't have enough jail space. So they're just using your home.

Yeah. So go check on your neighbors. Ask if they need anything. If if you want to just talk through the screen door, then talk through the screen door.

But heaven's sake, don't don't think of isolating. If grocery stores are open, you can go to your neighbor's house.

Yeah. This idea, this this has been pushed by people who are perfectly fine with just sitting in front of their computer all day.

Oh, my goodness. So that's not the way that we're supposed to love and care for one another, folks.

No, there is going to be a whole generation of people with bad eyesight and carpal tunnel, carpal tunnel.

Maybe I think they debunked the whole thing of like, oh, really? Yeah. Monitors don't really don't really.

Yeah. I mean, like you're sitting there staring at one thing that's just certain distance from your face.

You can get headaches, but it's not the same thing as it like deteriorating your eyesight. OK, I'm sure if you were staring at like a blaring, bright screen,

I'll try if that thing was like a spotlight. Yeah. You're going to do damage to your eyes. But yeah,

I don't think that because a lot of the books that I'm reading anymore are on my Kindle because that's what

I can read at night while you're sleeping. And we're in the dark.

I can just pull up my Kindle and read it. But I've got like a black background on the screen.

So it's all real low light. But I can see the words that are on there. So I'm looking at screens far more often.

I'm looking at books anymore. Right. And yet, yeah, my eyes are bad because I got my dad's eyes.

It doesn't have anything to do with the screens that I've been looking at. And it's not that bad.

I've got 20, 40 vision. I just need a mild corrective lens. Yeah. Anyway, this has nothing.

Nobody cares about this. No. All right. Continuing on, you can send your questions to when we understand the text at Gmail dot com.

We're going to do a couple of Christmas things here. And then next week is our year in review.

That's right. We are doing 40. The New Year's. It's going to be New Year's Day. Yeah. January 1st next week.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. January 1st, 2021. I hate to break it to you, folks, but 2021 is going to be just as bad, if not worse than 2020.

You got to find that peace from God. That's right. Hold fast to Christ in these days.

No joke. Our hope is in heaven above in glory. It is not in anything here on this earth.

This world is never going to be a utopia. Right. Heaven is our home.

We are citizens, strangers in this world waiting for Christ, the Lord of glory to return and bring us into his heavenly kingdom.

So hold fast to Christ in these days. Anyway, so next week we're going to go through 40 of the biggest stories, particularly as they pertain to Christendom.

OK, it's not just 40 of the biggest events of the year, but but 40 things that affect us as Christians.

That's going to be our year in review. And hopefully at the same time, I will have the book done 2020 year in review.

That would be awesome. You wouldn't be able to order it in paperback right away, but the Kindle version should be available for download in one week.

That'd be so cool. This is like the biggest writing blitz that I do in any given year.

It's knocking out 30 ,000 words in the span of two weeks. So get to it.

Here we go. All right. This this first question, this comes from you,

Nami, and he says, Dear Pastor Gabe and Becky, glory be to the Lord who saved us, who chose us and in whom we share his gospel and and whose gospel we share.

I think that was how I was supposed to say that. I just finished listening to your show. And wow,

I cannot imagine the filth that you saw on your Twitter feed. I just got the chills hearing about it.

So this was the episode I did a couple of weeks ago, OK, solo without you. But, you know, regarding all the stuff that happened online.

Right. OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That one tweet. Yeah. The tweet that I made on December 1st.

We'll just put it that way. He goes on and he says, just this week, I was listening to the sword and the trowel with Tom Askell and Jared Longshore.

And I wanted to share with you one quote that Tom said that encouraged me. He said, quote,

We need to be done with bureaucrats. We need people who are humbly into the word of God and are willing to say this is what the word says, regardless of the cost or consequences.

This is what we are going to say. This is the salt. And we're going to take it this way. And this is the way we're going to go.

When has following a crucified master ever been easy? If they did this to our master, then we should not be surprised if our stand for Christ costs us popularity, position, opportunity, status and life.

Unquote. I just hope that it encourages you as well. I know the Lord continues to work wonders with the ministry of your podcast.

I have listened to your previous episodes and they encourage me as they rebuke me. You are so bold to speak the truth, no matter the cost.

Thank you for standing up for Christ and for encouraging the rest of us. I'll be honest with you. I did not read this before I I brought this on.

So that is really sweet. That's very encouraging. Thank you so much. I just copied and pasted and threw it in here and didn't read through it first.

Anyway, because he says Christmas question in the is the next paragraph.

So it's like when I was going through emails like, OK, I'm going to grab this one for this show. I saw Christmas questions. So I was just like,

OK, copy paste. I know I'm so well prepped for this Christmas question.

With that said, I have a question for the Christmas episode. We keep seeing the nativity scene with baby

Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the three wise men upon reading Luke and Matthew. My family and I discovered that actually it was the shepherds that met baby

Jesus upon his birth, Luke two. And the wise men appeared later, Matthew two. So perhaps for someone who has not read the scriptures, the question can be, was it the shepherds or the wise men that met baby

Jesus first? I look forward to the shows next week. Many blessings, Unami.

Thank you so much for your question. Well, you're exactly right. As you and your family have looked at the scriptures, it was the shepherds that met

Jesus first. And this is one of those things, I think, that are our regular Christmas in our regular

Christmas traditions. We can forget this. Oh, yeah. Because you just set the nativity out, you know. And when you look at that nativity, you got three wise men there.

And it's always a black guy and two white guys. Yeah. And that's not what that would look like either.

And then you've got the shepherds over there. And and then you've got a cow and a donkey and some lambs.

And you've got an angel maybe positioned over the stable there. Yeah. Mary and Joseph there with the baby

Jesus in a manger full of hay. You know, there's there's your nativity scene. Yeah. I mentioned the animals.

No, I mean, the in the manger, the animals. Oh, yeah. Right. In the manger with them. Right. And then you have the little drummer boy who came sometimes.

And I saw it's optional. I saw a great a great meme earlier this week, which was like, so there's

Mary. She's just given birth to this child. She's exhausted. She's laid him down to sleep.

And in comes this little drummer boy thinking, you know what? What this woman really needs is a drum solo.

That was good. You can relate to that. Oh, yes. Becky gets regular drum solos.

I do. Yeah. The kids are more than willing to fill her day up with noise sound effects.

Anyway. Yes. So maybe somebody takes the initiative to stick a little drummer boy in there in your nativity scene.

But we know, according to what the scripture says, that the shepherds and the wise men did not come at the same time.

The Magi would have come a year up to two years later. I was going to say. Yeah.

But it was the very night that Jesus was born that the shepherds came.

Now, Jesus may not have been born at night. The scriptures don't say that we sing silent night.

We picture it that way. Right. It may not have been at night. It could have been, but we don't know that for sure.

It doesn't give us time of day or anything like that. But we do know that the angels appeared to the shepherds that night.

Right. So here's the story as we have it in Luke chapter two, beginning in verse one. 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.

Let's stop there for just a moment. That's the first three verses of Luke chapter two. And here we have one of the biggest debate points that the skeptics love to use regarding the

Christmas story. Oh, I think of all the things surrounding Jesus. The Christmas story itself is more scrutinized than anything else.

That's just my observation. I don't know if that's true or not. It just seems like I hear more contention about the

Christmas story itself than I hear about, you know, Jesus dying on the cross and rising again from the dead. OK, there are certainly people that deny the resurrection of Jesus.

I just don't hear those arguments as often as I hear people raise a stink about the stuff about the

Christmas story that they don't believe. Right. Maybe that's because Christmas is just, you know, the most prominent holiday in the world.

Right. Everybody's forced to quit working that day. That's right. Shucks. So everybody is is going to contend with why do we celebrate this day?

I don't believe in the birth of Jesus or he wasn't virgin born or any of this other kind of thing. Yeah. And they made it really commercialized nowadays, too.

Yeah, but that's that's been going on for a long time. But now it's like really bad. It is becoming more and more secular.

Yeah, that's for sure. And that comes with the commercialization, because, yeah, when we start loving the world's things.

Yeah. We just start pushing Jesus out of the picture here now. That's true. And because of that, because we have these traditions that just become so regular, but we're not going back to the

Christmas story, that's starting to get lost. And it is as easy as opening up your

Bible in order to clear up some of these things. Very true. But the census is one of those where the skeptics are saying, well, see,

Luke wasn't even right anyway, because Karenius wasn't governing Syria at the same time that Herod was ruling in Judea.

And so the history is even off here. Therefore, we can discount the Christmas story altogether.

And if we can discount the Christmas story, well, then we can just throw out the entire Bible. So that's kind of the attack point from skeptics.

Yeah. There there is an easy explanation to the whole thing about Karenius governing

Syria. There's there's two actually easy explanations to this. All right. Number one, the dates that we use for when

Herod was ruling in Judea, we get those from Josephus. That's where those dates come from.

OK. Josephus was a Jewish historian who wrote after the time of Christ.

So he wasn't even alive during the time of Christ. OK. And he wrote about the dates in which all this

Jewish history stuff happened. He did not really believe in Jesus. Josephus has been wrong on numerous occasions, and historians have been able to prove that.

Some of his dates were just wrong. And he would even point out certain events that happened during the reign of certain

Caesars. And historians have said, no, that's not true. We know that this Caesar wasn't ruling at this time.

It was actually, you know, interesting, this emperor. So there are places where where Josephus was wrong.

So why do we just assume that his historical record is accurate? And Luke is the one that got this wrong.

Right. That's ridiculous. So so there's reason for us to doubt the whole thing about Herod reigning from or dying at about 4

B .C. anyway, which is what Josephus records. And then Quirinius governing Syria doesn't happen until much later.

We have reason to doubt the timeline that we've been given about Herod. So that's the first contention with this.

Number one, we have no reason to trust Josephus in the first place. I'm going to take Luke's word before I'm going to take

Josephus' word. Right. The second thing is that this really isn't all that complicated.

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 governing Syria. All went to be registered each to his own town. Luke actually references this census again in the

Book of Acts. So he clearly knows something about it. Right. He was alive when this is the census was taking place.

Right. So he clearly knows something about it. Yeah. He was probably alive when this census was taking place.

So when you read in Luke two, verse two, this was the first registration when

Quirinius was governor of Syria. All Luke was pointing out was that these events were part of the same drama.

He was not saying that they all happened at the same time. Again, this was all in those days.

Luke two, one in those days, a decree went out. Right. So he's saying that these things happened in those days.

Right. Not that all of this stuff was happening at exactly. You know, this lines up with this guy and this guy.

That's not what Luke is doing here. We we're the ones that do that. Yeah. But that's not the way that he's telling this story.

So sometimes Luke does get very specific, like when you go to Luke three one. So this is Luke two one in those days, a decree went out.

Right. If you go to Luke three one, it says in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea and Herod being

Tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip Tetrarch of the region. Anyway, so that's right.

That's real specific. Yes. We know exactly when Luke is talking about there.

Right. But we don't know in Luke two one. Right. He's not being that specific in Luke two one. A popular argument in defense of Luke two two is that Quirinius was governor of Syria twice, citing certain, though scant historical evidence to back up this claim.

That might be true, but the argument is unnecessary. Such a claim does does more to defend

Josephus's flawed dates than it does to take Luke at his word.

Right. So there's not a reason for us to have to doubt this. When you read Luke two one through three, you don't have any reason to say, well,

Luke might not have been right about that. But it doesn't matter because that's not the point. So we're going to go on. I mean, Luke's in the

Bible and the Bible has been proven right. Yeah. When skeptics have like, no, no, no.

You know, and then it's like somebody uncovers something archaeological. Right. And then it proves that it's right again.

And like over and over. But with Josephus. Josephus. Yeah. The Jewish historian.

Yes. With him, apparently he's not had such a great track record. Nope. So we don't have any reason to have to trust

Josephus. I think there are some things in there that he said that were right, but he was not he was not a flawless, inerrant historian.

Right. The Holy Spirit. That's right. The Holy Spirit is inerrant. Exactly. Josephus, as a as a historian, was not inerrant.

You know, the guy when you were talking about archaeology has affirmed even things that we have in the scriptures.

Yeah. There was a guy, the one that discovered Jericho. Oh, right. He went out to excavate

Jericho to prove that it was wrong. And in his excavation, he ended up affirming that it was true.

There was even an article in the newspaper about it. Like the archaeology group excavating

Jericho has affirmed the biblical story. Oh, man. Can you imagine his emotional rollercoaster? Poor guy.

He had. I almost feel bad for him. Yeah. Almost. Not quite. He had to concede. And I was

I was wrong. The archaeology affirms the biblical story. So anyway, that's neat.

Back to the Christmas story here. Luke chapter two, verse four. 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 claws and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the end.

And in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night.

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them. And they were filled with great fear.

And the angel said to them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is

Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling claws and 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 among those with whom he is pleased.

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and 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.

And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.

But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned glorifying and praising

God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called

Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. That's Luke chapter two, verses one through 21.

And where you have the statement that's made there by the angels. Well, first of all, fear not.

Right. That's usually the first thing they say. That's right. That command is given many, many times in scripture for us that we not fear.

And I think even though this is an angel speaking to shepherds that are out in a in a field, it's the way he introduces himself with fear not.

Right. That is nevertheless a great command for us to consider and obey.

Even in this Christmas season that the Lord is saying to us, fear not that we have the

Christ who has been given to us, who died for us, who rose again from the grave. If if God is for us, who can be against us?

Right. And as it says in Romans eight, nothing will separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. Not even a pandemic that the government upgrades to a plague.

Yeah. Not even that can separate us from the love of God. So we have nothing to fear if we are followers of Jesus Christ.

Fear not. Amen. But that's not the point I was going to make. I was just reminding everybody, fear not.

Fear not. Behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people for unto you is born this day in the city of David.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that Jesus was born on exactly the same day that the shepherds received this announcement.

That's the way we picture it. Right. Jesus was born at night. The angels appear to the shepherds that same night.

Right. They go see Jesus, who was born. It's it's likely that it was really, really close together.

We don't necessarily have to see it as being the same day or the same night. OK. This day could be a general statement.

This is the fulfillment of the prophecy that was given. The Virgin has conceived and is with child and she has given birth to a son and his name is

Jesus. Or as the prophets foretold, Emmanuel, which means God is with us. Yeah.

So this is the fulfillment of that prophecy. The angel is announcing it this day. That has happened.

But we know that it was really close to the birth of Christ, because as you're following these things in succession, you get to verse 21.

And it says at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Right. So somewhere in the span of that week, when Jesus was born, that's when these shepherds went and observed that that the baby was lying in a manger in Bethlehem, just as the angel said.

That's a fulfillment of that's right. Yeah, that would have been that would have been spectacular to see.

But none of us should ever think that, hey, if I was out there in the field with those shepherds, I wouldn't have been so terrified.

Yeah, you would have. Yeah. I even know what's coming. I'm sitting out in this field and I'm waiting for an angel to show up.

I even know it's going to happen. It would still scare you. Yeah. To near death, you would have

PTSD. If the angel had not said to you, fear not.

That's right. These are our glorious, holy beings that show up in the presence of sinful man to make an announcement of this kind.

And that's generally the response. Somebody falls down on their face. Well, yeah, because I mean, what comes from the sky?

Just clouds. That's right. Thunder, lightning. We don't see beings just appear in a majestic light.

Yeah, that's that's new. Yeah. John fell down and worshiped the angel. Yeah. And the angel said, no, don't do that.

Right. So anyway. But but yeah, so this is the first there. They get to be the first guests, the shepherds.

People are just out there living in a field, tending the flocks. These sheep, by the way, that are being raised for temple sacrifices.

That's likely what they're being used for. You're going to shear the sheep. You're going to use their wool for some things.

But once they come of a certain age, this sheep is going to be used for a sacrifice in the temple.

And that's what it is they're raising the sheep for. And they get to be the first audience to the birth of the

Lamb of God. That's awesome. Who came to take away the sin of the world. They're the first guests.

Then you read in Matthew chapter two. Well, then if you're going in order of events, right, you would go back to Matthew chapter two.

Luke two is is talking about those things that happen right at the birth of Christ.

But when you get to Matthew two and you read about the visit of the Magi, this happens much later. How do we know that? So Matthew two one.

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 all 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 owe 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. And that's a prophecy that was made in Micah five, two, which from one year to the next,

I keep telling people it was in Malachi five, two. Oh, yeah. I get Micah and Malachi messed up all the time.

Yes. I always mix those up. Yeah. Verse seven. 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 and search diligently for the child. And when you had found him, bring me word that I, too, may come and worship him.

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. Now, this past week, we had that conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.

Did you see pictures of that? I had. Yes. That was just gorgeous. Yes, it was awesome. Now, I've seen

Saturn through a telescope before, so I have looked at the planet and seen the rings, but I didn't get the chance to look at it this past.

Oh, whatever night that was when the conjunction happened. Yeah, I think it was Tuesday, Monday and Tuesday, Tuesday night, something like that.

And it was like real low on the horizon. Yeah, it was. It was like a certain time that you could see it. There was one guy that did it with a time -lapse camera.

So you got to see like the V it made in the sky when it when they finally came together there at the at the point on the horizon and then kind of spread apart again.

Anyway, that was pretty fascinating. But just looking at those pictures, I couldn't help but think, how does how does somebody continue to be a flat earther when you

I don't know when you see these pictures? These planets are clearly round. They're clearly out there moving independently of the rest of the stars.

So circles. Anyway, I don't know. They're just bizarre, those guys. And I'll still get emails from them every once in a while.

You're wrong about the earth. The Bible says the earth is flat. No, it doesn't. It never has.

So anyway, this this story here we have of the Magi visiting the baby

Jesus has not really given us a timeline yet. So how do we know that this would have happened after the shepherds?

Well, it's actually in what you read about concerning what's called the massacre of the innocents when

Herod declared. Oh, right. The death of the babies in in an attempt to try to get Jesus. So we go on into verse 13.

Now, when they had departed, referring to the Magi, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,

Rise, take the child and his mother and flee to 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.

Then Herod, when he saw 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 that 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 weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted because they are no more.

So how do we know this happened much later than the time that the shepherds came and visited

Jesus? Because it says that Herod 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 that he had ascertained from the wise men.

Right. So Jesus was not an infant anymore at that time. Right. He was probably a toddler. He could have been anywhere from one to two years of age.

So that's how we know that the Magi came much later. Matthew's telling a different story here.

One of the things that Matthew is attempting to convey in the. Same story, different approach.

Well, yeah, that's that's right. OK. That's a better way to say it, right? It is the same story. Just check it.

He has a different approach, a different audience that he's talking to. OK, yeah, because Matthew is addressing primarily a

Jewish audience. And so he's conveying the the majesty of Christ.

Right. That he is the one who was born in the line of Abraham, the line of David to assume the throne, the fulfillment of the covenant promise that God made with David.

Right. That's what Matthew's showing from the genealogy that we have at the very beginning of Matthew and even up through this story.

So we have this story of of kingmakers, which is who the Magi were in Persia.

These were the guys that were the right hand men of the king. They crowned the king.

Right. They aided and guided the king. The king basically didn't do anything without them.

So the Magi were kingmakers. And here these Magi from a far off land, Persia. I'm preaching about this on on Sunday.

This is my passage I'm going to be preaching on. And I talk about this in my book. So pick up 25

Christmas Myths and what the Bible says. Everything that we've talked about here. That's all in the book. It is. I've even read from the book.

Yes. And you didn't realize I was doing that. Becky did because she saw me pick it up and read it. But anyway, I was going to mention it later.

Hey, great segment you read there from your book. Yeah. Anyway, what was I saying?

This is the problem when I have a thought mid sentence. And I know they're from Persia. They're from a far off land. Right. And they crown kings and they aid kings.

And yes. So they had the writings of the prophets, especially Daniel. And they knew the time in which this was going to happen.

And there's a prophecy in numbers that talks about a star rising from Jacob and a scepter from Israel.

So they know a star is going to signify the birth of this king that has been prophesied when they see the star.

They've had the prophecies because of the Babylonian exile. The Jews exiled into Babylon and then to Persia when the

Persians took over the Babylonians. So then under the the Persian rule, all of the writings from the prophets and everything were kept even by the wise men, the kingmakers, the magi of Persia.

So these guys are students. They study many ancient writings. They know the

Hebrew writings and they know of this prophecy concerning a king. Well, these guys are kingmakers.

We're going to go give our blessing to the new king that has been born in Judah based on what we know from the the prophecies that they left for us.

So they make the journey. They give him the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Incidentally, these gifts that are talked about here in Matthew to eleven.

These are the same gifts that are given by the queen of Sheba to Solomon.

Oh, gold, frankincense and myrrh. And Solomon was not the fulfillment of the covenant promise that God made with David.

Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise. Seeing all that line up now. Right. So you have the the kingmakers of Persia who come and and and basically give their blessing to this savior.

But more than that, they worship him because they see this prophecy was made. They've never observed a prophecy like this before coming true like this.

Right. Definitely. And so they know that this this is the Christ child. This is the Messiah. These pagan men.

Yeah, that's right. These pagan men from a far off land journey to Judah and become believers because they see the fulfillment of the scriptures right there before them.

That's amazing. So they give the the treasures to this king. These kingmakers find the king.

That's the story that Matthew's telling there. Right. So that's why you only have the Magi in Matthew. And it's not mentioned in Luke's story.

It's because Luke is taking a different approach to the gospel that he's telling. Then Matthew's approach.

Same gospel. Right. It's just the the events, the story and the way that it is being told. There's a different objective in the way that they tell this story.

Right. Which is why in understanding certain things in the respective gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you want to understand

Matthew first, according to what Matthew says. OK, before you start pulling things out from other gospels and putting it in there and go, well, what

Jesus really means by this is this because he says it this way in John. Oh, OK. Understand the context first of what

Matthew's saying before you start drawing it from another gospel. That's that's not to say that that's wrong to do, because we use scripture to interpret scripture.

We have the same author behind the scriptures. We have the Holy Spirit. But there's still a certain context that's going to exist within each respective book that you have to consider before you start pulling in from other places.

That makes sense. Yeah. Anyway, just to know what the the objective is.

Yes. Just to make that point. That's also another rabbit trail. We're kind of going a little bit, but it's all right.

Yeah. But the point being, in response to the question that you asked is, yes, we have a different sequence of events going on here than the shepherds and the magi showing up at the same time.

I remember when that film, The Nativity, was done. This was over 10 years ago. I can't remember how long ago this movie came out.

I know it was before you and I met. OK, because I know who I went with to see the movie. And it wasn't me.

It wasn't you. No. So it was over 11 years then. Yes, it was. It was my friend Kyle.

So, yeah. Yeah. I wasn't like trying to avoid saying it because I went out with another girl to go see that.

I wasn't. Yeah. OK. I know. Just making sure it wasn't for you. That was for everybody in listening land.

Oh, who is this person that Gabe went out to go see the nativity with? Anyway, just because I know I went to go see it with Kyle, I knew we hadn't met yet.

Anyway, there we I was working at a Christian radio station at the time, and we had some interviews that we aired with like the creators of the film.

I didn't do any of those interviews, but they were, you know, segments from other places. And one of the creators of the movie said, we know that the magi didn't come at the same time as the shepherds.

But everybody has a nativity set and we're calling our movie The Nativity. Right. So we're going to show the the wise men coming at the same time as the shepherds.

And I just felt like I even remember when I aired that clip and I listened to that interview,

I was just going, that's silly. I have to do that. You're doing that to appease people, not to be faithful to the biblical narrative.

That's just what's sad about it. That's what's sad about a lot of the Christmas traditions that have taken the place of the story is it's actually told in the scriptures.

So we need to read what the scriptures say. Yeah. Not look at our little traditions and then impose those onto the text.

Right. By the way, that's what the Catholic Church does and what the Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodox Church does.

Tradition is just as authoritative as what you read in the Bible. So if they've changed something according to their tradition, then they're going to they're going to take that and impose that upon the scriptures.

Now, in talking about that, I was going to say into something that I talked about online regarding one of those particular doctrines, and that was the perpetual virginity of Mary.

OK, but we're out of time. I don't have time to do that now. So if you want to read about what

I said about the false doctrine called the perpetual virginity of Mary, pick up the book. Twenty five Christmas myths and what the

Bible says, which you can read right now on Christmas Day. That's right. If you've got a

Kindle, just go ahead and download. I think I made it three or four bucks or something like that on Kindle.

That's awesome. And twenty twenty year in review will be like that, too. It'll just be a couple of dollars. Yeah. Download it.

Read it on your Kindle. There you go. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, everybody. That's all

I got. Do you have anything else? Well, I mean, that's kind of what happens whenever I join is we rabbit trail a lot.

I do. I rabbit trail more. But I still feel like I stay more on task with you on.

Oh, really? Then when I'm doing it by myself, I stop and start a lot when I'm by myself. Oh, OK. And when I'm with you, it's just we just go right through it.

Yeah, we plug right through. Which is why I can't make my rabbit trail sound so neat because they just they go everywhere.

I'm not stopping and going, OK, wait, I got to say this together here. And, you know, so funny. Yeah. You're cute.

Oh, thanks. I think I'll keep you. I hope so. All right, let's pray.

All right, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this glorious Christmas and these annual reminders we have of the gift of your son into this world.

Of course, we celebrate Christ every time we gather as a church. Every single day we wake up and we are reminded of the salvation that we have by faith in Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the grave.

Whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. But it's always special to celebrate

Christmas with friends and family as we rejoice in this greatest gift that has ever been given to mankind.

Your son into this world. And may we take the uplifting spirit that we get from Christmas into the rest of our year.

We certainly need some relief after 2020 and looking forward to what

God is going to do with us and for us, even in 2021. We ask these things in Jesus name.

Amen. Amen. Oh, yes,

I remember now. OK, so it was back to our traditions. We also do the devotional where we go through the.

Oh, yeah, we always have a devotional like the story of Christ. Do we do some sort of Advent thing?

Yeah. Was last year Sinclair Ferguson or was last. Have we done my book? Have we done the 25

Christmas book? So we haven't even done that for Advent yet because it's 25.

It's 25 days because it came out on Christmas when you wrote it two years ago, two years ago.

So then last year we did Sinclair Ferguson. That's right. And then this year we did

David's. Right. So now we have. That's right. OK, Fred, through it. Yeah. Here and there, but not

I don't. Not for a devotional. I'm calling it now next year. 25 Christmas is what the

Bible says is better. Keep it handy is our Advent thing. All right. This was actually this was the book that the misprint there wasn't page numbers.

Oh, funny. So I just trying to find the page. I just keep it. It's a collector's item now.