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3 kings

Matthew 2:1
"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,"

Last week we studied Jesus as the Light of the World and that He is a person. He is NOT an apparition or a vision. He is NOT an idea or concept to wrap our minds around. He is a person. Flesh and blood. We read about Mary taking care of her baby. The shepherds finding them in the manger. The Christmas story we celebrate is much bigger than we allow it to be. Knowing Jesus will make your joy complete at Christmastime and the rest of the year too.

This week we will study another group of people who came seeking the newborn King. "...behold, there came WISE MEN from the EAST to Jerusalem," Traditionally we refer to them as the Three Kings. Over the generations, our enthusiasm for the manger scene has inspired people to fill in details we simply do not know. We don't know their number. It has to be two or more. We know they bring three gifts, but there may have been more than three givers. They came from somewhere close by or far away. Some believe they came from Babylon, where Daniel and the Jewish people were held captive. The Babylonians would have had many of the Jewish writings from that time. If they studied them, they would have known about the Messiah. We speculate on how they traveled. Was it by camel? These ideas and lines of thought are great fun. We are going to focus on what is written in the Holy Scriptures...
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