Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you. Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations
with your hosts, Ben and Spencer. Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through
the powerful lens of love. In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing
fresh insights and gaining deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith
in practical ways. So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the
context of the Bible intersect to transform our lives.
Welcome back, everyone. Yeah, it's been a few weeks. Yeah. Well, actually, because of
the way that I posted them, because I actually haven't posted the other one until like the
week before this. For them, it's been multiple weeks at the last episode. It's been a few
weeks for us, though. It's been a few weeks for us. Yeah. You'll notice because I got
my haircut, your beard grew out, you know, all those different things. Yeah. We're going
to be continuing on in the Kings and Kingdoms, Kings and Kingdoms. So Kings and Kingdoms
are right rounding out to the last two kings. So today we're going to be talking about Herod
the Great. So we've now gone from the remnant period. Asuara's was the remnant period with
Esther in captivity. Like people are coming back, but some Jews are remaining over in
in Persia. I was going to say Babylon, but that's not the right place. So now we're we're
coming forward and we're actually going to be a little bit before Jesus and during the
time of Jesus, Herod the Great. Yep. So he is going to be between. Yeah, not great. He's
going to be between seventy three and four B.C.E. And so just so you know, like a lot
of who you're going to be, who that Jesus is actually going to be dealing with is going
to be Herod's kids during the life of Jesus, who, if you can guess, they've learned most
of their stuff from their dad. Yep. And they're not great people either. So the way that way
that Herod's life works is he is he is a he's a Roman appointed ruler of Judea. So Rome
is very similar in Persia in that they're going to go and conquer a ton of places, but
they're not going to necessarily be like Nebuchadnezzar, where there's one guy ruling everything.
They're going to have people that report back to them. And you say these are specific guidelines
of what you're supposed to be doing. Right. Now, the difference, of course, between Persia
is that Rome actually has like a military presence throughout all these countries. So
if something comes up and you disobey Rome, it doesn't end well for you. Yeah. And so
Herod the Great is is placed in here. He's an Edjimian, which means that he is a Edomite.
And if you remember the Edomites, that is descendants of Issa and traditionally seen
as rivals of Israel. And his mother, however, is an Arab. She's Nabataean and was from the
Nabataean royal family in the modern day Jordan. So hence why he's in this position at all
is that his family is actually associated with royalty. Being an Edomite, he kind of
used himself as maybe like the real king of Israel because he has ties to Israel, ties
to their heritage. And you're going to see that a lot in some of his life. Yeah. Now,
one of the defining things about Herod the Great is he was incredibly, incredibly wealthy.
We've talked about how Israel is at the crossroads of the world. And one of the things that is
becoming a real big thing during this time is the spice trade. Right. By the way, that
is not a reference to Dune. That is like the just the spice trade that developed in life.
For those of you have read Dune, we're not talking about some mythical thing you inhale
to see the future. Yeah. We're talking about like spices that you eat and spices that you
do things with. Yeah. So Herod just has just an enormous amount of wealth because being
at the crossroads of this major trade route in both the Roman and Parthian Empire, he
develops this infrastructure, ports, roads, and capitalizes on the trade to increase the
amount of trade going through his flagship city called Caesarea Martima. Sorry. You can
tell that I'm really good with these names. And Caesarea becomes like this vital point
for Mediterranean trade and generating significant revenue. Now, the other portion, which is
what the Israelites are really struggling with and Spencer can speak a little bit more
on is he's responsible for making sure the people are being taxed and taxed for Rome.
And it's not a little bit of tax. No. So Roman tax was very significant. The Roman tax was
actually so heavy that it actually taxed farmers and livestock and people who traded livestock
out of existence. Yeah. Like it was so heavy that once you paid the tax, you're like, I
can't feed my family. And so I was listening to Brad Gray and he said there was an estimated
85% tax when you're looking at all the other taxes that kind of combine. Yeah. Yeah. There's
been some debate around that. Some people say closer to 60, some say closer to 85, but
regardless, if you're living in a place where they took 60 to 85% of your income, I would
have to make a whole lot more money. Well, and it's not even the way that we think about
income because like if you're a farmer, that's like 85% of your crop or your herd, right?
If you're a shepherd, 85% of your herd. Yeah. So, and on top of that, if you were collecting
tax for Rome, you often collected more than that. Correct. And, and kept some for yourself.
Yeah. I was, I was having this conversation with an expert in that, in that field and
they were talking about how people like Herod who were over in a region, one of the reasons
they wanted to pick local people is because local people have a better idea of what's
actually being generated for income. And so they would actually, they would actually have
bids from the people in that area to try to be the person who's the taxation person in
there. And so you actually will see this even under Herod, like in the life of Zacchaeus,
he's a chief tax collector in Jericho. Yep. Right. And so he would have actually bid for
that job. And so part of the bid is you bring X amount of dollars in to be the person who
collects tax there. And then if you bring a bunch of money to do that, what are you
going to have to do to the taxes in order to recoup that? Yeah. Right. And so if you,
if you pay a 20% surplus for the area, that place is actually going to have a taxation
of over 20% just so that you can recoup your revenue. Yeah. And then once they recoup their
revenue, they're not lowering that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know if you know
this, but typically when people get greedy, they just stop as soon as they get what they
want. Well, it's a, it's a, yeah, that's a hundred percent what they do. But I mean,
you know, think of it like a grocery store a little bit when, you know, inflation hits
and cost of food goes up, right? When inflation goes down, cost of food doesn't drop back
down. Right. It rarely does. It rarely does. It might go down a pinch or a little bit,
but it's never going to go back to what it was. Yeah. Typically the only way that you
end up driving prices down is when you start having competition, right? But in taxation,
when you're actually taxing an area, there is no competition. Exactly. Right. So, so
in reality, these people have probably closer to 90%, 90 to 92% of their money being taken
or 90 or their belongings. Right. So this tax was huge. So not only are you under a
occupational rule, you like, you have these people that are over you that have conquered
you. They, um, but also you're getting basically taxed into oblivion. Um, I mean, you still
have technically enough to live because they don't want to take everything because they
want you to then generate more money. But, um, so then you got Herod, who's just benefiting
from this, but he is increasing and there's tons of money coming through, uh, because
of the spice trade, because of Mediterranean trade. So he's doing like these massive projects,
which we'll talk about in just a minute, but all this time you can't like rebel against
Herod because if you rebel against Herod, you're rebelling against Rome and Rome's going
to come after you. Yep. Which is one of the reasons why the movement of the zealots picks
up a lot of steam during this time. Right now, zealots being people who are coming from
the, the idea of zeal, right? They're, um, guerrilla fighters of, of a sort that are,
um, trying to through assassination and covert ops is what I'm going to call it, uh, overthrow
Rome and overthrow the local society. So they'll assassinate Roman soldiers and they'll assassinate
people. They would even go after people like Herod, um, to try to drive a political message
and to bring the kingdom of God back into their midst. And we got to talk Roman culture
a little bit and how, how Rome set up their governments a little bit. So like you were
saying Rome would go in and they would find a local leader. Part of that was because the
local leader knew what was going on, stuff like that. But, uh, what Rome would do is
they'd find that local leader. They'd appoint them. And I think they call them proctos or
something like that. I can't remember exactly, but basically they'd be like, you can govern
your community. Now, if you mess this up, we're going to come in and correct this for
you and you're not going to like how we do that. Right. Like that was, that was how Rome
rolled. So they're like, we'll give you a very, very short leash. Yeah. Right. And so
don't mess this up or we're going to come fix it for you. And which usually resulted
in them killing the local leader and appointing someone else. So Rome had little to no grace
when it came to local leaders failing. Um, and so you actually see this like fast forward.
Just a little bit off topic, but you actually see this with a Pontius pilot where he was
actually on thin ice. And so in his whole trial of Jesus, he's trying to keep his hands
clean. Yeah. Well, not only that, he doesn't want them to rebel because he's like, man,
if they rebel, we're going to have to call in the army and this is not going to be a
good situation for me. Like, cause Rome will absolutely bring them in and wipe everybody
out. Like, yeah. And if Rome brought the army in to wipe everybody out, they would have
blamed that on pilot and probably executed. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's a lot of, a lot
of political things going on there too. So, so there's, there's Rome, like you read the
history books and you're like, okay, Rome started to set up like structured government.
Yes. But they still had that taste for blood. Right. After all their entertainment was we're
going to put a bunch of slaves, call them gladiators in our arena. Some are paid, some
are slaves. Right. And there's going to kill each other and that's going to be entertainment.
So how do you think they do against a lion? If we gave somebody a sword and had to fight
a lion, what do you think would happen? Right. So, so Romans, Rome's culture was not one
of forgiveness. It was not one of grace. It was not one of, okay, you messed up here.
We're going to give you a second chance. Like if you got a second chance, you were one of
the lucky ones or you most like, or most likely had someone of influence that was related
to you or something like that. Yeah. This is going to be really important next week
when we talk about Caesar Augustus, because we're going to talk about his Pax Romana,
this portion of you enforce peace through force. Yeah. Right. And it's going to be really important
that we understand a lot of those aspects of Rome, because a lot of the messaging in
the gospels and in the letters about Jesus is a direct opposition to Rome and the way
that they govern. And yes, the way that life is in general, but the authors are doing this
almost like double play on what's going on there. So, so knowing those things about Rome,
one of the reasons I think it's important to set that up is because Herod actually played
into Roman ideology really well. Yeah. So the same, he figure headed himself as a Jew,
but he was basically a Roman in every other way. Yes. The saying about Herod was it's
better to be Herod's dog than his own family. Right? Like that's, that is how much Herod
cared about himself and how much grace he had. Yeah. Right. He was more gracious towards
the animals in his life than he was to the people. Yeah. So we're not talking about Herod
the great or talking about Herod the horrible. Well, and, and some of the, some of the hate
are the horrible is what you're thinking. No, that's, that's the, the old comic book.
It's the, to your point, other places his wealth came from is actually when he had political
enemies, he would like take them out, loot them and seize all their stuff. Yep. Right.
You come up with a reason that they're not supposed to be there because he's in really
good with Rome. Like he's able to have these conversations, these back, back door deals
and basically eliminate his political rivals. Yep. Right. So he's, he's playing the good
boy for Rome and they basically, as long as he keeps the money flowing, which by the way,
like I said, how much money does he have? It's a lot of money. Rome's happy. Well, and,
and Rome, because they're not a gracious nation, they don't care how he's playing the quote
unquote good boy for them. Right. Right. They're like, okay, he's doing what we want. And oh,
by the way, the people who want to take him out, they're becoming less and less because
he's to handling business from a Roman, from a Roman perspective. Well, and so, and, and
he tries to kind of buy goodwill. So like one of the things that happens is, is that
Herod the great, he does build a ton of things. So one of the things that he's most famous
for is the second temple, right? In Jerusalem. And so it's probably, if you're thinking of
the temple during the time of Jesus, this is actually, yes, this is the one that Herod
renovated and continued to build. Now it is, of course it's based on the original, but
he, he does renovation expansion of the one that they built when they came back from captivity
and it include these enormous courtyards, these towering walls, these gold plated features,
and it was so expensive, it required years and years of labor and an enormous amount
of resources. So, you know, in his, in his mind, he's like, well, yeah, I'm taking your
money, but look what I did to your temple. Right. And it's actually funny because they
have this conversation about the temple and with Jesus and his disciples. And he's like,
yeah, by the way, not one of these stones is going to be on top of the other. Yeah.
And I wouldn't think for a second that doesn't have something to do with the way that it
was built through Herod. Right. It's not talking about the temple itself, but rather what the
temple represents. Yeah. Right. So I talked about his, his flagship city, Caesarea Martima,
and it's this port city arrivals, every other great city in the Roman empire, especially
on the ports. It had a artificial massive artificial Harbor. It had these massive aqueducts.
It had a Roman style theater and luxurious palaces. Now I was talking to our small group,
a few months ago, and we were talking about some of these palaces that, that Herod built.
And so we were talking about the fortress at Masada. Right. And they, when they excavated
it, like this is up in the mountains, there's no water source and there's these massive
baths. Yeah. And then like two miles away along this like rickety path, right, is where
they're getting the water from. And so when they're actually putting water into these
baths, like they're having it's, it's a servants and it's paid people and all sorts that are
actually taking this water and they're trucking it all the way there to the baths. And of
course you can't just leave the water in there over and over again as people are using it,
because otherwise it's going to get gross. So they're actually having to replenish and
cleanse. And so it's not, it's not just, it's not just rich. It's almost like indulgently
rich. Like it's, it's like, it's like you have a piece of cake and then you take hot fudge
and you pour it over it. And then you spray your whipped cream on top of that. And then
you put cherries on top of that. Then you cover the whole thing in chocolate again.
Yeah. Right. It's not just indulgent. It's like crazy indulgent. Like this is the life
of Herod. Herod is like, I'm trying to paint for the picture. He's rich and we don't have
anybody in our life nowadays that's like this. Yeah. Right. Like we've talked about, we've
joked about Jeff Bezos a lot, right? Jeff Bezos has got nothing on Herod, not on the
kind of life he had and the kind of power he had. Cause he's got, he's got Masada. He's
got another fortress called Herodium. He's got another one, Machaeris. It served as both
military strongholds and palatial retreats. By the way, why do you have so many fortresses?
Cause he makes a lot of enemies and he doesn't trust his kids. So he's finding lots of places
to hide, right? And there's just, there's so much stuff from Herod the great. Other
things he did is he funded the construction of entire cities. One was called Sebasté.
It's also found in Samaria. He rebuilt in honor of Augustus Caesar. He also constructed
amphitheaters, hippodrones, public buildings to promote Roman culture and win favor for
the people. Okay. It's a lot. It's massive. So, I mean, the impact of his wealth is you
have all this economic growth and infrastructure. So a lot of people have work, right? Which
also means that during this time, like the theater is starting to really blossom in Rome
and Greek. And, but because he's building all these things, the theater is becoming
an even bigger thing, which is one of the reasons you start seeing Jesus actually making
reference to the theater. I'm talking about, uh, hypocrites, right? The upacritas, right?
And you have, uh, like, uh, pub conversations about like these pubs that have been created
that Paul is talking about in his letters. And, and all these things we're mentioning
on the podcast is because when you're reading these things in the new Testament, they're
set in a context. Like they're very familiar with these because this is where they are.
These are things that Herod the great had done. They've grown up in the, in these, it's
like it's second nature to them. And so they use these metaphors and then we read it and
we're like 2000 years later, we're like, well, clearly that's what this means. And we have
no context. Yeah. Right. Yeah. One of the things Harry did is he expanded. He also expanded
trade routes in the local, uh, in the local area. You're talking about the port cities,
fortresses. So like it's also road infrastructure that he built. And so it's really interesting
because this time period, you see a lot of between the Persians, between Persians, Romans
and Herod right here, you see a lot of infrastructure being built and it, and then it's no coincidence
that God picked this time to send Jesus. Correct. Right. Cause when it came time for the gospel
spread and persecution amongst believers was happening and they retreated and they spread
out, guess what? It was easy for them to go huge distances. Well, and not, not just spreading
out once that happened, but even in the gospel of John, when Jesus is coming during Holy
week, like there are, um, people that are not Jewish that come to Jerusalem cause they
heard about Jesus. Yeah. Right. And he's like, he's like, Oh look, the Gentiles are here.
That's cool. You know, and, uh, and in, then you think about even in the, in the book of
acts chapter two, um, I, one of a few years ago, pastor Nick and I preached this together
and I had the best time because we were going through and I was like, everybody heard them
in their own language and, and reading from Acts two and I said, Hey pastor Nick, can
you read that? And then it gets into every culture and it's like the Jebusites, the nevusites,
the, he goes into it and he like starts looking, he's like, Whoa, that's a lot of names. You
know, we're going to skip down to this one right here. And, uh, but like there's these
Jews because the Jews have now, to your point, like there's these trade routes have been
built and Herod has, has put in this infrastructure. And so the Jews are everywhere, but when then
they come back for, um, they come back for the, the, uh, Passover. Yeah. And then they
stay for, um, Shavuot, which is 50 days later, which is what we call Pentecost. Yeah. And,
um, so a lot of this is also bringing, I'm going to call it relative political stability.
And I call it relative because it's, it's very stable compared to what they've had because
you go, uh, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Roman, Greek, you know, like you're having
all these like turnovers of like Kings and places. Um, now you got these countries actually
starting to maybe trade and work with each other. Yeah. So the other thing now is happening
and Herod had a part to play in this, I believe too, was actually the development of ships
and naval warfare a little more, right? Um, there was actually a battle that took place
between Rome and was, um, what was the country in Northern Africa? Wasn't Egypt. It's hard,
but there's sorry, um, butchering that, but there is, and that was a deciding naval warfare
that actually gave Rome dominion over the Mediterranean. Yeah. And, um, which is not
surprising that there would suddenly be a lot more naval battles. If you're now trading
via seaports, then you get people who want to steal that stuff. They do it on the water,
which then you're going to have to have send protection to protect these ships. And, and
so, but what happens when it comes time for the apostles to actually spread the gospel,
the journey that Paul was able to make, like from, from going from Jerusalem to Rome, to
Crete, to Corinth, to all these places, right? Uh, the journey that he was able to make,
he would not have been able to do that 2000 years ago. Correct. Right. Well, 2000 years
ago now, but yeah, his time 2000 years prior, 2000 years prior to his time, right? Yeah.
He wouldn't have been able to do that because simply just the infrastructure and technology
wasn't there. And so you have, you have the Lord sending Jesus at a critical time and
using, using these, uh, characters in history that a lot of people would say are horrible
people. Yeah. Right. Like Herod the great was not a great guy. Um, Xerxes in Persia,
not great, not great. Nebuchadnezzar, not great, not great. Right. Uh, a lot of the
Caesar's we can, we could just go down the list, but not, not great people. Even the
good Caesar's were not great Caesar's. Yeah. Um, not great people. And the Lord said, okay,
but we're going to use this. We're going to lay infrastructure. So when it comes time
for the gospel to spread like wildfire that it will. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And it's,
it's, it's one of the things, the reasons I say in the fullness of time, like when the
time was right and you think you're like, you're like, oh, when is the Messiah coming?
When is Messiah coming? And like, we have such a finite view because at best we see
a hundred years of life. Yeah. Right. And if you were born in 1500 BC, you're like, oh
man, when is, when is Messiah coming? Yeah. Right. Like since creation, we've been having
this issue with the snake. Right. And we, you know, like this, this issue of like, are
we going to trust God or not? Uh, we need Messiah to come in and, you know, make us
a new heart. Yeah. Not understanding that 1500 years from now, there's the right time.
Like it's the fullness of time when, when, when it's actually going to be able to, uh,
feed into the redemption of mankind, not just to the Jewish people. Yeah. Right. I mean,
that's, that's one of the issues that Jesus keeps running into as he's having these conversations
that they're like, are you going to now restore the kingdom? He's like, well, yeah, it's just
not the kingdom you think. Yeah. Right. It is. Am I absolutely going to restore the kingdom
that we were always trying to build? Yeah. And it was always about all nations, you know?
Um, I think some of the interesting things about, uh, heritage heritage. So I talked
about, he's a German and his, and his, um, mother is, uh, Arab, uh, it's Nabataean, um,
his father and anti-powder and anti-pointer. If any of you are expecting child, yeah, anti-pointer.
That's not actually not his name. That's just, uh, the, uh, he's, uh, he was actually, uh,
that is actually his name. Sorry. I said, yeah, what's barf? Antipater. Yeah. I just,
I could just see him, uh, see, uh, Herod goes up to his dad. He says, uh, to Potter. No,
uh, he's a, so, but he's really influential in, uh, as an injury and he was, uh, was called
a, uh, uh, procurator of Judea under the normal rule. So that actually like both him, his
mom came from royalty. His dad was like a political person. So when Herod is born, he's
kind of in this special nexus of where to go. Uh, but Herod wanted to be like Jewish, but
he's only technically like half Jewish. Right. Yep. And, uh, while he was a quote unquote
practicing by tradition, he was like the, the very much of the, you do these things,
but your hearts are really far from me. Yeah. Right. Uh, many of the Jews saw him as half
Jew and, and they, and they didn't trust him entirely. Um, but he embraced a lot of the
Jewish laws publicly, but also adopted a lot of the Greco-Roman practices. He basically
tried to blend them into one thing. Yeah. Um, the, uh, that never happens to correct
with Christianity. Nope. Never happens. Never, never, never. No one would ever read, uh,
nationalistic American identity into Christianity. That's just called Christianity. Hopefully,
you know, we're being tongue in cheek. If you don't, then you have not been listening
to us long enough. Um, one of the things that he did though, to try to legitimize his rule
is he actually married a Hasmonean princess, right? He tried to legitimize his role, but
then she made him angry and he executed her. So we got a little bit of a Xerxes, his impatience,
like I'm going to make swift decisions without thinking about the repercussions. Um, so groups
like the Pharisees and the Essenes tended to oppose him. Groups like the Sadducees and
the Herodians loved him. I mean, Herodian, it should be fairly obvious that they were
like Herodians get their name from the fact that they were very similar to Herod. They
just blend the two things together. Yeah. Right. Um, so even though he wanted to be accepted,
one of the, some of the craziest stuff that, uh, there's some crazy stories about Herod
the Great. So I'm just going to share, share one of them because I thought this one was
super interesting. So he, uh, he got after killing the Hasmonean princess, they're all
really upset. He then executed members of the Hasmonean dynasty, including the high
priest, Arab Bullis the third, which was his wife's brother, right? Whom he viewed as a
threat to his role. And any sages that opposed the Hasmoneans or opposed Herod's appointment,
he also targeted and killed. Then, uh, once he got his throne, he went and he took the
majority of the members of the Sanhedrin. So we've heard Sanhedrin before, this is the
Pharisees, Sadducees, the get together, the Jewish ruling council, and he replaces them
with individuals loyal to him. So he goes through and just wipes out the Sanhedrin,
um, not everybody, but like a lot of people and, uh, the Pharisees known for their, you
know, their strict adherence to the law, right? Because they think obedience to the law is
going to bring kingdom. Yeah. Right. So like credit them that they actually stick to their
guns, right? Even if they kind of miss the mark and Jesus tells them that, like they're,
they're sticking to their guns. Uh, they openly criticize him for his Hellenistic practices
and his collaboration with Rome. And he retaliates by suppressing phariseitic leaders and limiting
their influence in the Sanhedrin. Right. It's one of the reasons that the Pharisees don't
have as much influence in Jerusalem and why, when, when Jesus is in the triangle, he's
spending a lot more time with Pharisees than he is with like Sadducees. It also starts
to in your head, why, why are Sadducees and Pharisees always fighting? Why don't they
get along? And when they do get along, trouble's brewing. Right. There's a lot of history there.
Um, he also, we've, we've, we've talked about Shilla, uh, Shamai and Hillel. Yeah. Um, so
he specifically targeted their disciples because, um, fearing that they would teach the people
to inspire rebellion. And then this is the crazy one. So towards the end of his life,
he got even more paranoid, which doesn't seem possible. Uh huh. Right. And he feared that
no one would mourn him at his death due to his own popularity, which by the way, if you
spend your life like killing people for political reasons, this might be the case. Yeah. Um,
so to ensure his mourning, this is what he did. He took prominent Jewish leaders, elders
and sages, and he imprisoned them at the hippodrome in Jericho. And these leaders are going to
be executed immediately after his death to force public mourning. Okay. Like this is
his plan. Quality guy. Like this is who Herod the greatest. So he's like this wealthy guy
does all these, these crazy things, uh, doesn't trust his kids. In fact, I think at one point
when he actually has one of his kids assassinated, um, and, uh, and he's like, well, when I die,
nobody's going to mourn me because I'm a jerk. You know what I'm going to do is I'm going
to get a bunch of people everybody cares about. And when I die, we're going to kill them so
that everybody cares. And so I'll just pretend like that morning is for me. What would have
been more effective probably as if he actually repented. Yeah. Right. Right. But, uh, he
didn't do that. Right. He's, he, he, he kind of reminds me of like the random, like multi
millionaire type guy who then goes and builds a bunker in the middle of the door and stocks
it full of all sorts of firearm and crazy and booby traps his land and stuff like that.
And then he's like, well, why don't people like me? It's like, well, there's really,
yeah, really there's, I mean, people can't talk to you. Do you want an annotated list
or do you want to chronologically, geographically, alphabetically, you know, this hair is just
not a great guy. Yeah. And, um, so I will tell you one of the, one of the pieces of
that story where he's going to kill the sages that I really love is his wife, uh, Miramind
the second, because he killed his first wife, right. Um, and Salome, who's her, it's sister,
uh, after his death, they went in and they defied his final order and released everybody.
Yeah. And, uh, before they could actually be killed, they went, they went in like when
they knew he was dead, but nobody else knew they went and released everybody. And so by
the time like the guards went to actually go fill out the orders, they were gone. Yeah.
And, uh, God bless those women, right? Because that's, that is, that is very courageous because
they could have easily lost their lives doing that. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so Herod, not a
great guy, not a great guy, not a great guy. Um, but we do need to focus a little bit on,
on which you've talked a little bit about, but how does the life of Herod, how did that
actually impact the gospel? Right. So direct references, first place, we see him, Matthew
two, uh, one to 23. If you have been in church any period of time around Christmas time,
you're probably going to hear this, this verse, uh, he's the ruler of Judea when Jesus is
born the Magi visit. And he tries to use them to figure out where Jesus is. And, uh, and
they're like, well, you know, it's going to be here. And so what does Herod do? Cause
he's not a good person. Uh-huh. Kill all the kids. Yep. All the kids under, under a certain
age. He's all the boys. He's going to kill them under a certain age. Uh, definitely Herod
takes on the role of Pharaoh. Like there's, there's definitely meant to be this picture
of, of Herod as Pharaoh, uh, with coming back to the Exodus and Jesus as a second Moses.
Like this is a picture you're supposed to see, right? Uh, but here it's not a good man.
So the Herod Herod, uh, sending his army to kill all the boys under, I think his age of
two. Yeah. Um, there was, it's not the action Bible, but there was a different comic Bible
that came out a long time ago when I was a kid. Yeah. And, and like, I was reading through
it and it got, and I got to that page and I opened it up and it literally like showed
like bloody babies. Oh no. Oh no. And I was like, I probably can't find this anymore.
Uh, but I was like, I was like, oh, they did not hold back on this. I was like 10 or 12
when I was looking at those, like they did not hold back on this story. I started reading
action Bible with, uh, with my son because, and, and just so, so, you know, kind of where
I fall on it, I think the action Bible is a really helpful tool for you to sit down
and read with your kids. Yeah. Because sometimes like the action Bible is going to say things
in a way that's probably not helpful. Um, I, I love the people who did it, but I'm going
to kind of redirect that in the life of my son. Yeah. Right. And, uh, just like most
of the time when you're, when your kids study the Bible, like you should be there. It's,
it's getting the bullet points of the story. Correct. Like it's not, it's not doing the
big nuances or getting into the finer details or the Hebrew Greek. It's getting the bullet
points. Like this is, these are the characters that were at the story and here's the rough
sketch of what happened. So with the death of all the, the kids, you completely understand
one that Joseph is told to go to Egypt. Yeah. But why they, why do they go to Egypt? Right.
Because here it's powerful and he'll find you. Right. And they head off to Egypt and,
uh, until Herod is dead and he's no longer, uh, around to be pursuing them. And then even
then with his kids, they go to Nazareth, which is kind of like nowhere's nowhere. Yeah. Like
what good thing comes from Nazareth? That's what Philip asks. Right. It's because now
the rest of Nazareth is a nowhere town and they go there on purpose. Being Alaskan and
be like, what good thing comes from, from Fairbanks? Oh, poor Fairbanks. Yeah. Uh, there's
probably a listener from Fairbanks. It's like a lot of good things come from Fairbanks.
I have some good friends up in Fairbanks and they'll be like, Hey, I was, uh, so, uh, sorry,
I ran a random rabbit trail because we're talking about what good thing, but, um, we
were, when I, we were down in Idaho visiting family, uh, we drove through this town called
Beul, Idaho. So if you're listening from Beul, Idaho, hello. And, uh, we were on our way
to this hot springs and I was like, man, this town is just tiny and kind of out of the middle
of nowhere. And I saw this, this sign. It was like talking about like trout capital
of the world or something. And, uh, my wife told me that Beul actually apparently is like,
where some of the best caviar comes from. Oh, this random small town is like where some
of the best caviar comes from. It'll say like packaged in Beul, Idaho. And I'm like, well,
that's crazy. Like I would never have thought like, cause you're driving down the city and
it's like, it's like, it's every small town that you could think of. And like, this is
the place where apparently caviar comes from. Like that's crazy to me. Yep. And, uh, uh,
so let's see. Uh, also in Luke one five, it's the setting of John and John the Baptist birth.
It says Herod's reign is mentioned as a historical context during the time of Zachariah and Elizabeth.
So, uh, Herod helps us also because there's a lot of documentation. I heard the great,
it helps us also place when these things happened, which is why they're able to kind of with
John the Baptist and Jesus, they can get down to like a number of years, like three or four
years of when there's debate about, is it, you know, one BC, is it for, you know, like
there's some conversation about that, but we're talking about like a five year period
of time. Yeah. Um, on indirectly in the Bible, the Herodian dynasty influencers, like his
son Herod, Archelaus was mentioned in Matthew two 22 as the ruler of Judea after hair dies,
right? Uh, Herod Antipas, he was another son plays a major role in John the Baptist execution
and Jesus, uh, trial. So Antipas, by the way, does very similar to his dad is that he ends
up marrying a woman and gets himself into a bad position, trying to gain favor. And
that's how John ends up with his head on a platter. And he's kind of trying to play that
fence of like, Oh, I'm following Jews and I'm listening to John, but also I don't like
what John has to say about me and my relations. Right. Um, but by and large, the whole thing
of Herod, he just, he ends up being the symbol of like earthly power, cruel and paranoid
and opposition to the kingdom of God. Yeah. Right. Um, I mean, fulfillment of prophecy,
it does like Jeremiah 31 15, rape, for weeping for her children. Right. Uh, the flight to
Egypt from Hosea 11 one out of Egypt, I called my son. Um, Jesus is this true King of the
Jews, whereas Herod tries to be, uh, tries to be the King of the Jews. Jesus actually
is the King of the Jews. Right. And even Herod, uh, I believe it's Antipas and Jesus's trial.
He calls Jesus the King of the Jews. Right. And people get upset about that. Um, it's
by the way, that can be confusing with Herod Antipas, Herod, Archelius and Herod, um, uh,
the great. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot. Um, I did, I did put this in here on my notes
because I just think it's really cool. Um, so there's a parallel of the Exodus, a narrative
versus Herod and like something that Matthew and Luke were probably doing a little bit
with, uh, in the Exodus narrative, Pharaoh fears the rise of a deliverer who is Moses.
Herod fears the prophecy of the new King, which is Jesus. Then Pharaoh orders the killing
of the Hebrew male infants. Herod orders the massacre of the innocence. Uh, Moses is miraculously
saved. Jesus is miraculously saved. Egypt is a place of rep, uh, is a place of refuge,
uh, and oppression, but Egypt becomes a place of refuge for Jesus. Right. Uh, God delivers
his people through Moses and then Jesus delivers humanity through his, uh, through his life
and death, burial and resurrection. Yeah. Right. There's this kind of dichotomy going
on there. So one of my first takeaways on the life of Herod and why it matters, right?
Because he's a non-Jewish King, half Jewish King, kind of Jewish King. He's a spicy Jewish
King. Like spicy is like, is that the politically correct way of putting it? It's definitely
not. Um, uh, I, I think, I think, uh, one of the first takeaways when you look at the
life of Herod and Darius, uh, Xerxes, uh, Nebuchadnezzar, the corrupting power of influence
or the corrupting influence of power, right? What does it do to you as a person? Right.
Because his ambition, his desire for wealth and power, uh, led to paranoia, cruelty, mass
murder, um, his actions, you know, he killed a bunch of innocent kids. He shows of structural
qualities of polarizing power in your life. Right. And, and I think if you're not careful,
like we've talked about in the past, if you don't have checks and balances and you don't
have, uh, accountability, which Herod didn't like power can absolutely corrupt you. Yeah.
And it damages the people around you. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, with the power thing, uh, it
doesn't have to corrupt you though. Correct. It's something that you let corrupt you. Correct.
Um, cause, uh, I know, I know a number of people who are very well off who are very
generous people, right? Like, um, so just because you have power, you have influence,
doesn't mean you're a bad person. I think sometimes we take stories like this and we
twist it that way. Right. And you actually see later on that member of Herod's household
was actually one of the people who were following Jesus around and funding his ministry. Correct.
Yeah. And so, so even throughout all this power, correct, greed and stuff, there was
still good things that were happening. Right. Right. One, I think, I think in the case of
like Herod and a lot of the people, the way you accumulate your wealth matters. Yeah.
Right. Cause he's accumulating his, his wealth on the backs of other people and assassinating
political like, uh, opponents and stuff like that. And, uh, and then he, you know, when
you're very self focused and all that, like, it's not going to stop the more power you
get. No. Typically, if you are a generous person, if you're given more, you tend to
be more generous. If you are a selfish person and you're given more, you tend to be more
selfish and, uh, it rarely, it rarely flips. Yeah. Right. Um, one of the things I was,
I was thinking about with Herod, cause when you deal with his thing of like, you know,
I want to be a Jewish king, I'm going to observe Torah law, but I'm not really going to preserve
Torah law. Is this, this danger of, uh, hypocrisy where you try to, where you try to play for
the applause of people. Yeah. Right. Rather than actually having a life that is centered
on a relationship, which is what Christ is calling us to, uh, we're trying to do the
right thing rather than be with the right person, right? Be in relationship with the
right person. Yeah. And, uh, and in the case of Herod, he's not doing it because he's trying
to be close to God. He's because he's trying to gain the favor of people. Yep. Which, I
mean, we would never know about in our context ever. I would say the other thing, one of
the other takeaways is, uh, just be mindful who you surround yourself with. Like Herod
decided to get in bed with Rome, right? And, uh, and what that led to was him becoming
more like Rome, which Rome was a graceless nation. Right. Right. It was like, here's
your one chance. You mess this up. You're done. Right. Type thing. And so, um, and I'm
just going to be really honest. If that's the group of people you're around, uh, you're
probably not going to be around them super long, or if you are, you're going to be changing
who you are drastically and you're going to be burning a lot of bridges in your life.
And Herod, as you can see, he burnt so many bridges that when it came time for his death,
he's like, I'm going to need to kill some more people. So people are actually mourning
on the day I die. And, and it's delusional thinking because he's like, we're going to
do this. So they're mourning for me. And I was like, and it's like, they're not going
to be more, they're not going to be mourning for you. They couldn't give a flying fart
about you flying part. Right. Yeah. Um, and, uh, so like who you surround yourself with
is very important. Yeah. I think it's, you know, um, I, there are other stories in the,
in the new Testament of these guys who do work for Rome. Yeah. Right. You think about
the centurion when he talks to Jesus and he's, he's worried about a servant and he says,
no, I know who you are. I know what it's like to be under authority. If you say it's, it's
done, it's done. And like, he just places his faith directly in the authority of Jesus.
Right. You think about Peter coming to the house of Cornelius and all the people are
talking about it. They're like, they're like, yeah, he takes good care of us. He cares about
our customs and all these different things. And, uh, and like Peter comes and he's like,
he's already a good, like a person who's living into the kingdom. He just doesn't know Jesus
yet. Right. And, uh, like all these people work for Rome, but they have different reactions
on who they're going to be. Yeah. Herod starts to look inward and pull for himself. And,
and like, to your point, uh, exacerbates chaos to try to garner sympathy. Yeah. Right. Which
is delusional. Whereas these other people, they're like, how do I take care of the people
around me? How do I love the people? Like, even if they're less than me, I care about
my servant. I care about the people who served me, you know? And like, who are you going
to be in, in, when you step into your culture, who are you actually partnering with? Are
you partnering with God in the middle of Rome or are you partnering with Rome and trying
to throw God in there as a batch? Yep. And that's, that's challenging. Yep. You know,
I mean, we joked about American Christianity, but are you an American that's a Christian?
Are you a Christian? That's also an American. Like those are different things. Yeah. Because
we serve a monarchy, which is King Jesus and everything else is, is subservient to
that. And that's hard for a lot of people. Yeah. And I'm not saying that's, that should
be like, if that's you, it's hard. Yeah. Just trust. Yeah. Side note, one of the things
that drives me nuts about like Christian nationalism in America, when people are like, this is
getting a little political, but when, and you can cut this if you want. Yeah. But when
people are like, well, these are our God given rights. And I was like, okay, so what about
the Christians who live in countries where they quote unquote, don't have any of those
rights? Right. Cause I can name lots of countries off the top of my head where Christians are
being persecuted heavily, but yet the church is exploding. Right. They have none of the
freedoms, none of the liberties that we have. Right. And there, there has to be a balance
between standing up for justice and what people, we, we believe people are entitled to like
God given rights. Like we believe that people should not, I believe that people shouldn't
be harassed because of the color of their skin. Yeah. Or because they think differently than
I do. Right. Like those are, those are not reasons that people should be harassed. And
I will, like, I should stand for that. I was like, but at the same time, if I don't have
that, does that compromise my ability to follow Jesus or do I just live counter to the culture
I live in? Uh huh. Right. Like it's a, it's a legitimate question that we have, we do
have to deal with on a regular basis. Like, are you going to follow God when it's convenient
or because he's God? That's hard. And I don't want to try to trivialize that and be like,
oh, it's easy. You just do this. I actually think it's very hard, especially when you,
when you have something that's ingrained in you from, from birth, right? You grew up in
Rome. Yeah. The Roman way is the Roman way. And then Jesus says, well, not quite. In fact,
I'm going to get into that next week when we talk about Caesar Augustus. Yep. Yeah.
Well we got one more week in this series and season and season. And if you're watching
this on YouTube, you're going to tune in next week and you're going to be like Ben and Spencer
look the same. Exactly the same. That's because we waited one week and wore the exact same
clothes. We waited exactly five minutes between recording episodes. So, uh, that's kind of
how it goes. Uh, Ben and I, Oh, this was one year or two ago when we were early on in the
podcast. We're like, do we need to like bring a change of shirt in between recording back
to back episodes? I was like, I'm not doing that. Yeah. It's like, I've just, people who
are watching, they're going to be like, wait a second. Well, see, there's also a pretty
good chance that even if we did do this a week later, one of us would wear the same
shirt. It's very true because we have a few shirts that we really like. It's very true.
Lindsay laughs at me because I have four of the exact same sweater, same color, everything.
I think I'm down to three. I think one of them like crapped out on me. Right. But, uh,
and she's like, why do you have that? I was like, so I don't have to think about it. Yeah.
Like I just don't have to think about it. Like I just, I get it. Yeah. I was like, I'm
with you. Yeah. I'm with you. Yeah. All right. Until next week, Caesar Augustus.
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context. We hope you enjoyed this engaging
conversation and gained valuable insights into the powerful message of love within the
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