Welcome to Season 3 of Love & Context. This season,
we're exploring the life of Jesus, step -by -step,
and uncovering what His story teaches us about
loving God and others. Here on Love & Context,
we're all about having real conversations about
how to live out that love in practical, everyday
ways, and understanding the Bible in its full
context. We're so glad you're here. Let's dive
into Season 3 of Love & Context. Welcome back
to the Love and Context podcast. It's a podcast
where Ben sings the words. Pretty sure that Jingle's
copyright wrote somewhere. I don't think so.
No, I don't think so. I think it is. It's unique.
We're going to get sued now. It's unique. It's
unique to my brain. I guarantee that the melody,
it could be used, but the words were not used.
I don't think that anybody has ever written one
about the love and context. Oh, my thing with
music, when I've talked to people about it, I
was like, there's nothing new under the sun anymore.
Every chord progression's pretty much been used
at this point. Yeah. So a little tidbit here.
By the way, welcome. I'm Ben and this is Spencer.
You jumped right into our conversation about
Jesus. Doesn't it sound like Jesus? But before
we get there, recently Ed Sheeran was being copyright
sued. And his defense, he took his guitar in
and he went and played like a medley of like
45 different songs that used the exact same chord
progression. Nice. And he's like, if you... copyrighted
chord progression, you're going to lose a lot
of music. So it was a really brilliantly well
done thing. Nice. So we're in Life of Jesus.
Yes, we are. And so last week we talked about
the Gospels. The Gospels are written with different
perspectives for different reasons. Yes, there
are different people telling the same story,
Luke having a collection, John being written
after the fact, responding to some issues in
the church. Yeah, you could say that. But I think
the thing we always want to remember when we're
looking at the Gospels is they're written with
intention, with purpose, and they're not always
written just the way that we'd be like, I'm going
to write down a history of exactly what happened.
They are what happened, but they're written...
for us to, like, to reveal something to us, right?
Like, that's how Jewish writing is. And it's
not American writing, and thank goodness, because
I'm not sure that I could handle the Gen Z version
of the Bible. You text it to me almost every
day. Yeah, I know I do. There is a fun thing
that you can do. So we have a friend who sends
us Bible passages every day, which, by the way...
be that friend. That's a good friend. Right.
And, uh, I start, I started playing around with
it and I would take what he sent me and then
I would add it to chat GBT and I would have it
recreated in exaggerated Gen Z. Okay. So it's
not just like Gen Z. I said, please exaggerate
Gen Z. And I was like, make it more over the
top. And, uh, I sent it to him and he responded
with, that is exactly what my daughter sounds
like. And I said, well, if that's the case, what
he should start doing is taking her text messages
and putting it in ChatGPT and asking it to decipher
it for him. He thought that was a good idea.
Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to start at the beginning
with Jesus. So where do you start at the beginning?
Matthew 1. Genealogies. Yep. Everybody's favorite
thing. I know so many people who wake up in the
morning and they're like, you know what I'm going
to do in the Old Testament? I'm going to read
some genealogies. Pastor Nick is one of those.
He gets up and he's like, I'm going to read all
these names. One of these days, he's going to
get fed up with us making fun of him, not being
able to pronounce Hebrew names, and he's going
to go study and study and study. And then he's
going to get up on stage and preach and get everyone
right. Everyone right. And here's the thing.
Spencer and I will actually congratulate him
because I love that. Yeah. I love that journey
for him. Yeah, yeah. I will mess him up day in
and day out, and I'm good with that. All right,
so. There are two genealogies in the Gospels.
One is in the Gospel of Matthew, and one is in
the Gospel of Luke. Yep. The one in Matthew is
going to be focusing largely on Jesus as fulfillment
of prophecy. He's going to be talking about Messiah,
son of David, son of Abraham. It's going to be
like, and as we've said, Matthew is going to
be the most Jewish of the Gospels. So he's going
to kind of be focusing in on these ideas of Jesus
as Moses, Jesus as Abraham, Jesus as David. And
it's going to be coming up periodically. And
another interesting thing that's in there, and
by the way, I took this from Brad Gray in Walking
the Text. He pointed it out originally is that
it's actually divided into groups of 14. I don't
know if you know that. It doesn't actually quite
work out that way, but the numbers are there
to represent something else for us. There's 14
generations. And then the last piece. In Matthew's
genealogy that we love to point out, which we
talked in depth on in our Women in Ministry last
season, is that God includes, and Matthew includes,
awkward stories and women in his genealogy. Yeah.
He is like, hey, you know those messy stories?
Speaking of the friend that texts us Bible passages,
that's him right now. Yep. Matthew says, hey,
you know those awkward stories that you definitely
don't want told around the Thanksgiving table?
Let's talk about those right at the beginning.
The good news of Jesus Christ to the world and
the Jewish people. Let's talk about murder. Let's
talk about prostitutes. And so there's these
stories that are being included in here. I was
actually having a conversation with a friend
of mine and she's reading the Bible largely for
the first time. And she said that, she's like,
man, there's a lot of violence in here. And I
said, yeah. I was like, because the Bible actually
reflects reality and what people are actually
like. Yeah. And it doesn't try to hide away from
those things, but talks about God's redemptive
work in the middle of it. And she's like, oh,
well, that's cool. She's like, this makes a lot
more sense now. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So
that's Matthew. Luke, on the other hand, is going
to be tracing Jesus' lineage back to Adam. And
rather than connecting him just with the Hebrew
story, he's going to take him back and go all
the way and try to connect him with the story
of humanity. Right? And it's highlighting Jesus
as the son of God through Adam. Also, you should
notice that they actually track different sides
of the lineage. Yeah. So that is, by the way,
some people have difficulty when they're reading
those genealogies and they're like, they're not
the same at all. They're not. Yeah. Everybody
has two parents. I don't know if you know that.
They do. And also, your parents had two parents
that come from two different families. So you
can track genealogies a lot of different ways.
That's why we usually use a tree. Yeah. Yeah.
And the linear fashion of tracking genealogies
in this day and age, just in case anybody's confused,
is that you would track via your father's side.
Yeah. So in my case, I would say I'm Spencer's
son of Ed, who's son of so -and -so, who's son
of so -and -so, who's son of so -and -so. And
so you're just tracking the male line on the
father side. Yeah. But you could branch that
off at any time, right? Right. So the fact that
you do have women like Ruth, Tamar, Mary all
mentioned in Matthew's genealogy is actually
very significant. Yeah. And Matthew's kind of
follows more of what I'm going to call it a legal.
in that it's tracking through the fathers for
the most part. But it is talking about the fathers
beginning, beginning. It's tracking in a way
that Jewish heritage culture would understand.
Yeah, in the way that they would understand.
Whereas Luke is going to be more just like a
biological. And so it's not necessarily going
to pivot in the same way. Are you saying Matthews
isn't biological? Yes, that's what I'm saying.
Somebody will snip that out and be like, see,
they're already disagreeing, right? But genealogy
and Eastern cultures don't just serve as a biological
record, to the point. They serve theological
reasons. They serve legal reasons. They're societal
purposes. I am the son of this person who's the
son of this person, tracking back all the way
to your tribe, which, by the way, is a great
idea in general, knowing where you come from.
Yeah. Like, I don't know how often not knowing
where you come from and things that have happened
in your past come back to bite people in their
life. Well, we've talked about knowing your story
on this podcast quite a bit. Like, I mean, that's
not a topic we shy away from, but you do want
to know where you come from. You do want to know
your story. You don't want to shy away from talking
about mistakes because that's actually how you
learn and you grow and you become better. Yeah.
And so if you make mistakes, that's okay. Like,
but the point is not to stay, not to keep living
into those mistakes. Yeah. Right. So some fun
things I was looking up here. I'm just going
to read some of these things here about Eastern
genealogy. So not even just talking about Israel,
right? Genetic records can actually skip generations.
Sometimes they group names symbolically or they
emphasize certain ancestors over others, right?
Matthew does the opposite. He puts out the ones
that they probably want to avoid. So that's important.
One of the things that I thought was really interesting
is in Deuteronomy, we talked about leave a right
marriage. So, like, if your brother dies and
you don't produce an heir, he doesn't produce
an heir, a lot of times the brother would come
and produce an heir so that the woman would have
protection, right? Well, that makes... Who technically,
like, do you belong to, right? Because legally...
You belong to the one who died, but biologically
you belong to the one who actually sired you,
right? And so there's those conversations. And
you could actually identify with either one.
In the case of Jesus, there was no biological
father. Hopefully that's not a spoiler alert
for anybody. No biological father is the Holy
Spirit. Yep. I just, I think the Lee Wright thing
is kind of an interesting thing that you don't
really think about. You're like, oh, I'm tracking
my lineage. And then this is where Uncle Nick,
I'm just going to take on him again. Uncle Nick
stepped in and. It's really fun because we know
he actually listens to this. My uncle Nick, he
stepped in and he produced an air for my aunt
Beatrice. That sounds like a good name. Okay.
That's definitely a good Hebrew name, Beatrice,
right? Totally. Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah,
you're very far off a Hebrew name there. Yeah.
So this is why Matthew and Luke both start with
genealogies. Genealogies are really important.
It's actually more of an indication that Mark
and John aren't written directly to Jewish people.
That they don't start with genealogies. Yeah.
Yeah. Uh, Jewish, the Jewish culture is very
big on heritage. And so, yeah, I was, for some
reason you said heritage and I, I heard, um,
I, I heard a heresy and I'm like, I'm like, that
doesn't, I was like, well, they're also big on
that. So yeah. Yeah. They are big on that too,
but they also don't like it. Nope. But they are
very big on heritage and tradition, knowing where
you come from. And so you can't, I mean, you
can't have a gospel written to a Jewish audience
without having some sort of genealogy. Yeah.
So this is the genealogy. 14 generations, 14
generations, 14 generations. Jesus' connection
to humanity, Jesus' connection to the Hebrew
story. So this is all before Jesus shows up.
Before he shows up in physical form. So Mary
is engaged to be married to Joseph. And if you
followed the channel or followed the podcast
for any period of time, you know that Jewish
weddings are not like American weddings. Things
are just different. So we're going to kind of
do a high -level recap of this idea. So in a
Jewish culture or Eastern culture in general,
a lot of times the parents are going to make
a match. Right. Or communities are going to make
a match. Yep. And they're going to say, I think
that you would pair really well with you and
you're going to be really good together. And
then provided that the people agree. then the
son goes and he is, you're engaged for roughly
a year, roughly a year. And I say roughly a year
because it varies depending on the father. But
for the father, the son will go and he will actually
add on to his house for his future wife. And
from the moment that they are betrothed, they're
actually considered married. The ceremony, it
takes place like. Let's just say a year, because
that's going to be helpful. It takes place a
year later, but from the moment that the woman
accepts the invitation, she accepts the betrothal,
they're actually considered married. But they
have not consummated a marriage. It is a legal
marriage at this point. And they're still living
separate lives. Correct. It's not like they're
living together or anything at this point. Correct.
The wife would... still be living with her family,
getting ready for the consummation, and the husband
would be adding on to his father's house so that
she could be brought in as part of his family.
And if you live in separate, I'm going to call
them townships. Townships? You're not living
in the same township suddenly. That's going to
happen after the consummation, after the wedding
party. So that's actually going to be really
important later. Just pin that in your mind because
later Jesus is going to use a lot of wedding
talk to talk about the kingdom of God. So the
son's going to go. He's going to build onto the
house. And when the father says, hey, you've
done a good job. We now have what we need for
you to bring your bride into the house. You go
back and you get her. And then you're going to
go and then there's going to be a party. Usually
people know. It's a week -long festival. They
consummate the marriage. The best man gets to
take the sheet and prove that the claim was correct.
I'm being very vague here for listeners who might
be. That is quite the job for the best man, by
the way. You get to stand outside and be like,
all right, go show this to the father. The father
of the bride. It is actually really interesting,
though, this whole idea of, presenting it as
a virgin, right? Is that Paul is actually going
to make mention of this in his letters. And he
says that we couldn't produce a bloody cloth.
Like he's going to use this analogy, right? Yeah.
Because we're broken. We have been broken by
sin. We've been broken by death. Jesus on our
behalf produces this bloody cloth for us. And
we were like, oh, it's a gross image. I was like,
no, it's a beautiful image because it means it's
actually like Jesus is restoring us to something
that we can never attain. I love how you're like,
I'm going to be vague, and then you went into
specifics. Yeah, yeah. You know what? I've decided
at this point, like, I'm just not going to listen
to myself. It was just great. You're like, I'm
just going to be vague to those who are listening
that you explained it. So good job. Well, I thought
about it, and I was like, there's no way to really
talk about these other cool things, these images
that are drawn, because I think it's inappropriate
in our culture, or maybe... It's different. It's
different. Whereas if we're talking about their
culture. So I think we kind of just dive in.
So if you are sensitive to those things, just
understand we're talking about a different culture
on purpose. And I will continue to give misleading
information about what I'm going to talk about.
So they're legally married. And it was in this
time that the angel comes to talk to Mary. And
we're actually going to read that passage. This
is Matthew 1, starting in verse 18. This is how
Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother Mary was
engaged to be married to Joseph, but before the
marriage took place, while she was still a virgin,
she became pregnant through the power of the
Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged,
was a righteous man who did not want to disgrace
her publicly, so he decided to break off the
engagement quietly. All this occurred to fulfill
the Lord's message through the prophet. Look.
A virgin will conceive a child, she will give
birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel,
which means God with us. All right, so you go,
well, Ben, you just said that they're legally
married. Why does this say engaged to be married?
Because the translators are trying to translate
the idea to us, not necessarily how it works
in Jewish culture, right? This is why going back
to Hebrew and Greek and cultural studies matters,
right? So for all intents and purposes, it is
they are married. And Joseph is not choosing
to end an engagement. He is choosing to divorce
his wife. Both of which would be the appropriate
thing to do. In fact, there's a lot of conversation
about how that's actually a very gracious thing
to do. Because in a very real way, Joseph has
been wronged, or he thinks he's been wronged.
And instead of holding her accountable to the
city's judgment, to the court, the religious
court, he is instead of holding her accountable
where she could actually be taken out, she could
be stoned, she could be punished, she could be
a lot of different things. He is choosing to
divorce her quietly, endure the shame, but protect
her. And bring shame upon his family. Correct.
Because he's not going through the proper avenues.
So what does that tell you about Joseph? He's
a guy who understands the kingdom of God, right?
Like when you're wronged, you're like, listen,
I'm not going to partner with you, but I'm also
not going to bring more shame to you. And I'm
willing to take some of that shame to protect
you. Yeah. Right? So Mary and Joseph are in this
really weird position, which we've talked about
before, where they have to, in observance of
God's command, like they get to be the parents
of... Jesus. So that's really cool. Right. I
want to stress like everything that they're giving
up is absolutely worth what they get. Yeah. But
nobody knows that Jesus is the Messiah until
after he comes back from the dead and on a very
real level. Like of course he tells people and
people have suspicions. He tells them over and
over, but they don't really understand what that
means until he comes back from the dead. So what
does that mean? That for 35 years in the case
of Mary and however long that Joseph lived, They
were going to live with the shame of an out -of
-wedlock baby. And this conversation, this whispering
that's happening around the, hey, I don't know
if you know, Mary got pregnant and Joseph wasn't
even in town. No, no, he's not divorcing her.
Nope, nope, no, he's going to marry her. And
so you can only imagine this conversation that's
going on, right? That doesn't stop once the baby's
born. No. It's not going to stop once he's a
boy. It's not going to stop once he has other
kids. Like this is an honor and shame culture.
This is going to be with them their entire life.
And so, yes, they are parents to the almighty
made flesh. But they are also in that walking
in shame for the rest of their life. And it's
not a cursory decision. And I love that angels
show up twice for them, once for each of them.
Each person gets a conversation as they're called
to obey. And all too often we act like the community
around Mary and Joseph, right? Where someone
may have made some mistakes in the past or may
be living in a way that doesn't look quite right
to you. And you could potentially hold that over
them, whether on purpose or on accident. But
you could potentially be that person who's like,
hey, did you hear about this? Yeah. Right? You
could be that person to where Ben could be like,
hey, did you hear that Spencer? Did you hear
that Ben wasn't going to talk about the wedding
night? And then he totally did. Yeah, right?
And you could be that person. Yeah. And the reality
is it's all too easy to be that person. What's
more difficult is to shut up and actually be
like, you know what? Jesus loves them. And I'm
going to figure out how to be there for them.
Yeah. I think there's this difficulty, and I've
said this quote on the podcast multiple times,
when people reject Jesus because of his teaching,
that's to be expected. But when people reject
Jesus because of us and the way that we act,
that's sin. Yeah. Right. And there's this, this
thing about when we follow Jesus that there,
and when you actually live out his commands,
which is like selfless love, right. Um, it's
sacrificial love. It is yes. Holding, holding
truth to power. Right. And, and holding like,
uh, standing in, in the face of injustice through
non -aggression. Right. Um, there's a lot of
things that, that are really difficult about
being Christian, um, standing in the middle of
chaos, but not fighting. Yeah. Allowing God to
fight your battles. Yeah. Right. Forgiving people
who've definitely wronged you and who may never
repent. Yeah. Like this is, this is the, like
there is a lot of, of shame that we could potentially
carry. Yeah. In following Jesus, especially from
our community and the people who whisper about
us. The question is, is having Jesus in your
life worth the shame? Yeah. And I think the answer
is a resounding yes. Right? But each person has
to decide whether or not they're going to live
true to who Jesus is, regardless of what shame
has brought. Yeah. And I can't make that decision
for you. But I will tell you that if you make
that decision, what you get in the transaction
is worth way more than what you give. 100%. You
know? I do like that there's some parallels here
that I just had brought out that Mary and Joseph
both receive an angel's appearance. Mary doesn't
know what's about to happen. Joseph already knows
what happened, like he's told afterwards, right?
Mary is talked to with an angel in a vision or
literally, I don't know whether it was a vision
or literal, like showed up. Joseph has talked
to in a dream. And as a person who God tends
to talk to a lot in dreams, I often wonder if
that's because that's the only time I'll shut
up long enough to listen. Right. And that both
of them are given an option. Both of them are
given a proposal and Mary demonstrates her faith
through verbal confirmation. Right. She says,
let be to me as you have said. Yeah. Joseph demonstrates
his faith by what he does. And I love that you
have these two people, one that demonstrates
what they do, but what they say, and of course
live through. But Joseph doesn't say anything.
He just takes her as his wife. Yeah. And he brings
her in his household and he says, all of your
shame, I'm going to take with you. Yeah. Together,
we're going to walk this out together. Right?
And I just love that there's like, what does
faith look like? Yeah. It looks like both of
those things. Yep. Right? It's not an either
or. Yeah. It is like, God, you have something
great planned for me. Sometimes we say, yep,
I trust you. And sometimes we take a step out.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I have a brother who lives
in the South. South of what? Of the U .S. Okay.
In the South. And there's this wonderful phrase
that gets thrown around in the South that means
the opposite of what they're actually saying.
Okay. And that is, bless your heart. Right? For
anybody from the South who's listening, I love
you. Don't worry. But really, really what we're
hearing when we hear bless your heart is that
you're judging me for something. If I get nasty
emails, I'm forwarding them to you. Great. Please
do. Please do. Or that I tried really hard. That
is Spencer McDowell. Or that I tried really hard
at something, but it didn't work out. So you're
like, bless your heart because you didn't do
it exactly how I would have done it. Right. Right.
We can twist things around to where it's perceived
like, okay, well, they're doing the best they
can, but really we're casting judgment. Right.
And I was talking to a friend who deals a lot
with depression the other day, and this is going
to sound a little weird. I'm just going to preface
this. Listen, if we haven't driven them off by
now, they'll probably be fine. It's going to
sound a little weird. And I was just asking,
I was like, what's one of the worst things you
hear when people are trying to help you out in
this? And he's like, oh, it's when they say,
oh, I'll pray for you. And I was like, okay,
expand on that. And he was like, well, he's like,
good heart. They're praying for me. Love that.
He's like, but what it also says is that you
don't have the time or energy to actually understand
what I'm going through. And it hit me. I was
like, oh. Right. I was like, okay. And so we
can use these phrases in good intent, right?
But they can still cause damage to those around
us. And that's why taking the time to sit, listen,
and be there for people is huge. Right. Well,
so to your point, Joseph hears and he obeys.
Yep. And it's not a one -time decision. No. That
decision is going to affect everything that happens
for the rest of his life. And it brings shame
upon himself. Right? Like him saying, yes, I'm
going to stay with Mary. Just open the doors
for all the judgments of other people to come
in and be like, yo, did you hear? And I'm not
doubting that he's going to have a conversation.
He says, God talked to me in a dream. He said
he did this. It would probably sound as crazy,
well, probably less crazy in their time than
it does in ours. Yeah. Because, like, I mean,
you take the exact same story, right? And you
put it into the modern context. And you say,
and you ask a guy named Joseph, and you said,
why did you stay with Mary? He said, well, God
came in a dream, and he told me that the baby
was from him. Right? Okay. Well, we do the same
thing, though, where we hear people say, well,
the Lord's really put this on my heart, and I
need to go do this. And it's like, are you sure?
And again, that's the judgmental side coming
in versus saying, hey, let's actually look at
that and explore that. I will say the one time
that I was like, I doubt that this is the case,
is when someone came up to me. He's like, the
Lord's really put it on my heart to. create a
YouTube channel where we hypnotize people so
that they believe in Jesus. And I was like, I
doubt that. Yeah. So there's actually scripture
about not trying to coerce people, right? You
know? Yeah. So, but I guess the point I'm making
here is that it is way more powerful to actually
be willing to sit with someone in their shame
than it is to walk away and say, I hope the best
for you. Yeah. So these are Jesus' parents, and
we wanted to take some time early on in the life
of Jesus to talk about, they're pretty cool people,
right? Yeah. Because it's really important that
we realize that, because for, there's conversation
here, but Jesus was born a baby. Yeah. Okay?
He had to grow up. He had to learn how to talk,
how to eat, how to, you know, everything that
you can think of that you have to do. Which means
his parents are going to be his teachers for
a lot of things. And so if you are God the Father
and you're looking for people who are going to
raise you slash your son, because the Trinity
makes all of our brains boil, right? In a way
that is going to allow him to continue to bring
kingdom to earth and all these different things,
you're looking for people who are sold out to
kingdom ideals. People who are willing to cover
shame of other people. People who are willing
to bear bad marks against their name for a greater
cause. Because a lot of what we see in Jesus'
life is he's okay with people saying bad things
about him when he goes to talk to prostitutes
and sinners and tax collectors. Where do you
think he gets that from? I would submit that
maybe he knows a little bit about what it's like
to be outcast. And to see people who faithfully
love God and want to be a part of what God is
doing that are looked down on because of something
that they did. And he says, I'm going to come
have dinner with you. Let's talk about what God's
kingdom really looks like. Yeah. Right? So Jesus
is born in a city of Bethlehem, but they're not
in Bethlehem at the point when Mary gets pregnant,
right? So how do they end up in Bethlehem? Well,
good thing you asked, dear listener. They totally
did ask. I heard it. In the future, when we post
this, I heard them talk into the past. There
is a census that is taken by the Roman Empire.
It's a Roman census. In fact, that's how we know
where to date Jesus' birth. It says that Caesar
Augustus ordered a census. Now, what a census
required is that you had to go to your hometown.
Okay, so where is there, it's not necessarily
where you live in, it's your ancestral town.
So Joseph had to go to Bethlehem because he was
from the lineage of David. Yep. Now, one of the
things I love about the fact that they're going
to Bethlehem is Bethlehem means house of bread.
And isn't it foretelling that the... Bread of
life is born in the house of bread, right? Jesus
is all about that carbivore diet. Oh, yeah, I
said that. You did. That was really bad. You're
welcome. Really bad. Yeah. So it's not, by the
way, the census, by the way, is not just a bureaucratic
measure where they're like, hey, I wonder how
many people we have. It has to do with taxation.
Rome wanted its money. Yeah. Right? So they have
to go from Nazareth, which later he's going to
come back to Nazareth because that's where Joseph
had actually been living. But they have to go
from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and it's about 90
miles for them to travel. I don't know how many
of you have had a pregnant wife or been pregnant,
if you're fortunate enough to have birthed a
child, right? How do you feel about going 90
miles pregnant? I'm not really one to speak on
this. My wife downhill skied all the way through
eight months of pregnancy and would still go
on hikes and still do all the crazy things that
people are like, are you sure you should be doing
that? And I was like, you're welcome to tell
her no if you want to because I'm not going to.
So I can't really... I think 90 miles is difficult
also when you think desert too because the Northwest,
because you guys have lived in the Northwest,
is a lot more pleasant for hiking than... In
the middle of the desert. Yeah. And also 2 ,000
years ago when you can't have access to any of
the cool stuff we have now. Right? Yeah. I just
can't imagine that you want to do it. But Joseph
and Mary likely not traveling alone because a
bunch of people have to go back to Bethlehem.
Yeah. And also it's just unlikely that two people
are going to travel alone in general because
of bandits and being slow and dangerous. Yeah.
It's just going to be a bad situation if they
have to travel by themselves. So they make this
journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and they
go in, and there's no room anywhere to stay,
which makes sense because everybody's having
to go back to their hometown. There is some conversation
to be had here about scholarship. They always
say that there's no room at the inn. The problem,
the word with inn is not a commercial inn. Um,
it actually would have to do with like your closest
relative. There's no room in their main room
likely because they already have somebody there
with them. And so what they do is they have them
stay in their separate room, which is where you
keep the animals. Um, because the desert is really
hot in the day, but it's really cold at night.
You actually have a room that's connected to
your house. It was where you keep your animals.
And it's just a very different culture than ours.
Um, if you have a goat, if you have a, you know,
whatever. you want to make sure that they live
because that's your source of money, that's your
source of production. So you're going to keep
them a lot closer, just like we would keep, you
have your musician, you keep your guitar in the
house. You may not keep it in your bedroom, but
you do keep it in the room connected to your
bedroom. And so they're at this inn, which is
likely connected to somebody's house because
it's not a commercial inn. They're at this stable.
That is somebody's house and they're in the room
with their animals, which would have not been
a terrible room, but what definitely would have
been messy. And Jesus is born in this awkward,
like back room. Yep. And he's placed in a, not,
not a conventional major. Like we kind of, we
kind of envisioned because a lot of things are
built out of stone. So it would have been like
a stone basin almost, uh, was where they would
put their food. And Jesus is placed in this stone
basin. And, uh, That's how the king of the world
comes in, right? And the gospels don't hide this.
In fact, they trumpet it. It's so funny when
you have this idea of like, if you read ancient
histories and you read the euangelions, the good
news of whatever, the gospels of Herod the Great,
the gospels of Caesar Augustus, the gospels of
Alexander the Great, they're like... They were
born in a storm and they arose and the baby,
you know, there's like these fantastic tales.
And now you have God made flesh and he's born
in this backwater village in this back room and
placed into a feeding tray. Yep. That's beautiful,
right? Because that's going to usurp everything
you think you know about power is wrong. And
God's going to show you. Yeah. Right? Yep. So
there are prophecies that linking Bethlehem here.
In fact, this is going to be a topic that we
talk about when we talk about the Magi, right?
That come. In Micah 5 .2, it says, You, O Bethlehem,
Ephrathah. Wow, I should not make fun of Nick
because I definitely did not pronounce that right.
What was that? Yeah, Ephrathah. Okay. Who are
too little to be among the clans of Judah. From
you shall come forth for me one who is to be
ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from the
old, from the ancient of days. And so a lot of
people had connected this prophecy from Micah
to this messianic figure who's going to fulfill
God's covenant with Israel. Yeah. Right? We talked
about that this is known as the city of David.
By the way, if you want to look up that place,
it's the birthplace of King David. 1 Samuel 16
.1 is where that is talked about. I just... I
love, I do love that connection. Like we were
talking about house of bread. Jesus is the bread
of life because in John six 35, he's going to
say, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to
me, she'll never hunger. Whoever believes in
me, she'll never thirst. And it talks about how
Jesus is this ultimate source of spiritual sustenance.
Yeah. And, and by the way, um, bread, water,
talking to a desert people, Exodus on their mind,
right? I'm the bread that came from heaven. Yeah.
Manna. Right? There's all these connections that
Jesus is drawing on. The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem
actually, it really seems almost like this manna
that fell from heaven. Like Jesus is this provision
in the middle of a dry, thirsty place. He's this
provision that's actually going to give them
what they need to live with God in the desert.
And I can't think of a time in Israel's history,
maybe Babylonian captivity, where they were,
Under the same type of oppression. Yeah. Because
Babylon, they're conquered. They're taken off
into captivity. But in Rome, they're at home,
but they're being taxed to death. Mm -hmm. And
their culture and their purpose and their identity
is slowly being congealed into Rome. Yeah. And
in the middle of this, Jesus comes. Mm -hmm.
Manna from heaven. Yep. It's a cool story. It
is. So that brings us to the close of this episode.
So we are going to be continuing through the
life of Jesus. In case you didn't listen to last
week's episode, we are going to be kind of bouncing
around from one gospel to another. Correct. And
so just know that it's not going to be a straight
walk through Matthew, then Mark, then Luke, then
John. We're going to be kind of tying some of
these stories together, looking at some of the
differences, similarities, so on and so forth.
So join us next week as we continue. The life
of Jesus. Exactly. Take care. and Facebook at
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