You're not going to be with you again this week.

If you read Luke 2 and Matthew 2, we certainly don't want this to replace your reading.

We had some interesting comments from listeners this week.

One was from Susan who said that she was using this for her

homeschool for her children and it was really great help to their family. We also heard from

another reader, Ali, who was a recent widow and she said she'd been really struggling with

studying the scriptures on her own and this was a nice aid for her that made us

really happy. We know Luke too and Matthew too really well because we talk about

them so much at Christmas but we hope today we can

find some hidden gems there. So the world that Jesus was born into was a desperate one,

in the barren land, in the absence of revelation, in an oppressive country that

dominated Israel. Oh how they needed the Messiah, but what they were looking

for was a conquering king who could oppress their enemies and set them free and he would come a little baby in a manger to set them free from another kind of bondage.

We know the story.

There was not room for them in the end.

But let's look at it more carefully.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said,

one impression which has persisted with me recently is that this is a story in profound paradox with our own

times, that this is a story of intense poverty. I wonder if Luke did not have some special

meaning when he wrote, not there was no room in the end but

specifically that there was no room for them in the end. We cannot be certain

but it is my guess that money could talk in those days as well as in our own.

...