Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Yesterday we read Luke's account of the birth of Jesus and today we get more

information from Matthew's account. Jesus is born in a village called Bethlehem

in a kingdom called Judea. At the time he's born, all of Judea is under Roman rule and occupation.

Imagine a large and powerful country takes over the country where you live,

stationed soldiers in every major city, is involved with every level of your government

and makes you pay taxes to support that occupying army. That's what's happening here.

Rome is in charge of things and they put a guy named Herod the Great in charge of Judea.

Herod is a great builder making port cities and aqueducts and even renovating the second temple

complex so that it's much bigger and more magnificent.

For a while, he's even the president of the Olympics,

but in his later years he becomes jealous and paranoid.

For instance, he spends six years building a massive fortress in the middle of the desert in case enemies attack, and never spends a single night there.

He kills his sons so they won't take over his throne, and he even kills his favorite wife, then mummifies her in honey when he later

regrets it.

He is driven by fear, which prompts him to try to control everything around him, which is where we find ourselves today.

We're at Herod's Palace and some foreign wise men show up on his doorstep and say,

hey, we're here to see the new king. We saw a sign in the sky that let us know he's been born and we

want to worship him can you type his address into Google Maps for us?

Herod puts them on ice while he tries to figure out a plan then he calls them back in

and says now that you mention it I'm just as curious as you are.

So when you find him, drop a pen and send it to me because I want to go worship him too.

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