Everybody, what is going on? You know what time it is. You're listening to join the Journey podcast with your host, Emma, daughter.

Thanks for joining. And here's a question for you. If God is good, why do bad things happen? Today, we're in Matthew 2, where we're reminded that there's only one right response to our king,

and that's to worship.

Worship is our response to God for who he is and what he's done.

It doesn't have to be singing songs in church on a Sunday morning.

Worship can be the choices we make, the words we speak, or even the thoughts we choose to dwell on.

In Matthew 2, we see that when the wise men saw the star in the sky, they immediately went to go

find Jesus, to worship him. Their response to the king was to drop everything. But in verse 7,

we meet this guy named Herod, who's very interested in the baby everybody's calling king,

but his response wasn't to worship. Now, there are several Herods in the New Testament,

but this Herod in particular is Herod the Great. And what's interesting is that Herod the

great was actually called King of the Jews, just like the baby. That was uniquely his mantra. And here's

why. Herod started out his political career as a governor, but not a Roman governor. He was the

governor in Galilee as part of a ruling government called the Hasmonian dynasty. But while Herod

was governor, the Roman government was in conflict with the Hasmonian dynasty. But while Herod was governor, the Roman government was in conflict with

the Hasmonian dynasty. Now, the big names can get really confusing. All you need to know is there was a

big disagreement between Rome and the political group Herod was a part of. But one day Herod decided he was on

Rome's side. He switched teams to team Rome, which honestly

was probably a good choice for him because Rome won. And then, because Herod was the governor

of Galilee and chose to side with Rome, he was given a promotion which basically went like this.

The Roman said, Herod conquered Judea and will make you king of the Jews.

It took him three years, but he did it and became what was technically called a client king.

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