Matthew 1 – 2
First thing I picked up in this reading was the number of prophecies mentioned that Jesus fulfilled. If you were counting I believe it was 6. Now if you count through the whole Old Testament there are somewhere between 30 to 700 prophecies mentioned that Jesus fulfilled. The most accepted number is 66, but the key is the odds. If Jesus fulfilled just 8, the odds of this happening are 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. There are better odds of winning the lottery than Jesus fulfilling 8 of these prophecies written hundreds to thousands of years earlier. For 1 man to fulfill 48 of these, the odds go to 1 in 10 to the 157, or 1 electron in the entire universe that fulfills these prophecies.
So by the odds one must accept Jesus is who He said He was. I believe this is one of the reasons the “story” of Jesus is being questioned as a fabrication. Honestly, if you think about it a story about Jesus would have been squashed by the Jews at the time it started. The Jews do not accept him as “the Anointed One” but that is the only “fact” they question. The Muslim’s believe He is the Messiah just that His role in the end times is different than what Christians believe. Since all these beliefs contradict the “New Testament” significantly, one could argue it would have been advantageous to show the story was a fabrication at the time it was developed, not 2000 or more years later.
Verse 2:2 caught me with some interest based on where I have been over the years:
Where is this newborn, who is the King of the Jews? When we were far away in the East we saw His star, and we have followed its glisten and gleam all this way to worship Him.
Recently I have been studying Luciferian cults and their beliefs, trying to understand the End Times that appear to be unraveling before us. This caught my eye because of the “star” reference, since Lucifer is Latin for “the Morning Star”. Its verses like this that could be how “they” suck people into the “cult” since one could argue Lucifer was guiding the wise men. Sorry for this tangent, but it’s my “thought” and I like to lay it all out of what I was thinking and hold nothing back. I will find the truth here!! It took me 10+ years to accept the “trinity” theology.
Verse 2:11 was explained exceptionally well in the footnotes:
and as soon as the wise men arrived, they saw Him with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. They unpacked their satchels and gave Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
I always here about the gifts, but have never really understand their significance. It’s more than just fancy trinkets that these men gave Jesus. First gold represents what is given to a king, showing Jesus IS the King of Kings. Second, the frankincense was incense that is given to high priests, showing Jesus is the High Priest of all high priests. Finally the myrrh ointment was used for healing, showing Jesus as the healer. One other use of myrrh was embalming corpses showing Jesus was born to die for our salvation.
How cool is that!!