We Three Kings?

            If you were to go to some public place and ask a random smattering of people how many kings came to see the baby Jesus, what would you suppose would be the most common answer?  I imagine the answer you would most likely receive would be “three.”  And, again, I imagine many would attribute their answer to the numerous nativity scenes they had seen in their lifetimes.  Now, if you were to ask those same people what the names of those kings were, how many of those people would be able to come up with some names?  While many would not even offer a guess, I imagine that there would be some people who would come up with the names “Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar.”  And, I imagine that some of them might even attribute their answer to a Greek manuscript written in Alexandria, Egypt around 500AD.  And, if you were to ask these same people from where these kings came, what different places you would get as answers?  Persia?  India?  Arabia?  China?  And, I imagine that one or two of them might possibly attribute their answer to something having to do with the gifts brought to the baby Jesus.

            Now, what’s the purpose and point of this thought exercise?  Well, how many kings

came to see baby Jesus?  Also, what were their names and from where did they come?  To answer these questions, let’s look at the only place in the Bible which mentions these men, Matthew 2.  In Matthew 2:1, we read this: “Now, after Jesus was born on Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem.”  And, in Matthew 2:11, we read this: “And, when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshipped Him.  And, when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”  So, how does the Bible answer these questions?  To spell it out for us: no kings came to see baby Jesus because they were not kings, but wise men, and because Jesus was not a baby at the time of their visit, but a young child.  And, as far as their names go or the specific countries from which they came, we’re simply not told.

            You see, this is the purpose of all of this: to plainly illustrate the fact that most people simply do not know what the Bible actually says.  And, the scary part is that most people don’t even know that they are fantastically ignorant and incorrect regarding what the Bible says.  And, who knows?  Maybe we are a part of this group from time to time. 

            And, the point of all of this is to encourage us, when someone says “The Bible says this,” to not take anyone’s word for it, but to pick up a Bible and to diligently study these things out like the those noble-minded Bereans (Acts 17:11).

            You know, it is disheartening to consider just how many people are blind to their own Biblical ignorance on what people might call “small things” like this.  And, at the same time, it is heart-breaking to consider their blindness to the vitally important things like salvation and the work of the Church.

            Therefore, let us all “gird up the loins of [our] mind[s]” (1 Peter 1:13) and constantly “give attention to reading” (1 Timothy 4:12) so that we will “always be ready to give an answer” (1 Peter 3:15) and lovingly correct those who contradict the truth.  Let this be our hourly prayer and our daily focus and may we all be found worthy of this most noble of efforts.

~Curtis Carwile