Wisdom and Worship – “The Lessons from Wise Men of the East”

Mat 2:2 - "Where is the baby born to be the king of the Jews? We saw his star when it came up in the east, and we have come to worship him."

The Wise men who were from the east are supposed to be more than three people and have travelled for very long time (almost for 2 years) and mostly travelled in the nights so that they can follow the star.

We three kings of Orient are;
Bearing gifts we traverse afar,
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,
Following yonder star.

Wisdom leads to Worship: The outcome of true wisdom is worship (Mat 2:2). “And they came into the house and saw the young child with Mary his mother; and they fell down and worshipped him; and opening their treasures they offered unto him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh” (Mat 2:11)

HIS Star (Mat 2:2): The star is Christ’s and is also leading others to Christ. It would be a real sad thing, if one claims oneself to be Christ’s and not leading others toward CHRIST. Christmas Star teaches us to be witness to Him.

Disrupted contemplation on His Star: We need to learn even from the failure of these Wise Men also. True Wisdom is zero percent dependence on man’s intellect (Pro 3:5 & 6 - Trust in Jehovah with all thy heart, and lean not upon thine own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy paths). These Wise Men went to Herod in Jerusalem by leaving the direction of the star. “It has been truly remarked that the shepherds did not miss their way; they came to Christ at once, while the wise men, even with a star to guide them, yet missed their way, and went to Jerusalem instead of to Bethlehem, and enquired at the palace of Herod” (Spurgeon). Sadly this failure of Wise Men led to the massacre of lot children (Mat. 2:16). Jesus is the source of True Wisdom (Isaiah 9:6 & Col. 2:3) and “if any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all” (James 1:5).

Knowledge vs. Wisdom: The best analogy to define Wisdom and knowledge is by knowing the difference between Herod’s scribes and the Wise Men from the east. Herod’s scribes know the scriptures that Christ’s birthplace is Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) but they never made any attempt to go and see the KING of kings. This knowledge is only the information available in the head and never was put into practice and is not wisdom. May we be always obedient to the known revelation of the God’s Word!

Last week I spoke about the first occurrence of the term “worship” in the Old Testament (also the entire Bible) and this time we saw the first occurrence of the same term in the New Testament. Again we see here that the worship is linked to the Offering (Mat. 2: 2 & 11) – Offering of self, like I wrote last time…

O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him, born the King of angels;

O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord

Merry Christmas! May you all have a blessed time and have many many beautiful reasons to celebrate the Season!