Our world is a little more than 30 days away from a new American president. In our journey toward Christmas ’24 we’re seeking to answer one Christmas question each day, and so today it’s a government question: “WHO was King Herod and what is his role in the Christmas story”?
As you may know Jesus was born during the time in history when the Roman Empire was the global dominant power. The people living in the region of “Israel”, like many other peoples of the world, had an ancient history of being a free, independent nation, but not in the days of the Roman Empire. In fact, the last time prior to Jesus’ birth that Jerusalem was a free city, under the sovereign rule of Israelites, was the days of King Josiah and he had died in 609bc! From then until the days of Jesus, Jerusalem and the region we know as Israel was continually under the authority and control of conquering Gentiles! The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans. Now ponder that a moment as you think about your city, your country and whoever the ruling authority is over your part of the world.