To Know Him and To Make Him Known: Luke 2:1-21

So many of us read Luke chapter 2 as the Christmas story, but we don't recognize how strategic God was in the timing of it. Politically and spiritually, we see God's perfect timing and intention reveals His heart for humanity. In today's episode, we take a look at what it means for us and how we can know Him and make Him known. Links Join me on an immersive Bible Study Experience. Learn more at BibleStudyLive.org Have a question about the Luke series or a prayer request? Leave me a voicemail: SpeakPipe SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today. Plant your first seed and see what God can grow. SEEDS What is a decree, and who was Caesar Augustus? A decree is an official order from someone in power. It's not a request or a suggestion. It carries the force of law, and people could not ignore it. The Greek word here is dogma, which is where we get our English word, though here it means a legal ruling rather than a religious teaching. Caesar Augustus was the first emperor of Rome, ruling from about 27 BC to AD 14. Before that his name was Octavian, and he was the great nephew of Julius Caesar. When Julius was murdered, his will named Octavian as his adopted son and heir. He was only eighteen. He fought his way into power, and the Roman Senate eventually gave him a new name, Augustus, meaning the revered one or the majestic one. Why does Luke mention Caesar at all? Because of the contrast, and it's sharper than most of us realize. When Julius Caesar died, the Roman Senate declared him a god. That meant Augustus, as his adopted son, could call himself Divi Filius, Latin for son of the deified one. Son of a god. He put that title on coins and monuments across the empire. He picked up other titles too. People called him Savior, because his rule brought a long stretch of peace known as the Pax Romana. One inscription from Egypt during his reign calls him a great heavenly savior. So by the time Jesus was born, Rome already had its own son of a god, its own savior, and its own version of peace. All of it came from a human ruler. All of it was political propaganda. Luke wants you to see that the real Son of God and the real Savior was about to be born, not in a palace, but in a stable. The enemy always offers a counterfeit. What was the census actually for? Taxes. Augustus was counting his empire so he could tax it. Here's what he had no idea about. While he thought this was all his doing, God used that decree to move a pregnant teenager from Nazareth to Bethlehem, exactly where the prophet said the Messiah would be born. Augustus was helping fulfill a promise hundreds of years old and never knew it. Did women have to register for the census? Yes. Since the census was about taxes, most women were counted, and in the Roman province of Syria, which included Judea, women paid the poll tax too. Records show taxation started as early as twelve or fourteen and ran to age sixty-five. So Mary would have been on the tax rolls, though whether she had to appear in person is a separate question given how risky travel would have been. We actually have surviving census records from that world. The papyrus and leather used in Judea rotted away over the centuries, but in the dry climate of Egypt hundreds of census forms survived. And among documents found near the Dead Sea are the personal papers of a Jewish woman named Babatha, including her own census declaration listing land she owned. That's roughly a century after Mary's trip, and it's real evidence of a Jewish woman taking part in a Roman census. Was Jesus really born in a stable? Most scholars think the inn wasn't an inn at all. It was a house, and the space they stayed in was the area where the family brought their animals inside at night. That may sound strange in an American context, but I've served in missions around the world and seen homes with a section in the back where the cows are kept, so they don't get stolen or wander off. The point is the con