Knowing the Address

Bethlehem Ephratah, a village a few miles south of Jerusalem, in the years when Assyrian armies were working their way down the coast and Micah was watching them come.

The verse in front of it says what he is answering. They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. The sitting ruler is about to be struck across the face by a foreign soldier. Into that, Micah names a village: But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah. Thousands is a military unit, and Bethlehem is too small to field one. The answer to a humiliated capital is a place that does not register.

Set a second scene beside it, seven centuries later. Foreign astrologers arrive in Jerusalem asking after a newborn king, and Herod, troubled, gathers the chief priests and the scribes and demands of them where Christ should be born. They answer at once, and they answer by quoting this verse. They know the address. Herod sends soldiers down the road. The scribes stay in Jerusalem.

Later, in John, a crowd uses the same geography to settle the question the other way: Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was? They are right about the verse, and it never occurs to any of them to find out where he was born.

Two groups hold the correct information and neither moves. What separated the wise men from the scribes was a few miles of road.

Pick a piece of Scripture you are certain about, one you could quote under pressure the way those men did in front of a frightened king. Work out what acting on it would look like before the week is over.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 50 is True Liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two