EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
3/30/2026 9:15 AM
My
Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The
World Setting”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Luke
2:1-3
Message of the verses: “Now in those days a decree went out
from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while
Quirinius was governor of Syria. And
everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city.”
(NASB)
I will continue from where I left off in this morning’s
SD.
MacArthur continues to write “Of all
the decrees Octavian issued during his long reign, Luke is concerned with one
mandating that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth (I. e., the
Roman Empire; cf. Acts 17:6; 19:27).
Such censuses or enrollments were generally taken either to register
young men for military service or for purposes of taxation. This census was for the latter reason, since
the Jews were exempt from Roman military service.
“Seeking to deny the truthfulness of
Luke’s account, anti-Scripture critics maintain that there is no existing
record of an empire-wide census during Octavian’s reign. But that argument from silence is undercut by
the many censuses known to have been carried out at about that same time in
various parts of the empire (cf. Darrel L. Bock, Luke 1:1-9:50, Baker
Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994],
904). Nor were such censuses merely
one-time occurrences. In Egypt, for
example, censuses were taken every fourteen years, beginning no later than A. D.
20 and running through at least A. D. 258 (William Ramsay, Was Christ Born
at Bethlehem? [London: Hodder and
Stoughton, 1898], 132; The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the
Trustworthiness of the New Testament.[2nd edition; London:
Hodder and Stoughton 1915], 256). Ramsay
argued that the practice of taking recurring censes was not limited to Egypt,
but was empire-wide (The Bearing of Recent Discovery of the Trustworthiness
of the New Testament, 257; cf. William Hendriksen, The Gospel of Luke, New
Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids; Baker, 1978], 138-39). Further, the second-century church father
Clement of Alexandria wrote that the same cycle of periodic censuses existed in
the province of Syria (which included Palestine). Clement also stated that the first census
taken in Syria was the one connected with Christ’s birth (A. T. Roberson, Luke
the Historian in the Light of Research [New York: Scribner, 1920], 122-29).
“Thus, to charge Luke with error for
speaking of two censuses in Palestine (see discussion below), one in A.D. 6
(referred to in Acts 5:37 and by the first-century Jewish historian Josephus)
and this one fourteen years earlier in 8: B.C., ignores the historical
evidence. Luke’s readers knew all about
the census system he was describing, so for him to have invented the story
would have been foolish.
“No
historian of any kind or class would state a falsehood whose falsity was
obvious to every reader….The conclusion was evident. Luke trusted to his readers’ familiarity with
the facts and the census-system. He spoke of the first census, knowing how
much that would imply to them. They knew
the system as it was carried out in the
Roman Empire. (Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the
Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 239).
“Luke further identified this census
as the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. The mention of Quirinius introduces
a further difficulty, since he is known to have governed Syria from A.D.
6-9. As governor, Quirinius administered
the census of A.D. 6. That cannot,
however, be the census in view here, because it took place more than a decade
after Herod’s death, while Herod was still alive when Jesus was born (Matt.
2:1-3). Many possible solutions have
been proposed….Perhaps the best solution is the one championed by Sir. William
Ramsay. Based on inscriptional evidence,
Ramsay argued that Quirinius had twice held an important in the province of
Syria (Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? 229).
At the time of the first census in 8 B.C., “Varus was controlling the
internal affairs of Syria while Quirinius was commanding its armies and
controlling its foreign policy” (Ramsey, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? 244).
“The 8 B.C. sate for the decree also
presents a problem, since scholars generally agree that Jesus was born no
earlier than 6 B.C., and likely closer to 4 B.C.. Evidently there was a delay in carrying out
the decree in Palestine, to which a number of factors may have
contributed. First, ancient
communication was slow, and implementation slowly enforced. The latter years of Herod’s reign were also a
time of turmoil and upheaval. Herod was
ill, and his sons were fighting over who would succeed him. Herod executed three of them and changed his
will three times. He also fell out of
favor with Octavian. That instability,
coupled with Jewish resistance to Roman taxation, and the logistic difficulties
inherent in carrying out a census in those days, could easily have delayed the
implementation of the emperor’s decree.
“Eventually, however, the census was
taken, and thus everyone went to register for the census, each to his
own city. Obviously, a deadline had
been imposed, or else Joseph and Mary would not have made the long trip from
Nazareth to Bethlehem in the winter and so near the end of her pregnancy. Some have questioned why Joseph and Mary went
to Bethlehem, noting that the Romans generally had people register where they
were currently living. Those owning
property in another district, however, were required to go there to register
(Marshall, The Gospel of Luke, 101).
Although Luke does not mention it, Joseph may have owned some property
in the vicinity of Bethlehem. Another possibility
is that the Romans acquiesced to Jewish custom, which stressed the importance
of one’s ancestral home (cf. Lev. 25:10).
Further, an early second-century document from Egypt indicates that the
Egyptians were also required to return to their homes for the census just as
Joseph and Mary did (Roberson, Luke the Historian, 125-26). That shows that the Romans were flexible on
such matters of local custom.
“God providentially arranged the
world setting to get Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem so His Son would be born where
the Old Testament predicted He would be.
As He had with Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:21-26), Tiglath-pileser (Isaiah
10:5-7), and Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1-4), God directed the mind of the most powerful
man on earth, Caesar Augustus, to accomplish His purposes (cf. Proverbs 21:1).”
(cf. Proverbs 21:1
“1 ¶ The king’s heart is a stream of water in the
hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.”
3/30/2026
10:04 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment