Why Did The Wise Men Search For Jesus?

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"That's why they were called wise men!" says Ellen, 6.

Thank you, Ellen. I doubt if any Bible scholar has ever said it better. The search for Jesus runs throughout the New Testament.
The wise men sought to worship him. King Herod sought to kill him. Crowds who were miraculously fed sought to crown him. Religious leaders sought to trap him. Roman soldiers sought to arrest him.

"They saw a different star. They just knew that since there was a new star, there must be something special," says Elizabeth, 7.

Yes, the star was different, but there's something more unusual than the star's guiding light. The wise men were gentiles. Why would gentiles travel so far to worship a Jewish king? Even if they were right about his royalty, what difference would it make? The Jews were an oppressed people. Rome ruled the world.

God made a promise to patriarch Abraham that he would be a blessing to "all the families of the Earth" (Genesis 12:3). Throughout the Gospel of Matthew, gentiles keep appearing. The Gospel starts with a genealogy that shows Jesus is descended from King David (Matthew 1:1-16). Surprisingly, however, Jesus' ancestry includes gentiles (Rahab and Ruth).

In the midst of Jesus' ministry, a Roman centurion pleaded with Jesus to heal his servant by speaking a word. Jesus said, "I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel" (Matthew 8:10). At the end of the Gospel, Jesus commands his disciples to make disciples of all nations.

The first recorded act of worship in the New Testament comes from eastern, gentile wise men. Matthew shows us that salvation comes through the Jews, but it's not exclusively for the Jews. In the Apostle Paul's epistles, Abraham is the father of all who believe. God considered Abraham righteous because of his faith, which came before he received the covenant sign of circumcision (Romans 4:9-13).

"The wise men were scholars of the Bible who had looked at all the prophecies of the coming Messiah," says Matthew, 11.

This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. When the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, they took gifted Jewish men into the king's court to train them to be advisers. The king's wise men were known as magi.

Daniel was the most famous wise man ever to grace the courts of Babylon. He saved the entire company of magi from total destruction by interpreting King Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Later, he spent the night with lions rather than worship the king of the Medes and Persians.

No one before or after Daniel has ever served as prime minister of two world empires (Babylon and Medo-Persia). Serving as prime minister of just one would have put him into the Magi Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

If you're in the Magi Club, do you think you might be interested in reading a book written by the most famous magi of all time? The book of Daniel predicts that 483 years would pass from the time of the decree to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem until "Messiah the Prince" would come (Daniel 9:25).

According to Bible scholar Gleason L. Archer Jr., the clock began ticking in 457 B.C., when Persian ruler Artaxerxes I issued the decree to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Ezra 9:9). Adding one year for passing from B.C. to A.D. brings us to A.D. 27, an accurate date for when Jesus began his ministry. Perhaps the wise men had done the math for themselves.

God received worship from magi who had light from the star and possibly light from reading the book of Daniel. It was such a tiny ray compared to the bright light we have today concerning the Lord Jesus, yet, they followed it until they found the promised Messiah. Wise men and women still seek him.

Merry Christmas!

Game (FR) Review Feature Office 2010

AirForce C.A.P. Emergency Services Search and Rescue And New Radios

C.A.P. Emergency Services exercises are known as SAREX's. The practice involves assembling a gathering of ground teams that coordinate search and rescue with Cap airplane crews. The U.S.A.F. calls Cap for an actual mission usually when an airplane is reported overdue or missing or when an emergency locator transmitter E.L.T. is monitored on an a/c vhf frequency. This activity is rewarding to Cap members who volunteer to help locate missing persons or provide rescue assistance in disasters. We make extensive use of vhf and HF 2 way radios to do the jobs.

Actually I was thinking there might just happen to be some of those here that might have taken part of that training/exercise, out of curiosity. You see I'm a member of the local Amateur Radio Emergency Service (A.R.E.S.) and Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (R.A.C.E.S.), I'm also considering becoming part of the Citizen Emergency Response Team (C.E.R.T) and with me being a veteran of the US Air Force also having served as a civilian Police Officer at the Dothan Airport (in Alabama) I have an interest in this.

Well at least I got a dialogue started here now I'll just have to wait and see if there are any Alabama CAP members to join in the discussion. Alabama Cap members to join in the discussion. You'll find that there are many members of A.R.E.S. that are also members of Cap. The Vertex 150 for example (even if being phased out in Cap) can cover all the Cap repeaters as well as the ham repeaters.

Although we still generally call them "SAREXs", most incorporate disaster relief/photo reconnaissance tasks into the scenarios now. I don't pretend to follow C.A.P Communications closely at all, but I recently did see an article saying that every CAP repeater in the country was getting replaced.

The change in repeaters doesn't change my post. But the change to narrow band does. After Oct 2007, all Cap radios must be narrow band, which means the market will be flooded with used personal radios (unless the member is also a ham) The change also means that Cap communications will be severely limited because of the cost of radios that comply with the new standards. Many members can't afford the price of the radios.

Would there be any type of grants available to Cap squadrons to help purchase these new compliant radios? If the individuals are required to purchase their own, then yes with the higher cost it will most likely cut down the number of available radios which in turn could severely limit the missions' capabilities.

Right now in the Amateur world there is some digital technology that is becoming available and it's quite expensive. Once it is more available the price may come down and just in case anyone is wondering what I'm talking about, it's D-STAR.

Cap radios and such, what was/is the reason for changing radios in the first place? Seems like having the H.A.M. radios that can be easily modified for Cap and or M.A.R.S. use would, or should have been the way to continue but then again I guess there are many pros and cons to be considered.

If the new compliant radios are going to be that expensive to which some or many members can not purchase them then how can Cap perform its missions to the high degree it normally does? These question may have already been asked and answered elsewhere in this forum but please entertain me for awhile and let's open up a discussion about those new compliant radios and what the best possible solution may be.

But Cap members aren't required to purchase their own stuff. They may do so if they want extras. National developed plans based on what they thought each unit needed and has been distributing radios based on that plan, including handheld and mobile (vehicle) units.

I think we are probably still somewhat lacking in handheld units for ground teams, however keep in mind that National never really used to issue them at all and those were sort of member/unit purchases. So, things are improving. As to the quality of the radios, I'm not an expert on them, just a user.

I know that Cap has been programming in other frequencies into the radios that might be helpful and at least at the state level there is some movement towards getting Cap radios from the state that will work with local forces. Not sure how widespread that is. Given that a lot of states are still struggling with that issue for their primary response agencies, Cap probably isn't at the top of their agendas.

This process has been going on for almost 10 years so it's something we've been dealing with for a while. Since the A.F. has ponies up a lot of money to buy radios, it has eased a lot of worries that were there at the beginning. Probably a lot of members who did have equipment that met the old standards which is no longer usable probably aren't too happy about it, but realize there is nothing Cap could have done to change things.

Review Feature Office 2010