Herod is going to search
for the child to kill him.
—Matthew 2:13
Are we living in the worst of times? Many think so—think our world is in worse shape now than it has ever been.
It isn’t.
In Old Testament days, parents sometimes murdered their own children, sacrificing them by fire to their gods. Fathers had the final say on all matters, including whether to keep, discard, or sell their newborn babies. Children who were rejected either died or were sold into slavery or prostitution.
At the time of Moses’ birth, the king of Egypt ordered that all Israelite boy babies be killed at birth.
The world into which Jesus came was rotten to the core. Herod, obsessed with getting rid of baby Jesus, had all baby boys in Bethlehem, two years old and under, killed.
I prefer our times to those, don’t you?
You have privileges that were unavailable
for earlier generations.