How to teach the story of the Wise Men in 3 different ways!

Having three different ways to teach this story is so useful, so that when Christmas comes back round and you still have the same kids in your class you can teach the same story as a different lesson. Or it’s a nice example of how one story may have multiple through lines and any of them could become your main point.

If you want some more general tips on how to find a main point you can check out my plan for Preparing a Passage for Teaching. But for now, let’s read Matthew 2, and read it carefully to see if anything surprises you.

Here are the three things that stood out to me: Matthew goes all in on quoting the Old Testament; there is a whole lot of traveling; King Herod is the big villain and the story finishes when he dies. In some passages all the things that stand out will work together for one main point, but in this one each has a different emphasis.

1. Matthew goes all in on quoting the Old Testament because he wants to show that Jesus is the expected Messiah, that he will fulfill all of God’s promises.

2. There is a whole lot of travelling because God wants the whole world to know that his Son has come for the whole world.

3. King Herod is the big villain, because he’s a terrible king and the story finishes when he dies making room for Jesus as the true king of the Jews.

Any of these is a great lens to teach the story to your class, but trying to place equal emphasis on all three plus explain the narrative is going to get confusing. If you’re teaching teens you can major on one and talk about the others but for kids you really need to focus on one, so pick one!

As a main point this is going to be too hard to grasp for younger children, or if you don’t have many kids with good general Bible knowledge. But, especially if you’ve read some Old Testament prophecy recently, it’s a great choice for kids who think they know it all! Here are some ideas for teaching with this theme:

• What are your plans for Christmas? Do you remember a Christmas where things didn’t go to plan?

• Copy all three prophecies out onto tea-stained paper to reinforce that they are already old when Matthew quotes them.

• You can talk about Micah, Hosea and Jeremiah and how long before Jesus was born each of them lived (800, 750 and 600 years-ish respectively). God planned what was going to happen way in advance!

• Ask them about what things or people in the story would have made God’s plan hard (for a human) to carry out, and what else we see in this story that shows God was going to fulfil his plan (the star and the many dreams).

• You could talk about what other plans God has already carried out or has promised that he will do.

This is the main theme I used this year, it’s particularly good if you’re have also taught the story of the shepherds from Luke 2 the week before as you can make the contrast between near & far and rich & poor, but it will also work well if you’re teaching through Matthew.

• Who is travelling for Christmas? Who is coming to see you? How far will you/they have to go?

• We can’t be certain but it’s quite likely that the Magi came from South China and/or Korea, as they definitely have Astrologers (and possibly even recorded the star) and it fit’s the criterea of being to the east of Israel. You can find some theories here. Show a world map to help them imagine the distance.

• They are astrologers which means that they map the stars and try to create meaning from what they see. So God communicates with them in a way that they understand!

• Get them to think of, or find, things that they would need to pack for such a long journey. Don’t forget they’ll want gold, frankincense and myrrh as well!

• Where would you expect to find a new born king? In the palace in the capital city of course, that’s why the wise men go to see Herod.

• You don’t need to talk about this if you have small or sensitive children and don’t want to talk about Herod’s baby massacre but you could ask: When the wise men return to their home (without seeing Herod) and when Mary and Joseph take Jesus to safety in Egypt what do you think they would tell people about who Jesus is?

This is great, even if some of the theme is not pulled wholly from the Bible but from our misconceptions about this story. I guess you could always leave of the stuff about the three kings if you would like to, as for any of these take what you need and add your own twist.

• How many kings are there in the Christmas story? You might get any or all of these answers: 3 (the three kings/Magi), 1 (Herod), 2 (Herod and Jesus) and 5 (three kings plus Herod and Jesus).

• Sometimes the unknown number of Magi are known as the three kings, how did that happen? They brought three gifts with them for Jesus so we assume that there were three of them, which might be true but desn’t have to be. Secondly the gifts they brought were expensive so they must have been rich, and they could afford to travel the world while someone else looked after their homes so they were probably fairly powerful. They weren’t kings but were rich and powerful like most kings.

• Herod was the king of Judea, but the Romans had invaded the country and were in charge of pretty much everything. Herod had one priest killed and two of his sons because he was scared these people would take the throne from him.

• Jesus isn’t like other kings. What makes Jesus such a good king? Ask them if they can spot clues in the story about whether Jesus was rich or poor and how powerful he was.