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Epiphany- the star that draws us to the child- Matt 2:1-12

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Epiphany- Matt 2:1-12        http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt%202&version=NIV            It is a strange and mysterious passage that is only mentioned by the Gospel of Matthew. Men came to Palestine from somewhere in the East- perhaps Persia, or Arabia, or maybe somewhere else. We don’t know.           The men who come are equally mysterious (were they all men?). They were not kings according to Matthew. They were not Jews. They were probably gentiles. They are called “Magi” in the plural, but “Magus” in the singular. It is a word that that has a few definitions and can refer to a practitioner of occult magic arts, to someone who would divine the future, to an interpreter of dreams (like the O.T. prophet Daniel), or to those who study the night sky. A magus was a mysterious person, with mysterious knowledge of things hidden to ordinary people. It is from the Greek word magus that we get the word “Magician”. Magus can also be correctly translated as ‘sorc