Do Christians believe in magic? That all depends . . . upon whom you talk with and what your definition is of the word. With Christmas but a few days away I'm thinking about the Wise Men who came for a visit a couple years after Jesus was born, but who inevitably appear in Nativity scenes as if they dropped in that great night, along with the shepherds.
Those men—three, ten, two or however many—were called Magi. Those men came from the East—the lands between the rivers. There they were considered magicians, men acquainted with mysteries and forces beyond the normal course of events. To ask if you believe in magic is then also to ask if you believe in the Magi who followed that mysterious star that went before them.
Why did they come? Why did they bring their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh? What mysteries did they know about? What was their magic? I'd like to work with those questions for a couple days as we who do believe in the Savior prepare to join millions around the earth to kneel with the Magi before Him.
The question of magic and the Bible is also a very scholarly topic. Books are written about it, conferences are held and learned men pontificate about it. They use complex phrases like "magico-religious phenomena" and "the modern system of classifying magic fails to accurately represent the mentality of the ancient civilizations under observation." I think that means that magic and religion were quite mixed together in those old days. And I think these modern wise guys tell us that we have misunderstood how the ancients thought about magic.
But back to our ancient Wise Men.
They came from somewhere in the Persian empire (modern Iran). That empire started in the seventh century B.C. under Cyrus the Great, way back in the days when the Israelites were sent home after being slaves of the Babylonians for seventy years. It continued until Alexander the Great overthrew them in 330 B.C. One of his generals began the rule of the Seleucid Empire. They were followed by the Parthian dynasty, ruling at the time of Christ's birth and never conquered by the Romans.
The Magicians who visited the Christ Child were likely priests, not kings, of the caste of the Medes. Herodotus tells us that the Magian priests formed one of the two councils of the Parthian empire. God-fearing Jews—Parthians, Medes, Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia were present at the first Pentecost (Acts 2:5-12). Those Jews were descendants of the Jews who had not returned to the Holy Land after the Persians set them free.
The Biblical Daniel was one of the Magicians during the days of the Babylonian captivity (Daniel 1:20 and Daniel 2:2). These wise men interpreted dreams and visions, read the stars and gave counsel to the king. Daniel wrote about the coming of the Lord Jesus (Daniel 7:13-14). So we must assume that his writings and teachings were preserved among the other wise men and that the Magicians who came to worship Jesus knew about and believed in the promise of the Savior.
To ask whether you believe in magic, therefore, is to ask whether God rules over all that He has created and grants revelations and wisdom to those whom He chooses. From this viewpoint the Bible is a great and wondrous book of Magic. More on this next time.
