For small groups · 10 questions
Matthew 2 Bible study questions
Magi from the east follow a star to Jesus, Herod tries to kill the child, and the family runs to Egypt, then settles in Nazareth.
Read the chapter aloud first. Then take the questions in order: what it says, what it means, what to do. About 45 minutes. Skip any question that doesn’t fit your group.
Start here
- What is the farthest you have traveled to see someone?
Look: what does it say?
- What do the magi ask when they reach Jerusalem, and how do Herod and the city react?Matthew 2:1-3
- How do the chief priests and scribes know where the Messiah will be born?Matthew 2:4-6
- What do the magi do when they find the child, and what gifts do they bring?Matthew 2:10-11
Understand: what does it mean?
- The scribes knew the answer but stayed home. The magi had less to go on and came. What do you make of that?Matthew 2:4-9
- Herod says he wants to worship too. What is he after?Matthew 2:7-8,16
- God speaks to Joseph in dreams 3 times in this chapter. What does Joseph do each time?Matthew 2:13-14,19-23
Live it: what will we do?
- Where are you more like the scribes, knowing the right answer without moving?
- The magi went home by another road. What would going home another way look like for you this week?Matthew 2:12
- Who do you know who is far from home or not safe, like the family in Egypt? How could the group help?Matthew 2:13-15
Close in prayer
Thank God that Jesus came for people from far away, and ask for the nerve to come close to him.
Matthew 2
Lumin Translation. It prints after the questions, so the group has the words in front of them.
1 Once Jesus had been born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the time of King Herod, magi from the east made their way to Jerusalem
2 and asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? For we saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.”
3 King Herod was disturbed when he heard this, and so was all Jerusalem along with him.
4 He brought together all the chief priests and scribes of the people and questioned them about the place where the Messiah would be born.
5 “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they said to him, “for this is what has been written through the prophet:
6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are not at all the least among the governors of Judah, for from you will come a leader who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod privately summoned the magi and questioned them to pin down when the star had appeared.
8 Sending them to Bethlehem, he said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. Once you have found him, bring me word, so that I also can come and worship him.”
9 When they had heard the king out, they set off, and there was the star they had seen as it rose, leading them on until it came and halted over the place where the child was.
10 At the sight of the star, they rejoiced with very great joy.
11 They went into the house and saw the child with Mary his mother, and falling down, they worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and brought him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
12 Warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own land by a different road.
13 Once they had left, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I give you word, because Herod is about to hunt for the child to destroy him.”
14 So Joseph got up, and during the night he took the child and his mother and went away to Egypt.
15 He remained there until Herod died, so that the word spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
16 Then Herod, seeing that the magi had made a fool of him, flew into a rage. He sent orders and had every boy in Bethlehem and all its surrounding districts killed, from two years old down, in line with the time he had pinned down from the magi.
17 At that time the word spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:
18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning. Rachel was weeping for her children, and she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”
19 After Herod’s death, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream while he was in Egypt
20 and said, “Get up! Take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, because those who sought to take the child’s life have died.”
21 Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and entered the land of Israel.
22 But he heard that Archelaus was ruling as king of Judea in place of his father Herod, and he was afraid to go there. Warned in a dream, he withdrew into the districts of Galilee.
23 He came to a town called Nazareth and made his home there, so that what was spoken through the prophets would be fulfilled—that he would be called a Nazarene.
Lumin’s own translation, drafted with AI from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, checked verse by verse against them, and approved by Lumin. Brackets mark verses not found in the earliest manuscripts.