This is a series on what the Bible really says about prosperity. If you haven’t read previous writings, YOU SHOULD START THERE. They are all numbered on dokeo.joshuacraft.com in the Vow of Prosperity section. Click here to go directly to the first post.
In spite of all this Biblical clarity on material prosperity, there may be a question that is still present at the back of your mind. “Wasn’t Jesus poor?” After all, that’s what many of us have heard our entire lives. The vast majority of religious imagery, teaching and theology presents him this way. For many of us, our perspective on Jesus is that he was basically a homeless nomad who was ostracized, misunderstood and rejected.
The fact of the matter is, no one really knows. The only way for us to accurately know how Jesus was perceived and whether or not he was homeless or not would be to be there ourselves. There’s no way for you or I to verify with absolute accuracy Jesus’ prosperity. However, there is evidence. And when we take a look at the evidence, there is a lot more evidence that points to Jesus being materially wealthy than being poor.
Let’s also not forget the lesson of Mark 7. There is the evidence, and there is what you and I believe about the evidence. What do you believe about Jesus? And how does that belief affect how you approach your life? Wars have been fought over the answer to this question, families have been divided over the answer to this question. Much of our approach to Jesus is about what we believe, more than what we see or experience. But Scripture doesn’t just give us a blank slate to project our belief onto. Like painting a picture, there are rough outlines that God leaves for us to fill in the gaps with our belief. So what are the outlines on Jesus’ own life and prosperity? Let’s start at the beginning, with the wise men.
the Magi
1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem,
2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;
11 And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:1-4, 11)
First, when you read this, did you think of three wise men? Why? Does the Bible say that? The reason why we think of three wise men is because of a Christmas song written in 1857.
“We Three Kings of Orient are,
Bearing gifts we traverse afar,
Field and fountain,
Moor and mountain,
Following yonder Star.”
However, the idea of there being three wise men doesn’t come from any kind of historical account, or from this song. It comes from church tradition. In the eighth century, almost a thousand years after the birth of Jesus, Christian thinkers began to postulate that there were three wise men. Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar. Why did they do this? We don’t actually know. We just know that they did. Their names first appear in a chronicle called the Excerpta Latina Barbari. This chronicle is a Latin translation of a lost Greek manuscript. This makes the history of these three wise men difficult for historians to trace. What is clear is that the idea of three wise men is a “man-made idea.” There’s nothing wrong with ideas, but there is something wrong with us taking them as fact.
What do we actually know? We know that there were wise “men” plural. And we know they came from “the east” and followed a star. We also know that Herod the Great was the king of the whole country, and these men were significant enough in Herod’s mind to make two things happen. First, they were able to get an audience with the king. Second, the presence of these wise men troubled the entire city of Jerusalem. Then, in verse 11, Matthew tells us that they opened their treasures (plural) and gave Jesus gifts.
First, these wise men came from the east and they followed a star. If we look at what is east of Jerusalem on a map we see a city that you may be familiar with. Babylon. Once the center of the Persian Empire, it became a key part of the Greek/Macedonian Empire under Alexander the Great. By the time of Jesus, the Roman Empire had come to govern Judea and Jerusalem, and their rival empire, Parthia, controlled Babylon. Not much is known about the Parthian Empire, except for the fact that they were based in what is now modern day Iran, and their power and wealth was rivaled only by Rome. The Parthians were constantly at war with the Romans and frequently beat them in battle. The city of Babylon during the time of Jesus was still a powerful and influential city. It would have been the greatest city to the east of Jerusalem. The Parthians were believed to practice Zoroastrianism, the state religion of the previous Persian Empire (Source). In Matthew 2, the word the Bible uses for “wise men” is the greek word μάγος (magos) is where we get the English word “magi” from. μάγος was the term for priests and wise men in Persia and the Zoroastrian religion. Magi specialized in the study of astrology and were known as enchanters, magicians and priests. In a country where religion was intertwined with the government, these men were the chief advisors and educators of Emperors. They were king-makers who both educated, and selected the rulers. They paid no taxes, and were endowed by the kings, nobles and Emperors with the riches and most valuable land in the empire. For these nobles, these gifts would guarantee good standing in their religion, as well as within the empire. The magi functioned as the “hand of the King.” And if you had favor with the Magi, you would also have favor with the most powerful people in the Empire.
Second, there were “wise men” plural. Think about the wealth and influence of these men, and then compare that to what you imagine the journey of the three wise men looked like? Babylon was 1200 miles from Jerusalem. In this part of the ancient world, if you were going to take a 1200 mile trip, and you were that wealthy, you didn’t just get on a camel and go. You would travel with an entourage. Most likely, it would have taken them two months to take this 1200 mile journey, and their wealth - along with history - shows us that they would have travelled with a large caravan of people. Even if there were only three magi that made the trip, we can almost be certain that many people came with them to support them on their journey.
Third, Historians have difficulty calculating the population of Jerusalem around this time, but its population could have been as low as 35,000 people, or as high as 70,000 (Rome and Jerusalem, Martin Goodman). Josephus Flavius, a Jewish historian in the first century, claimed that Jerusalem had a population as high as a million people. Imagine the city where you live, what people would have to show up in your city to trouble the entire city? How famous, influential or powerful would they have to be? That’s how powerful these men were in the ancient world. Not only would they be influential enough to get an audience with the most powerful person in the country, they would also have enough influence to trouble a city of potentially a million people. If there were only three of them, they must have been the baddest dudes on the planet. Peter J. Daniels, an Australian Christian billionare commissioned a team of historians to research the Magi. It is believed by these historians that there were over 300 magi that travelled with an army to protect the treasure given to Jesus. (Source). It is thought that the trouble of Jerusalem came because they thought they were being invaded by an enemy army.
Fourth, they brought treasures. The greek word that Matthew uses for treasures is θησαυρός (thesauros). This word means “royal treasury, the place where the most valuable things are stored.” Think about the crown jewels of the United Kingdom. It is estimated that they are worth anywhere between $4 and $6 billion. That might be the closest comparison to what they would have had. How does that compare to your mental image of the three wise men? These men came and they gave gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus. How can we accurately calculate the value of what they gave? Gold would be the easiest. Today (2025) Gold is valued around $3000 an ounce. A pound of gold (16 ounces) would be worth somewhere in the range of $48,000. Let’s take a look at that relative to the median American household income. As previously stated, the median household income in the United States is $80,610. A pound of gold would be almost 60% of the median American household income. In the Ancient Roman world, workers were paid most frequently in coins called denarii. During the first century, Roman soldiers were paid 225 denarii per year, and the average worker would have been paid less than that. A pound of gold would have cost 1,125-1575 denarii, 5-7 years of a Roman soldier’s income (Source). If we do the math based on the American’s income, it comes out to between $4.8-$6.7 million for a pound of gold. What about frankincense and myrrh? They would have been even more rare than gold. Both were highly sought after spices that could only be acquired through trade. It is hard to estimate what their modern day value could be. But a pound of frankincense or myrrh would be much more than a pound of gold. Do you think that 300 men travelling with an army to protect their gifts would only bring a pound? Even if they brought just a pound of each gift, they would have made Jesus a multi-millionaire overnight. But I assume that if these men were that right, and they went to that much trouble to travel 1200 miles with an entourage, they probably brought a lot more than a pound of treasure. In my mind, this is like the royal family showing up to give Jesus the crown jewels.
Later on in Matthew 2, we learn that Herod is still so concerned about the wise men and what they did in Jerusalem that he decides to kill all the male children in the region who were two years old or younger. This causes Joseph to take Jesus and Mary and flee to Egypt until the death of Herod the Great. We don’t know how long they lived there. Most historians say it was somewhere around 3-4 years (Source). Historians also believe that Joseph didn’t work that entire time. It is most likely that Joseph, It is most likely that Joseph, Mary and Jesus lived off of what the Magi gave them for whatever period of time they lived in Egypt. If there were just three wise men on camels that gave Jesus a thimbleful of frankincense, an ounce of gold, and a shot-glass full of myrrh, that would not have been possible.