# Be Ready - Thursday, 2025.12.18 The US census is taken every 10-years as mandated by US Code, Title 13 and required by the US Constitution, Article I, Section 2. As of yesterday, the US population was 342,983,452. Counting that many people over a short period of time is quite a herculean effort. The planned due date for publishing the results of the 2020 census was December 2020. However, as recently as November 2025, there were still some lingering court challenges. According to Grok, modern "scholars" question Luke's account of the census. Also according to Grok, there are very few population records from that period. That notwithstanding, the best population guesses for that region are 500,000 to 1-million Judeans and over 4-million Romans. Counting that many people in that day and age probably would have been an even bigger challenge than that experienced by the US Census Bureau in 2020. So, I can imagine why the Romans wanted everyone to their travel respective hometown. Doing so, made counting much easier. Generally today as well as in Israelite history, a census was done to apportion something. Today in the US it is done to determine how many representative each state has in Congress. In Numbers 26, a census was commanded by God prior to entering the promised land to determine how much land each tribe received. On the other hand, in 2 Samuel 24 & 1 Chronicles 21, David demanded that the army be numbered. This census was evil in the sight of God resulting a plague that killed 70,000. ## tl;dr A census in and of itself is not evil or good. However, no matter what we do, if it is not done by faith, it is sin! {Romans 14.23} ## Action - What are some things you have done that you are sure were from God? - What are some things you are sure were NOT from God?