God’s Unfolding Story Many of us are grateful for Christmas as a time where we get together with our immediate and extended family, give and receive Christmas presents, and catch our breath at the end of a busy year before another year gets underway. But as we write in the conclusion to The First Days… Read More
The 5 Days of Christmas: Day 4
John’s Story: The Incarnate Word John’s Gospel immediately stands out as different from the others. It doesn’t start out with a birth narrative per se, but it does start out with important beginnings: “In the beginning was the Word.” This opening statement to John’s magisterial Gospel alludes to the original creation account in Genesis. If you… Read More
The 5 Days of Christmas: Day 3
Luke’s Story: Two Miraculous Conceptions Luke 1:1–4 tells us that his Gospel is undergirded by a robust historical method. The evangelist affirms that the narratives about Jesus on which he draws are based on eyewitness testimony. He also states that he personally investigated the events concerning Jesus’ life so that he could write an “orderly account”… Read More
The 5 Days of Christmas: Day 2
Matthew’s Story: The Long-Awaited Messiah Think about the genealogy recorded in Matthew 1:1–17. If we, in our 21st-century Western context, were tasked to write the beginning of the New Testament, we probably would not have started with such a list of names. While this approach may seem foreign, the timeline recorded in this genealogy has much… Read More
The 5 Days of Christmas: Day 1
The Story of the Incarnation Many think of Christmas as “the most wonderful time of the year.” But why? When you take a closer look at the reasons why people celebrate Christmas, it turns out that Christmas is often more about commercialism than Christ. If we are honest with ourselves, we will probably realize that… Read More