“That’s What Christmas Is All About”

HT: Biblical Counseling Coalition Blogs.

The end has come

The babe in the manger whose arrival more than 2000 years ago we celebrate today was as helpless as any other child ever born. He who created the vast expanses of the heavens and the stars that fill them and the atoms that comprise them was dependent on the care of his teenage mother and […]

Paradoxes of Christmas

We haven’t done it this year yet (we might be a little late!), but one of the things the girls particularly always like to do at Christmas time is go and look at the lights — we’d ooo and ahh at all the extravagant decorations. And when the girls were little, Raye Jeanne and I […]

It’s Christmas. Be fearful.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, […]

You shall call His name…

When Raye Jeanne and I chose names for our children, they were our attempts to give them an identity. We desired for them to carry names that would reflect our desires for them. And we hoped that the legacy we left them with their surname would give them a heritage to live for when we […]

Good news the day before Christmas

No, the good news is not of a last minute sale with free delivery by Christmas morning. The good news is that there is rebellion against God and there will be increasing rebellion against God, but that rebellion does not mean that God is overwhelmed. To the contrary, the good news is that God is […]

Inexpensive ebook commentaries

Moody Publishers is making many of their commentaries in the Everyman’s Bible Commentary series available for a very price. Most of the available books are $0.99. While these commentaries are brief, they excel in being readable and in providing the reader with a good overview of the flow of each book and the individual passages […]

Why the virgin birth is important

This morning we considered the birthday story of Jesus and the virgin birth (Matthew 1:18-25). Some might think that spending time thinking about the virgin birth is immaterial — that it really doesn’t matter whether or not Jesus was born of a virgin. Yet there are many reasons why the virgin birth is essential. To […]

“You shall call His name Jesus”

From John Broadus on Matthew 1:21: It is familiar fact that Hebrew names were commonly significant, a natural and pleasing custom. This being no longer a usage with us, we often give names of great and good men who have lived in other days. Sometimes heroes of fiction. This too is beautiful. Names often make […]

2013 Bible Reading Plans

For several years, our church has read through the Bible annually. Last year, we created another plan in which individuals could read chronologically through the New Testament and consecutively through the Psalms. This year, we have not only updated last year’s plan to correspond to the dates of the new calendar, but we are also […]

They deserve it

It is perhaps the most oft-spoken objection against circumstances and God: “That’s…not…fair!” Virtually every hardship will elicit that comment — everything from overcharges in a store or a flat tire to a five-year-old’s cancer or a tsunami that destroys tens of thousands. And certainly it is the primary complaint against God’s judgment of the unrighteous. […]

Two truths about God’s wrath

It seems somewhat inappropriate to think and write and talk about the wrath of God at Christmas time. Shouldn’t we be thinking about gifts, friends and family, food and fellowship, joy and happiness? How can we think about wrath — God’s judgment and condemnation at Christmas? Yet the wrath of God is linked to the […]

They want to get away

It is the nature of the ungodly to seek to escape God. In introducing his important book, The Long War Against God, Henry Morris writes, The denial of God — rejecting the reality of supernatural creation and the Creator’s sovereign rule of the world — has always been the root cause of every human problem. […]

The Lamb and His book

Just about everything we know about the Book of Life is from Revelation (cf. Rev 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12, 15; 21:27; the only other reference is in Phil. 4:3). And here’s what we know. It is a book about life (how’s that for insightful?). It’s not that the book itself imparts life, but it is […]

What do you know about Satan?

If we are not careful, it is easy to be duped into adopting the world’s caricature of Satan — he is a mischievous cartoonish red character with a pitchfork, horns, and a spiked tail who desires us to do wrong, but probably shouldn’t be considered as wholly evil. He is someone to be laughed at […]