“It’s easy to stand up and rail against other people’s sins in a way that can cause your congregation…to think ‘Man he is really hard against sin,’ when in reality, we’re just hard against other people’s sins” - Word by Word

“Memorize at least two scriptures per month. I wish I didn’t view this goal as a unique one, but I recognize the struggle with this discipline.” - BPNews

“Innovation, evangelism, and other developments worth celebrating over the past year.” - CToday

“The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, group that protects free speech on campus, recently tweeted out that ‘Christmas came early’ for MIT when their faculty approved a statement in favor of robust expression and academic freedom.” - RNS

If I had it to do over again….

How many times have we thought that way? If you’re like me, probably more than you would like to count.

If we had it to do over again—with an assurance that we’d do at least as well as we did—what efficient and artful users of time we could become!

Unfortunately, we all know it doesn’t work that way. We are forced to use time … in real time. Moses’ prayer, therefore, carries for us the utmost urgency:

So teach us to number our days,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Ps. 90:12)

“The regional body is alleging the spread of ‘defamatory’ misinformation about the UMC and its disaffiliation procedure.” - RNS

“From papyrus in Montana to ivory in Jerusalem, these are the discoveries that made scholars of the biblical world say ‘wow’ this year.” - CToday

“Executive Director David N. O’Steen will step down from the position that he has held since 1984 on Saturday. He will continue working with NRLC in an advisory capacity.” - CPost

“The moral philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) involves a merger of at least two apparently disparate traditions: Aristotelian eudaimonism and Christian theology.” - Providence

“Bart Barber provided his Twitter followers with some personal reflections on 2022 in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.” - CLeaders

“the committee’s final report, released late on Thursday (Dec. 22), an 845-page document, mentioned Christian nationalism by name exactly once, and only in passing.” - RNS

A pair of articles at TGC:

“Musk announced he expects Neuralink to successfully develop a wireless brain chip and begin human clinical trials on such a device by mid-2023” - CPost

(First posted in 2011)

Aesop told the tale of the Peasant and the Apple Tree.

“they raise a pair of problems for the relatively poor caused by the fact that government redistribution currently brings the average income of the lowest fifth of the population to a point only minimally below that of the next fifth.” - Law & Liberty

“If I had never heard other people talk about ‘accepting Jesus,’ I doubt I would have come up with the phrase on my own. Brides don’t talk about their husbands that way, and I am part of the Bride of Christ!” - Open the Bible

“This plan, like other two-track schedules, provides two daily portions taken from different parts of the Bible. That has the effect of spicing things up.” - TGC

“Congress included pro-life and conscience protections in a massive omnibus spending bill that gained final approval Friday (Dec. 23).” - BPNews

Read the series.

Looking Deeper into the Problems with Covenant Theology

11. CT interprets the Bible from an anthropocentric rather than a Theocentric point of view.

“congregations will emphasize evangelism more than at any point in the past three decades. Church leaders understand they can’t lead a church to growth with cultural Christians (a true oxymoron) and transfer growth” - T.Rainer

“Once a year, rootless moderns find an anchor in the past” - World

“Churches observing St. Stephen’s Day retain the charitable roots of December 26.” - CToday

A little more than 2,000 years ago, “When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal. 4:4, NKJV). It was exactly the right time, as predicted by Daniel (cf. 9:25) and confirmed by Jesus (cf. Luke 19:41-44).

It was also the right place—Bethlehem, six miles south of Jerusalem. Seven hundred years earlier, Micah wrote:

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,
Yet out of you shall come forth to Me
The One to be Ruler in Israel,
Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting. (Mic. 5:2)

I figure most people here on SI are planning on attending a church service Christmas morning, so I was curious how people are planning the timing of opening gifts. My children are all grown and live within an hour, so we are having our get-together on Sunday afternoon. One daughter and her 1-year-old son live with me, but the grandchild is too young to anticipate the opening of gifts, so we have no problem making him wait.

“Fifteen percent of Americans felt that the most annoying or overplayed Christmas song was either ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ (12%) … or any other song by Carey (3%). ‘Jingle Bells’ (6%), ‘Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer’ (5%)” - RNS

The idea of Christ’s birth being on December 25 doesn’t fit Saturnalia (Dec 17-23) and predates Sol Invictus (AD 274). - P&D

“This week, Barnes & Noble announced plans to open 30 new stores next year…. the move looks to be part of a larger turnaround for booksellers.” - Relevant

“The United States is the lone country out of 19 surveyed where a plurality of adults say their country’s influence has been getting weaker recently.” - Pew