As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“This visualization traces the Christmas story as told in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2, showing you who is with whom throughout the story. Verse references are provided so you can look up each event in the Bible for details.” - Bible Gateway
“Dr. De Caro says that astronomers now believe the 4 B.C. eclipse of the moon would not have been visible in Jerusalem after all, but other possible eclipses would suggest that Herod died in either 2 or 3 B.C., meaning that Jesus could have been born in the year One B.C.” - Veith
Read Part 1.
As the darkness gives way to the daylight, we notice long shadows—perhaps moving directly upon us.
Shadows have the capacity to unnerve—even frighten us. Sometimes the shadows may be mistaken for something real. At other times, something real may be hiding in the shadows.
Shadows make us uncomfortable. They represent incompleteness and uncertainty—”variation or shadow of turning” (Js. 1:17).
“Yeshua means Yahweh saves. That this unique child’s name would be Yahweh saves was understandable for Joseph. Of course, God’s people needed saving — from the Gentiles. From the Romans who ruled over them; from local puppets of Caesar, like Herod and Pilate… . Then the bombshell: ‘he will save his people from their sins.’” - Mathis via Veith
“Comparing Watts’ hymn with the Psalm on which it is based raises several important clues as to which advent Watts had in view. The Psalm itself does not necessarily give indication as to which advent it presents.
“The church’s Lafayette Living Nativity, which Faith has hosted since 1991, may be one of the few Christmas traditions that go off in usual fashion in a pandemic year.” - BPNews
Darkness, to our sight, corresponds to silence, in our hearing. It is the absence of any stimulus to inform, direct or encourage us.
But darkness also entails a moral component. Darkness, by its very nature, spreads a covering over sin (see John 3:19-21; 8:12; 12:35, 46; Eph. 5:11-14).
“Jackson County, Ind., can enjoy its holiday cheer, at least for now. A federal appeals court on Thursday hit pause on a lower court order that found a Nativity scene in front of the county courthouse unconstitutionally promoted Christianity.” - WORLD
“It wasn’t just the commercialization of Christmas that Lewis disdained. It was the trivialization of the historical event of Christ’s birth. Lewis thought the commercial racket should be detached from the remembrance of what the angels celebrated nearly 2,000 years ago.” - Christianity Today
The second Person of the triune God added a human nature to His divine nature a little more than 2,000 years ago. This stupendous and miraculous event was revealed to God’s people from the beginning of the world. God announced to Satan not long after the creation of Adam and Eve (which occurred “at the beginning,” Matt.
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