Part 1 Christmas is beautiful. Christmas is ugly. Christmas is happy. Christmas is sad. Families rejoin, celebrate, exchange gifts. Families disintegrate into individuals without families, sad and alone. Christmas means babies all dressed in reds and whites. Christmas means babies left on doorsteps, hospital driveways, even in dumpsters. Christmas involves plenty--of food, fun, and fellowship. Christmas involves famine, disease, and nothing to feed the children. Christmas is a time of reunions, restorations, reconciliations. Christmas is a time of families fighting, fussing, … [Read more...]
Christmas Prophecy Fulfilled
This Christmas I am impressed anew that we are seeing biblical prophecy fulfilled before our eyes. Not the kind of prophetic fulfillment about which the sensationalists talk and write best-seller books for the gullible masses -- about Middle Eastern conflict and geopolitics and world banks and bar codes at the supermarkets. No, something far more solid and biblical than any of that! God's word to Isaiah 2,700 years ago has come to pass: "The root of Jesse will come, and the one who rises to rule over the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope." All you have to do is turn on the radio, or … [Read more...]
the virgin birth and more- 2
Life was not easy for Mary after that visit from Gabriel, the angel who told her that she would conceive a child. Her, a virgin--conceive? Humanly impossible. "How can these things be?" she had asked, quite literally. Since that day, it seemed to Mary, everyone else in Galilee had asked the same question of her--but in another tone of voice. After a while, she had learned to accept the clucking and glances and side remarks. But what of Isaiah 7:14.and its mention of a virgin who becomes pregnant and delivers a son? Didn't anyone think of`that? Apparently not--at least not before the fact. Not … [Read more...]
the virgin birth and more – 1
This is the time of year more than any other when the subject of the virgin birth of Christ seems to show up in conversations both public and private. The point of the discussion varies from time to time, but it seems primarily to serve apologetic interests along the following lines. Seven hundred years before Jesus was born, this evidential argument says, God foretold through Isaiah that a virgin would conceive and bear a son (Isaiah 7:14). Seven centuries later, Mary, a virgin from Nazareth in Galilee, receives a surprise visit from an angel. He assures her of God's favor and informs her … [Read more...]
Choose reality and change
No doubt about it. It's hard to change. That makes New Year's resolutions a joking subject for the TV pundits, who simply reflect what we all know. Two psychologists, J.O. Prochaska and C.C. DiClemente, have researched and identified three marks of successful change. First, it involves a process, not a one-time decision. Second, successful change is based on perceived reality and reflects deeply-held beliefs. Third, it involves goals that can be expressed in positive terms. All three characteristics express core biblical teaching. New Testament words for change include "conversion," … [Read more...]
OUR FUTURE SELVES
Oh, to live forever! Do you ever long for that? It's a grandiose wish, all right, and certainly not unqualified or without reservations. We would not want any pain, for example, should we somehow manage to live forever. Most of us have experienced pain here; we clearly have no appetite for any more. An unending life ought to be pain-free. While we are at it, let's stipulate that sickness also is banished in that unending future. Even without pain, sickness ruins an otherwise good day. While we are daydreaming, let's include a total body makeover. No surgical procedures involved, just a … [Read more...]
SOMETIMES THERE ARE NO WORDS
Sometimes there are no words. It is nearly 11:00 p.m. one night last week when I happen to encounter Joe (not his real name) at the care facility's empty snack bar, both of us restlessly trying to work away some pain by wheeling our wheelchairs about the place. (If you can't wheel your wheelchair, what in the world can you wheel?) Joe is in Stage 3 cancer at multiple locations. But that is not what troubles him most. His greatest grief arose nearly a dozen years ago, when a vehicle accident for which he blames himself claimed his young son's life. Joe's wife, a devout Christian who Joe … [Read more...]
EVANGELISM’S SUBJECT
A gracEmail subscriber asks if what people do today in the name of evangelism is the same thing the apostles and evangelists did in the first century. If not, what is different? * * * Two of the most glaring contrasts between the evangelism reported in Acts and much evangelism done today involve the message itself. The word "evangelism" comes from the Latin (evangel) and Greek (euanggelios) root words for "gospel" or good news. News, of course, is the report of a deed or event. The message in some evangelism today is not good news at all, but at best good … [Read more...]
SELFLESS EXAMPLE
After a period of busy silence, I emailed a minister friend to ask what is happening in his life. Among other things, he mentioned that he is now working a second job. He is sorry to lose some study time, but his loss means that the congregation he serves can now have multiple ministers. And that, he opines, helps the whole body function more fully. * * * Your second job reminds me of Epaphroditus, as mentioned in Philippians 2:25-30. Your spirit and attitude make me think of Timothy, one of Paul's favorite gospel trainees, whose virtues the Apostle spells out in this same chapter … [Read more...]
A DIVINE STEWARDSHIP
A recent gracEmail brought more than the usual number of responses, including the following comment from one reader about gracEmails in general. "I am so glad," she said, "you write these and send them." * * * Thank you, my friend! So am I. The first gracEmail (then still nameless) sailed into cyberspace seventeen years ago in 1996. My friend Rubel Shelly suggested that I shorten its length from pages to paragraphs and decrease its frequency from daily to something less daunting. Another friend, Daniel Massey, contributed the format for this e-column including the name and a prototype of … [Read more...]
