bible and theology on The Magi

The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.”

​​The Lord called the Magi by a star; He called the fishermen by fish; He called the tax collector at the money table. He lowered Himself to each, that He might raise all to salvation.

Matthew loved the magi. He gave their story more square inches of text than he gave the narrative of the birth of Jesus. He never mentions the shepherds or the manger, but he didn’t want us to miss th...

What are you doing, O Magi? Do you adore a little Babe, in a wretched hovel, wrapped in miserable rags? Can this Child be truly God? … Are you become foolish, O Wise Men … Yes, these Wise Men have bec...

As those three magi brought you gifts, we are reminded of your majesty, oh Christ. You are the savior of the world who embraced human frailty that we might receive salvation. We ask your forgiveness f...

Father God, Out of the darkness You spoke the word: “Let there be light, and there was light”. Into our darkness You spoke Your Son, the Word made flesh to live among us the Light of the World to brin...

As early as AD 248, Origen suggested that the star of Bethlehem was a comet—and there continue to be astronomers who think that he was right. Comets are icy objects that orbit the sun. When seen fro...

God, you come to us and meet us in the strangest ways: sometimes in the stillness at the eye of the storm or in the midnight of our lives; sometimes in the raging whirlwind or in the high noon of our ...

Elite athletes will sometimes say that “game recognizes game” (or occasionally more grammatically suspect variants of that). By this is meant that someone who is particularly skilled at something is u...

While Christmas traditions vary the world over, gift-giving is a central practice just about anywhere Christ's birth is celebrated. Sometimes gifts are exchanged on De­cember 6, the feast day of S...

The wise men were experts in the movement of the stars and signs in the heavens. Their inquiry thrusts the provincial village into a cosmic concern. It is not the scientific data they are searching ou...

Yet for all that, God, for the salvation of them that were in error, endured to be served by these things, whereby those without were used to serve devils; only He slightly altered them; that He might...

These star, comet, planet, supernova, special miraculous light — whatever — are not doing the stuff of their own accord. God is doing this. And the reason he is doing it is to get pagans to their Savi...

Epiphanies in Scripture are met with reactions of disbelief (Gideon), awe (the Magi), amazement (Cana), or—most often—“fear and trembling.” It is precisely for this reason that the biblical angels are...

“Science is magic that works.”

A magistrate regards someone as a criminal and punishes him if he catches him among thieves, even though the man has never committed anything evil or worthy of death. Christ was not only found among s...

Jesus is clear that it is dangerous to close one’s ears, eyes, and heart to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. In The Magician’s Nephew , a novel from C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, Narnia i...

It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil,...

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

Why worship in our native language? Well, for one thing, it can keep people from distorting the Christian faith into a superstition: In one stream of church history, this can help explain worshipi...

We get a feel for the goodness of working as creatures with bodies in Leo Tolstoy’s classic Anna Karenina . In the novel, Constantine Dmitrich Levin is a wealthy landowner in nineteenth-century R...

A young Russian, deeply moved by the teachings of Tolstoy and the New Testament, had become a conscientious objector. Standing before a magistrate, he spoke passionately about a life that loves its en...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Psalm of Lament or Psalm of Trust? We’ve categorized this psalm under the psalms of lament. The psalms of lament highlight the problems and enemies tha...

Almighty God, who sits on the throne of justice: We humbly ask you to bless the courts of justice and the magistrates in this country; and give to them the spirit of wisdom and understanding, that the...

Injustice is not okay. In recent years, people have been waking up, some for the first time to the reality that systems do not work for everyone, that civic engagement is important and that leadershi...

In Understanding Genesis , Nahum Sarna argues that a critical distinction between Genesis and the stories of contemporary pagan societies is that Genesis is not myth . Myth is associated with ritual...

Whether the Hebrew Genesis account was meant to be science or not, it was certainly meant to convey statements of faith. As will be shown it is part of the biblical polemic against paganism and an int...

On a chilly morning in March 1522, in the city of Zurich, the printer Christoph Froschauer sat down with his workers and shared a plate of sausages, in open defiance of the Roman Catholic Church, which...

O human creature, you are the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and all in all, the fool of the farce.

Living 24/6 feels like magic and here’s why: it seems to defy the laws of physics, as it both slows down time and gives us more of it. I laugh a lot more on that day without screens. I notice everythi...