relationships and community from matthew 2

Pharaoh viewed the Hebrews as a growing threat to the Egyptian way of life, so he ordered all Hebrew baby boys killed. King Herod feared that a future king would arise from Bethlehem, so he ordered al...

Presentations of the Matthean narrative that have had such an illustrious life in art and imagination are not complete without the disturbing involvement of Herod and the political killings that resul...

It is remarkable that a word like ‘Bethlehem’, forever connected to the birth of our savior, could be transformed into a symbol of confusion and chaos. Yet, this is precisely what happened. St. Mary o...

Hallelujah! Help Us Shine! Welcome Glorious One Lord of Life and Light Dawn in us your power and peacemaking Hallelujah! Help us shine! You bathe us in the light of your grace, that we may be grace...

The atheists have produced a Christmas play. It’s called Coincidence on Thirty-Fourth Street.

Yet as I read the birth stories about Jesus I cannot help but conclude that though the world may be tilted toward the rich and powerful, God is tilted toward the underdog.

We consider Christmas as the encounter, the great encounter, the historical encounter, the decisive encounter, between God and mankind. He who has faith knows this truly; let him rejoice.

In this short excerpt, scholar N.T. Wright describes the expectations regarding the Jewish messiah king: The coming King would do two main things, according to a variety of texts and as we study a v...

The British novelist George MacDonald loved writing stories about princes and princesses. At one point in his life, someone asked him why he focused so much of his writing on them. His answer was prof...

In a culture, the most important things usually go without being said. We Westerners don’t talk all the time about being individualists or about the importance of efficiency or why we prefer youth ove...

In 1987 director Bernardo Bertolucci released the film The Last Emperor to raving reviews. It was based on the autobiography of the last living emperor of the Manchu dynasty in China, Henry Aisin-Gior...

What do you want for Christmas this year? If you were to ask a typical little boy, he’d probably give you two words: video games. There’s a little boy I know named Brian. For weeks he bugged his paren...

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are going camping. They pitch their tent under the stars and go to sleep. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes Watson up: “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me wh...

Christmas is fast approaching. And now that Christ has aroused our seasonal expectations, he’ll soon fulfill them all!

Rose early to seek God and found Him whom my soul loveth. Who would not rise early to meet such company?