“The most likely theory is that Christmas trees started with medieval plays. Dramas depicting biblical themes began as part of the church’s worship, but by the late Middle Ages, they had become rowdy, imaginative performances dominated by laypeople and taking place in the open air. The plays celebrating the Nativity...
For the shepherds, it began as a typical work night. They were at attention in the wilderness as usual. These were simple, hardworking men who watched over animals with few defense mechanisms, since sheep lack claws or sharp teeth to use in encounters with their predators. These watchers were ever...
The Little Drummer Boy came and played his drum for the newborn King – “pa rup pa pum pum, rup pa pum pum, rup pa pum pum.” So goes the Christmas song. The boy arrived at the manger without a gift for the King. He felt unworthy until it dawned...
A staff, a sling and a bag – these were the things that David brought to the field of battle. These tools of the shepherd represented his only weapons. Bellowing out threats and curses across the valley was the Philistine giant, Goliath of Gath. For forty days, this beast stomped...
Jesus was no hometown hero. In Nazareth, the people took offense at His words and His works. Their familiarity with Him and His family hardened their hearts to the message He came to deliver. His upbringing, apparently, was rather ordinary – save for the scandal that revolved around Mary’s premarital...
High noon, it was, and such a strange hour to come to the village well. This woman tried to sneak around right there in the bright, hot sun. She plotted to drop her pail, get her water, and be gone before anyone could notice her. Her ways were well known...
“Wisdom has built her house, She has hewn out her seven pillars; She has slaughtered her meat, She has mixed her wine, She has also furnished her table. She has sent out her maidens, She cries out from the highest places of the city, “Whoever is simple, let him turn...
The fear of the Lord is THE beginning. We first come upon this phrase in Proverbs 1. These words fall at the end of Solomon’s introduction to this collection of instructions. Eugene Peterson, the pastor-teacher who produced The Message translation of the Bible, indicates that the “fear of the Lord”...
Mary was a simple teen-ager. Devout and sweet, betrothed to the town carpenter, she was ready to lead an unspectacular life and a gritty existence in Nazareth. She and Joseph would raise a Jewish family. They would celebrate the feasts together with travels to Jerusalem. Hope for the Messiah lingered...
Not she with traitorous kiss her Master stung, Not she denied Him with unfaithful tongue; She, when Apostles fled, could dangers brave, Last at the Cross, and earliest at the grave. Author unknown …Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. …throughout every city and village, preaching and...
