(We are taking a break from our Dependence on God series to spend a couple of weeks looking at Christ and Christmas. We will pick up with the final discussion of Jesus’ teaching on prayer in Luke 11 with the first article in January.)
We got to know Clay and Patty through our involvement in youth sports. Their son played on a football team I coached.
As we got to know them, we learned Clay had grown up in church, but Patty had not, but was curious about spiritual issues. After a several good, sincere discussions, Patty prayed to trust Christ. In the course of those discussions, some of which took place in late November, early December, the topic of Christmas came up. Patty was surprised to learn that there was a connection between Christ and Christmas.
I was surprised to learn that there was anyone in Texas who didn’t know that.
This must have been about 13 years ago. Given the path of our culture, there are, no doubt, many more “Pattys” around today than there were then.
How do/would you explain the connection between Christ and Christmas to someone like this? What difference does it make?
What Scriptures would you point them to?
Read the following passages: Acts 4:25-26; 13:33; Hebrews 1:5; 5:5; Revelation 2:26-27; 6:16-17; 12:5; 19:15
What do these passages all have in common? What themes run through them? (You will want to answer these questions before reading any further.)
Did you figure out what these passages all have in common?
They are all New Testament quotations from the second Psalm. We’ll talk about why that is important in the next article.
So true Garth. I believe that our culture is doing everything it can to so obscure and even change the meaning of Christmas that people just don’t know the truth. But then, as I teaching in our Advent Conspiracy series, the story of Christmas is the our story to tell, not the secular culture.
So thanks for asking the question.