Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

How did reading those words from the first chapter of John affect us? A French Reformation scholar called Francis Junius, who lived from 1545 to 1602, was as a teenager tempted to become an atheist. His concerned father left a copy of the New Testament where he thought his son could find it. The son saw it, picked it up, and started to read from John 1. He later wrote about that experience: ‘ I read part of the chapter, and was so greeted that I instantly became struck with the divinity of the argument, and the majesty and authority of the composition, as infinitely surpassing the highest flights of human eloquence. My body shuddered; my mind was in amazement, and I was so agitated the whole day that I scarcely knew who I was; nor did the agitation cease, but continued till it was at last soothed by a humble faith in him who was made flesh and dwelt among us.’ Maybe we did not have the crisis that he had, but we can have the same comfort. The apostle John records different names or ...

It is common on Christmas cards to see the wise men and the shepherds visiting the newly born infant lying in a manger. Yet it is very unlikely that the wise men visited Jesus and his parents on that date, or even within a few weeks of his birth. Can we say when Jesus was born? We know that Herod died in 4BC, so Jesus must have been born in about 6BC if we add the two years deduced by Herod since the wise men initially saw the star. What else can we say about this visit? To try and work out an order of events connected to the birth of Jesus we must compare Matthew’s account with that of Luke. If we do so, we will see that Luke says that Joseph and Mary went to live in Nazareth after they had performed various requirements of the Jewish law. What Luke does not include in his account is why the family went back to Nazareth. Matthew tells us why they went to live in Nazareth. We can work out from the two accounts that the visit of the wise men and the flight to Egypt took place after ...