A Christmas Poem: "Because One Child Is Born"

More light than we can learn, More wealth than we can treasure, More love than we can earn, More peace than we can measure, Because one Child is born. ...

Experiencing the Beauty of Peace in Bethlehem

For reasons I cannot quite remember (perhaps the guidebooks or the guide himself told us it wasn't much to get worked up about), I wasn't excited ...

The Cock Crows the Whole Night Through on Christmas

While writing about the Nativity in his book The Faces of Jesus, author and pastor Frederick Buechner reflects on an early scene in Shakespeare's ...

Giving Extravagantly in Light of God's Extravagant Gift

Mike Erre writes in Men of Integrity:

My wife and I refinanced our house and cashed out what was (for us) a large sum of money. I spent several weeks ...

More Mind-boggling Than the Virgin Birth

The virgin birth is far less mind-boggling than the power of all Creation stooping so low as to become one of us.

—U.S. author Madeline L'Engle ...

Philip Yancey on Observing a Mellow, Domesticated Christmas

When the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci went to China in the sixteenth century, he brought along samples of religious art to illustrate the Christian ...

Augustine on the Purpose of the Incarnation

God became a man for this purpose: since you, a human being, could not reach God, but you can reach other humans, you might now reach God through a man. ...

Christmas Is About Humanity Missing God

Christmas is not about the living God coming to tell us everything's all right. John's gospel isn't about Jesus speaking the truth and everyone ...

Actors Turn Down Famous Roles

Throughout the last century, several actors have turned down roles in movies that eventually became Hollywood legends. For example, Burt Lancaster turned ...

The Reason for Jesus' Poverty

The Lord of all comes as a slave amidst poverty. The hunter has no wish to startle his prey. Choosing for his birthplace an unknown village in a remote ...