Last Sunday we looked at two different passages:
The first was from Romans 3:27-31 – The Faith that Justifies
The second was a look at the Virgin birth – several people have asked about this being online….Why is it such a stumbling block for some people?
Al Mohler “Must one believe in the Virgin Birth to be a Christian? This is not a hard question to answer. It is conceivable that someone might come to Christ and trust Christ as Savior without yet learning that the Bible teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. A new believer is not yet aware of the full structure of Christian truth. The real question is this: Can a Christian, once aware of the Bible’s teaching, reject the Virgin Birth? The answer must be no.”
The following is the Rod Liddle poem I cited in the morning:
“This reckoning became, for me, the point of Christmas tide,
A view which has not altered in the years since my mum died. A special time of nastiness, vindictiveness and greed. And of pigging out on turkey until your insides bleed.
The punch ups outside Argos in the sales which never end. Those saccharine injunctions from John Lewis that we must spend.
On vacuous appurtenances – a bright green reindeer candle! And the Channel 4 Christmas address by some deranged jihadi.
The drivel on the telly. Fake bonhomie, Fake cheer, Fake love, fake compassion – and those two words you scarcely hear, Absent from our winterval lest someone takes offence- Jesus Christ.
Oh, Him! Yes – rings a bell. In some half-forgotten sense. And yet as I grow older I can now discern a reason, For this strange, misshapen jamboree we call the festive season.
For month by month and without fail, we give it our best shot- Then Christmas time reveals to us everything we’re not.
Everything we could be – should be – but always fall short., In our frailities and our failures. That’s the lesson, yearly taught.
And as the snowman slowly deiquesces on the lawn, The cattle still are lowing, the snail is on the thorn,
WE are not yet forsaken: somehow from up above, He watches…. …amused, appalled, distraught – who knows? Yet still we have his love”
And finally a Christmas song for you from St Petes…
