The online Bible teaching ministry of John Brand
Christmas
The incomparable David Phelps sings this truly beautiful song about the nativity
By far, my favourite rendition of this beautiful song
It has become almost ‘the norm’ to suggest that the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem occurred some two years after the birth of Christ and, in support of this thesis, the following points are made: i. Herod’s edict to kill “all the male children… who were two years old or under” (Matthew 2:16) However,…
It comes as quite a shock to many people to discover that Jesus was not born on December 25th, at the end of the year 1BC. Our current system of numbering the years can be traced back to a Roman monk by the name of Dionysius Exiguus (Denis the Little). He was commissioned by Pope…
I haven’t yet had a chance to listen to this podcast from Ligonier but, since it’s by Sinclair Ferguson, I know that I can unequivocally recommend it to you. Today’s is the first in a series heading up to Christmas. Sometimes it can seem that the true message of Christmas gets eclipsed by all our…
In answer to the question where did the Magi come from, there is very little to help us in the text of Scripture itself. All Matthew says, important as it is, is “wise men from the east came“. (Matthew 2:1) At the time of Christ’s birth, the term east meant Media, Persia, Assyria and Babylonia;…
Behind the high altar of St Peter’s Cathedral in Cologne is what is reputed to be the largest reliquary, or container of religious relics, in the western world, and inside are the supposed remains of the Magi whose story is told in Matthew 2. The story goes that when the remains of the men were…