Dec
10
2009
Worth a Look 12.10.09
Ben Witherington shoots down all the sentimentalized fictions about the Christmas story and reminds us:
Once we detox the church giddy on the high of a cosmetized and overly sentimentalized version of the story of Jesus’ birth, and realize that this is a story about danger, and a contrast between a paranoid Herod the not so Great (who was in fact partly Idumean, which is to say Edomite), and a real King of the Jews Jesus, we still have much to appreciate and preach.
There is an interesting conversation going on between Scot McKnight, Dan Wallace, and others about real and perceived bias against evangelicals at mainline universities.
Christianity Today profiles Lesslie Newbigin, the missionary who wouldn’t retire:
Newbigin left for India in 1936 to labor as a missionary, evangelist, and apologist. On his return to England, he was shocked to find that the West was as urgent a mission field as the East. Refusing to settle into retirement, he wrote prolifically, issuing a clarion call to the Western church to rediscover its missionary mandate.
Lucy lost her eyes to the cruelty of pagan Rome, but she lit up their cruelty in lights. Dante calls her the enemy of all cruelty and traditionally Christians remember her in acts of compassion. We treat each man as we would Jesus, because we see the image of God in each man or woman.
Lucy gives me hope.