Driving Across the Desert
Reading through the Bible can be like taking a road trip. Each book has different scenes and along the way you meet interesting characters.
Reading through the Bible can be like taking a road trip. Each book has different scenes and along the way you meet interesting characters.
Everyone in Nazareth would have known Jesus’ mother, Mary, was pregnant before she and Joseph were married. While everyone knew about the scandal, no one understood Mary’s conception was miraculous and one day her baby would save the world.
Just beneath the soft, newborn skin of this beautiful story is the flesh and bone of a theological truth that is older than creation: God planned to send a Saviour long before time began.
“Do not be afraid.” We see this phrase recur throughout the Christmas story and it’s easy to gloss over without fully comprehending it.
Mary was a teenage girl. Joseph was an ordinary carpenter. But God chose these commonplace peasants from a backwater town to raise the Saviour of the world. Chuck Swindoll describes how and why God chooses His servants.
The virgin birth circumvented the transmission of the sin nature and allowed the eternal God to become a perfect man. He never sinned, which qualified Him to be a righteous substitutionary sacrifice for sinners.