“For the words of the Scriptures are our spiritual weapons; but if we know not how to fit those weapons and to arm our scholars rightly, they keep indeed their proper power, but cannot help those who receive them. For let us suppose there to be a strong corselet, and helm, and shield, and spear; and let one take this armor and put the corselet upon his feet, the helmet over his eyes instead of on his head, let him not put the shield before his breast, but perversely tie it to his legs: will he be able to gain any advantage from the armor? will he not rather be harmed? It is plain to any one that he will. Yet not on account of the weakness of the weapons, but on account of the unskillfulness of the man who knows not how to use them well. So with the Scriptures, if we confound their order; they will even so retain their proper force, yet will do us no good. Although I am always telling you this both in private and in public, I effect nothing, but see you all your time nailed to the things of this life, and not so much as dreaming of spiritual matters. Therefore our lives are careless, and we who strive for truth have but little power, and are become a laughing stock to Greeks and Jews and Heretics. Had ye been careless in other matters, and exhibited in this place the same indifference as elsewhere, not even so could your doings have been defended; but now in matters of this life, every one of you, artisan and politician alike, is keener than a sword, while in necessary and spiritual things we are duller than any; making by-work business, and not deeming that which we ought to have esteemed more pressing than any business, to be by-work even.” (John Chrysostom, Homilies On John, 30:2)

by Stephen Rodgers

Merry Christmas!

We’re actually going to be going on hiatus until early next year, but before we did that I wanted to drop a little Christmas cheer on you, Beacon-style, just as we’ve done in past years. And maybe I’m getting a tad cranky in my advancing age, but you can see I’ve thrown in a quote from John Chrysostom on what happens if we neglect this material entirely.

First off, long-time readers (and people who know how to use the search box), will recall that we’ve done special Christmas posts before.  The content therein is still as timely as ever, and I’ll highlight a few articles that you’ll find in each one (anyone who clicks a link will quickly notice that it’s hardly an exhaustive listing however):

• 2009 (“X-Mas” vs. “Christmas”, the context of Christmas, etc.)
• 2010 (the importance of the virgin birth, Christmas apologetics, holidays with family, Santa Claus vs. Santa Christ, etc.)
• 2011 (Jesus’ relatives, alleged pagan elements of Christmas, what to tell kids about Santa, etc.)
• 2012 (the date of Christmas, the star of Bethlehem, the history of Santa Claus, etc.)
• 2013 (Christmas apologetics with particular emphasis on the virgin birth, etc.)
• 2014 (this is getting too long to list, but it’s a little bit of everything)

Seriously, if you’ve never checked those out, you really should. And part of the reason I say that is because I’ve seen roughly the same articles boomerang back around through the Christian blogosphere year after year after year. So before you get bent out of shape that I’m not including any new articles on Nicholas of Myra this year, please, please read the backlog. And there’s always Stoogle as well.

Alright, let’s get on to what’s new this year.

• First of all, this was a year that included an awful lot of attention on the star of Bethlehem, mostly due to the publication of Colin Nicholl’s book The Great Christ Comet. It first came onto my radar (no pun intended), when Justin Taylor gave it a rather glowing endorsement, which was somewhat lessened when I remembered that he’s an EVP over at Crossway, and they published this book. More recently, the main TGC blog did a Q&A with the author. Not everyone in the conservative evangelical camp has been as enthusiastic, for example, Jason Engwer’s review and subsequent interactions with the author (here and here), where he defends a supernatural interpretation over and against an astronomical interpretation. Steve Hays also takes umbrage with some of Nicholl’s arguments in his book; of particular interest (to me at least) is his response to Nicholl’s claim that the supernatural view is not found in a scholarly commentaries (not true!).
• I’ve pointed out before that Christmas and Easter are times when the American media is particularly focused on writing articles that are antagonistic to orthodox Christianity. This year, TIME magazine proved to be no exception to that tradition, with an article that begins criticizing aspects of the Christian tradition, and then lurches rather abruptly into a critique of the factual basis of the birth of Christ. The aforementioned Jason Engwer interacts with those claims in greater depth.
• On the other hand, there are some errors that have gotten associated with the Christmas tradition that I wouldn’t mind seeing get jettisoned. To that end, I very much appreciated this article from Köstenberger and Stewart. In a similar vein, I think this article by Mathewson on common mistakes in preaching the birth of Jesus is also quite helpful.
• Since I seem to be on a bit of Jason kick this year, here’s one more post that serves as a collection of links related to his interaction with the work of Raymond Brown (who’s name will be familiar to anyone who’s don’t any study of the biblical infancy narratives).
• I’d be remiss if I didn’t throw in Triablogue’s 2015 post of Christmas articles and resources; it collects many of the issues listed above, along with quite a few others.

That’s about it for this year I’m afraid. Hopefully this gives you something to read until we come back in 2016. See you then!

Pro Rege