Michael AllenThe word salvation, as used in Scripture and Christian theology, communicates God’s deliverance. Salvation addresses public threat or personal plight and pertains to both concrete sorrows and sinful corruptions. Whether regarding one’s soul or one’s...
Emily Hunter McGowinIs Christmas a Christian holiday? Yes. Yes, it is. I’m being definitive up front because so many today are committed to the public and often gleeful discrediting of Christmas. Some such naysayers are devoutly Christian and seeking earnestly to...
Logos StaffChristmas is upon us, and it’s a vital time for solid, gospel-focused preaching. Below we offer some unexpected Christmas texts worth using—plus some tips for how Logos can help you discover new Christmas sermon ideas. Plus, we’ll share why...
Seana ScottI drove past the Christmas light display in the center of town and my preschooler gazed at the glistening colors and yelled, Jesus is the light of the world! She no doubt learned this in Sunday school, but is Jesus a string of red and green lights...
Michael F. BirdJoan Osborne’s 1995 pop hit What If God Was One of Us? asked an excellent question. Another song, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing—a famous hymn of Charles Wesley and George Whitefield—gives the correct answer. The ancient world had many deities, even...
Kelley MathewsI was that kid whose nose was always stuck in a book. I was also that kid who occasionally read a dictionary for fun. I just loved words—including and especially God’s Word. When I was eleven years old, I asked for my own Bible, having already worn...
Mark WardEvery Christmas Eve growing up, my father read the Christmas story from Luke 2 in the King James Version.
Mary JahnkeMany of us read Luke 2 at Christmastime, but what Scriptures can we read at Thanksgiving? Here are 54 Bible verses about thanksgiving and gratitude to meditate on during the holiday season or take turns reading around the table on Thanksgiving Day...
Does the Christmas Bible story have anything left to tell us? Biblical scholarship is essentially a lot of very careful reading of very old, very familiar stories—with the goal of discovering something new in them. The well has not run dry. After...
Matthew BoffeyWith all the preparation you’re putting into your Christmas services, don’t forget one of the most important elements: presentation slides. What should you keep in mind as you build your service slides for Christmas and Christmas Eve? Here are five...
Joel ArnoldSome learning curves are difficult to climb because the concepts involved run against the grain of the human mind (for some people, math). Sometimes there’s the challenge of where to start with intertwined concepts woven in a thick web, such as in...
Lexham PressThe Christmas season easily overwhelms, and meaning can be lost in the busyness. But a new Christmas devotional by Mark M. Yarbrough, Tidings of Comfort & Joy: 25 Devotions Leading to Christmas, reminds us why we celebrate with 25 short...
Guest Author"In studying the Bible, a big part of our goal is to understand the text in its original historical and cultural context. This means we have the difficult responsibility of trying to read God’s Word with “Middle Eastern eyes” instead of our innate...
The first of Luther’s famous 95 Theses—whose 500th anniversary we celebrate today—is a critique of an erroneously translated phrase in Jerome’s translation of Matthew 4:17. In English we know this as, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”...
Ryan NelsonPeople don’t walk through the door of your church with a big tag that says “Visitor” on it. And hopefully, you aren’t handing those out when they get inside. Especially in a big church, it’s hard to tell newcomers from...
Chuck McKnightNow it happened that in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus to register all the empire. (This first registration took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to be registered, each one to his own town. So Joseph...
Jonathan WatsonWe’ve all read or heard it this season: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.” This famous line is read from Matthew 1:23 or Isaiah 7:14 every Christmas season, in reference to the...
Over the last century and a half, archaeology in the Middle East has flourished. From the Nag Hammadi library to Tel Dan Stele to the Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeological discoveries have informed biblical scholarship on several levels, giving us a more...
Jeffrey KranzToday’s post continues Logos Talk’s Christmas Bible study. Check back throughout December for more ways to study the birth of Jesus! The angel Gabriel is one of the prominent characters in the Nativity narrative. He’s remembered as the angel who...
Kirk E. MillerIn this Logos Live episode, host Kirk E. Miller sits down with distinguished theologian Graham Cole for a deep dive into the doctrine of the incarnation. Their conversation centers on what it means to confess that God the Son became man, including...
Thomas BoehmHanukkah (also spelled Chanukah) is a Jewish festival commemorating the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the second century BCE. In this article, we’ll look at Hanukkah’s...
Mark BriansAt the start of November, the global church observes the Feast of All Saints—a celebration rich in history yet often misunderstood today. Once deeply connected to both Scripture and the rhythms of the early church, this feast was established to...
Kyle GrantI am not the least bit artistic. I can write. I can express ideas with a pen, but not images with a paintbrush. So too, for the longest time I resigned myself to this limitation homiletically. My preaching had carefully chosen words of explanation...
Daniel EstesEven people unfamiliar with the Bible have heard the expression Vanity of vanities; all is vanity, the exclamation that frames the book of Ecclesiastes in the KJV. But when we examine the evidence carefully, we learn that hevel in Ecclesiastes can...
Blake AdamsFor Catholics, Orthodox, and many Protestants, Holy Week is the most sacred time of the year. Traditionally, it is more important than Christmas, as it focuses on the central event of the gospel: the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the way it...
Joseph of Nazareth, the adoptive father of Jesus, is neglected in theology and biblical studies and even in devotion. In Protestantism, he is seldom more than a Christmas decoration. In Catholicism, despite centuries of veneration of the Holy...
We hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year! The Logos staff enjoyed some wonderful, much-needed holiday time off. But that doesn’t mean we took a vacation from delivering improvements to your experience of studying God’s Word! From...
Christian feast days—what are they? Far from being a strange and sour corruption from the late middle ages, the feast days of the church—or what is called the liturgical calendar—offer Christians a gospel-centered way of walking through the year...
Jennifer GrishamThis article was originally published in December of 2022. “Advent is for the few.” That’s one of the first things Rev. Fleming Rutledge said to me in our recent interview about the Advent season. This time of year, it’s easy to let our imaginations...
What is Advent? Advent is a season in the church calendar that spans the four weeks leading up to Christmas and ends on December 24. Each Sunday coincides with the lighting of one of four candles—a purple one on the first, second, and fourth Sunday...