December 20th Family Christmas Questions / Advent Study
Here are the next questions for your family Christmas Study or Advent Study. They are followed by a creative idea on keeping Christ in your family Christmas. The answers to the questions appear at the end of this blog. One great benefit of doing this with your family is that it will become a tradition which transcends the Advent Season whereby you do a short daily Bible study as a family at every meal throughout the year. Answer each question True or False
According to the Bible… 43) _____ The angels came proclaiming, “Peace on earth and good will towards men”
44) _____ The shepherds found the manger unaided by the star.
45) _____ The angels took the shepherds to the manger.
46) _____ At the manger, the angels hovered overhead, praising God, as the shepherds worshiped the baby Jesus.
Keeping Christ In Christmas - Firemen and Police Are you making Christmas cookies this weekend? Make some extra and then take them around to the local police station and fire station. Bring your children with you. Talk to them beforehand so they will not play the “Shy Game” with you. Instead help them to stand up straight, speak up and say “Thank You” clearly. Help your children to understand that - “While we have fun and celebrate Christmas many people work hard and risk their lives to make this possible. They cannot be with their family so we are going to give them a thank you gift.” Be sure and let those receiving the gifts know that you are doing this because you are a Christian. (It is blatantly dishonest for a Christian to do good works and then not give credit to Jesus.) Take along New Testaments and reading material to leave. Police and fire stations are always in need of good reading material. Now is a good time to glean out those Christian novels and books (in good condition) that you have read and are gathering dust on your book shelf) and take them along to leave with the cookies. (Special note – if you reflect on this project and decide that your children are either to unruly or too selfish to do a project like this, now is the time to sit down with your spouse and make some parenting goals for 2014 so your children will not be cheated out of service to our Lord because a lack of training.)
The Answers to today’s Advent Questions - 43. F – Luke 2:13 & 14 (The angels came proclaiming, “Peace on earth and good will towards men”) Although the quote “Peace on earth and good will towards men” appears almost universally on Christmas cards and in Christmas pageants the actual quotation is found in Luke 2:14; "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased." Two key elements are almost always left out when the angels are quoted. First: “Glory to God in the highest…” – the birth of the Messiah has to do with the glory of God. It is not man-centered but God-centered. God, not man, is the center of the universe. The center of the Christmas Revelation is God, what God is doing and the glory due Him, not man, nor what man is getting. Secondly: “with whom He is pleased”. The peace which Christ brings is not a universal peace. It is a peace extended to those to whom God, through His good pleasure is pleased to reveal Himself (Galatians 1:15). It is only a peace, a hope, for those who acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior of mankind, who submit to Him and put their trust in Him as their personal Lord and Savior. For the rest of mankind there is no peace, (Isaiah 48:22; 57:20 & 21); there is the turmoil of sin followed by the eternal judgment and agony of Hell (Revelation 20:10 – 15).
The message of peace in the Christmas revelation is a message of peace to those who put their trust and faith in Christ. The reality of the incarnation brought with it no end to wars, no end to poverty, no end to crime, no end to man’s cruelty to man, no end to despotic rule and unjust governments. It brought with it no universal peace on earth. These acts continued on unabated. Rather, it brought peace on earth to those “with whom He is pleased”, those who place their faith in Christ. True, the possibility of peace is presented to the world, but the reality of peace is for those with whom God is pleased and this is limited to those who trust Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. The rest of mankind experiences the displeasure of God, the turmoil of sin in this life and the prospect of the eternal judgment of God in Hell in the next. Just as in satan’s dialogue with Eve where the Words of God are misquoted and distorted, so here the angelic message is so often misquoted and distorted to bring a generic message of “peace” and “goodwill” where the call for repentance in the face of judgment should instead be given.
(Authors Note: The phrase, “peace on earth goodwill toward men” is not taken from Scripture but rather from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem/carol – “I Heard The Bell’s On Christmas Day”, which was written in 1864, during the American Civil War. Longfellow was in despair at the time having been recently widowed and now learning of the wounding of his son in battle. It was on Christmas day that he penned the words to this poem which was latter set to music. The phrase “peace on earth goodwill toward men” is repeated at the end of each stanza.)
44. T – Luke 2:1- - 16 (The shepherds found the manger unaided by the star.) First things first – in the Historical Revelation by God the Holy Spirit, no star is mentioned at the time of Jesus’ birth. As for the shepherds, all we know in terms of what they specifically had to go on was the information provided by the angels in Luke 2:11-12; “for today in the city of David (Bethlehem) there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths, and lying in a manger.” Of course, the angels may have been more specific and the information is simply not recorded (John 21:25) but this is mere speculation. (See question 11) All we really know as a result of divine revelation is that one way or another they, “found their way to Mary and Joseph. and the baby as He lay in the manger.”
45. F – (The angels took the shepherds to the manger.) The angels in Luke 2:12 gave the shepherds a general idea of how to find Jesus, “you will find a baby, wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger.” But not only were they silent as to the exact location of the manger, but after the heavenly host appeared praising God, they left the scene. In Luke 2:15-16 we find the shepherds left to their own ingenuity in finding Jesus. Either because of the number of the shepherds or because of the relative few mangers in Bethlehem, Jesus was located that same night. It could well be that any shepherd worth his salt knew where the mangers in a nearby city were located making the task a relatively simple one. Manger scenes depicting the angels at the manger are pure fabrications. The angels did not lead the shepherds to the manger, did not escort them to the manger and did not reappear at the manger, rather the Word of God records that it was after, “the angels had gone away from them into heaven,” and only after the return of the angels to heaven, “that the shepherds began saying to one another, ‘Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.’”
46. F – (At the manger, the angels hovered overhead, praising God, as the shepherds worshiped the baby Jesus.) When the Angel of the Lord in Luke 2:9 appeared to the shepherds he was standing before them. Luke 2:9 “And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened.” Then in verse 13, a multitude of heavenly hosts appears with the angel, praising God. “And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God...” In neither verse is there any indication that the angels are in the sky. When the angels do depart in verse 15, they went away from them “into heaven” , leaving the shepherds to follow their instructions in finding the baby Jesus. This may have been a literal ascension or a mystical transference. The Holy Scriptures are not exact as to the visual manifestation of this event, instead they simply record for us what took place. Thus at the manger itself no angels are mentioned or alluded to by the Bible, they having long since departed into heaven.
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