The winter months are upon us and Christmas is just around the corner. We may celebrate together the coming of the Lord Jesus to this earth.
The Christmas File offers a number of materials to help you prepare for Christmas. You may be working on a sermon and seeking additional information. It may also be that you desire more depth in your personal life. This file may be a starting point for that.
Isaiah promises the coming of a Savior - Gijs van den Brink (Study Bible Magazine 15 issue 2, 2021, pages 4-7)
The OT contains a few hundred prophecies regarding the coming of the Messiah and many of them are found in Isaiah. In this article, Gijs van den Brink examines who the Savior is according to Isaiah and what he will come to do.
You can order this Magazine from the website via this link (leaf) or via this link (pdf).
Who is Jesus Christ? - Gijs van den Brink
In this article we limit ourselves to the proclamation of Jesus Himself. So not what the apostles proclaimed about Him, but what Jesus Himself preached. And within His proclamation we again limit ourselves to what He taught concerning Himself. How did the man Jesus of Nazareth, who lived in Israel in the first century of our era, present Himself to mankind? Not what others thought and said about Him, but what did He Himself say about His identity?
If Jesus Christ is the main theme of the New Testament, then it is of utmost importance to examine how He saw Himself. Who is Jesus Christ? Did He Himself say He was the Messiah or the Savior or the Son of God? Or did others later say this about Him? And if He used these titles, what did He mean by them?
We will talk about Jesus' vocation, His words and works, and the titles used by Him and for Him. Then we want to try to define the essence of His person and His vocation, better expressed with the German word "Hoheitsbewusstsein. We must also consider the relationship between His testimony concerning Himself and His preaching of the Kingdom of God, and finally, we will consider the continuity between the proclamation of Jesus and the testimony of the Christian congregation about Him.
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The genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew
In the Study Bible you will find an article on the background to the sex register with which the Gospel of Matthew begins. You can read the article at this link.
The First Christmas Story: A Rediscovery - Raymond Hausoul (Study Bible Magazine 14 issue 2, 2020, pages 4-9)
Christmas is surrounded by romance. What really happened we often do not know. Raymond Hausoul tries to read the Bible text with the first Christmas story, told by Luke, unbiased.
You can order this Magazine from the website via this link (leaf) or via this link (pdf).
