Introduction In today’s message we’ll discover from whom, how, and for what purpose, does God save us. We’ll also find out how John the Baptist was involved in God’s saving plan. This answers the unanswered question from the previous verses: “What then will this child be”.   Reading the previous verses, we see how God’s […]

Origins of Easter –   Some time ago, my wife and I were sharing lunch with a very lovely Jewish couple. They mentioned having attended a Jewish Passover dinner the previous night. This piqued our curiosity, so we started conversing about the details. The next day, this conversation got me thinking about how during Easter, […]

A Christmas Scandal in Jerusalem! [NOTE: Through-out the text you will bracketed green text insertions that begin with the word “Discussion”. These are suggested discussion questions for interactive group settings.] Sermon: On a day much like this, approximately 2024[1] years ago, things were anything but peaceful in Jerusalem. The half a million or so inhabitants […]

Corresponding Old Testament Reading Our text today is from the book of Luke in the New Testament. But let’s first read a corresponding passage from the Old Testament, from the book of Numbers, written around 3,400 years ago. In the passage we are about to read, the people of Israel, all 600,000 of them, have […]