Category Archives: Jesus Christ

Matthew 2:11 – ‘Gold, frankincense, and myrrh’

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2:11 As [the magi] came into the house and saw the child with Mary his mother, they bowed down and worshiped him. They opened their treasure boxes and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Summary.  Rather than supposing that the gifts brought by the magi carry symbolic meaning, it is probably better to view them as gifts ‘fit for a king’.

Do the gifts have symbolic meaning?  I have some hesitation about this, but I’ll put this out as a gentle warning to my fellow-preachers anyway.…

Was Jesus destitute?

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It is often assumed (especially around Christmas-time – cue smelly stable) that Jesus was born and raised in poverty, and that his ministry focussed very much on the economically disadvantaged.

Ian Paul draws our attention to this homily:

‘This Christmas why not ask the gift to love the poor more deeply, with an abiding and deep affection? For poverty and neediness are an intrinsic aspect of the Infancy narratives. The first Christmas was anything but charming or sentimental.

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Why are Matthew’s and Luke’s birth narratives so different?

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The most celebrated critical commentary on the birth narratives is that of Raymond Brown – The Birth of the Messiah.

In discussing the birth narratives as history, Brown cites two sets of problems:

1. The problem of corroborating witnesses

Regarding the main body of the Gospel narratives, there is no shortage of witnesses whose reminiscences could be harvested.  And there was a tradition that had been passed down from this first witnesses.  See Acts 1:22; 1 Cor 15:3 etc.…

Mark 6:3 – a scandalous birth?

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Mark 6:3 Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” And so they took offense at him.

The reference to Jesus as ‘Mary’s son’ is unusual, and invites attention.

A son would usually be identified in connection with his father, not his mother (although see Judg 11:1–2; 1 Kgs 17:17; Lk 7:12; Acts 16:1; 23:16; Gal 4:21–31).  This would be the case even if the father were dead, as may be the case with Jesus, given the silence of the Gospels after the birth narratives in that regard.…

Lk 2:22-24, 36-38 – Anna’s story (sermon notes)

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(This is a slightly revised version of a short talk that was first drafted many years ago)

Text: Luke 2:22-24, 36-38

Some 80 years before a certain baby boy was cradled in a manger in Bethlehem, a little girl was born just a few miles away.  No doubt she was her parent’s pride and joy.  And no doubt she was strong, active and healthy.  Anyway, in due course, she grew up and fell in love with the man of her dreams. …

The virgin birth in Luke

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Andrew Lincoln (Born of a Virgin?) maintains that the birth narratives in Luke’s Gospel witness to the virginal conceptions of Jesus.  Specifically, Lincoln cites:

1. The step-parallelism between the birth accounts of John the Baptist and Jesus.  As Lincoln remarks:

‘If an infertile woman can bear a child, then the greater miracle is for a virgin to conceive without any male seed being involved.’

2. Mary’s response to the annunciation: ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man?’…

The warnings of Jesus

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It is sometimes imagined that Jesus was nothing but sweetness and light.  But this is very wide of the mark.

As N.T. Wright (Jesus and the Victory of God, p183f) points out the Synoptic Gospels record a ‘pretty devastating catalogue of threats and warnings’.

That catalogue, as compiled by Wright, looks something like this:

Leave the dead to bury the dead (Mt. 8:22/Lk. 9:60);

Do not put the new wine into old wineskins (Mt.

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Born of a Virgin?

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This is an updated version of a piece I first published on 6th December 2019.

In 2013, Andrew Lincoln published Born of a Virgin? Reconceiving Jesus in the Bible, Tradition, and Theology, presents a case for denying the virgin birth (more properly, the virginal conception) of Jesus.

As Jason Engwar says,

‘Lincoln is a supernaturalist who accepts traditional Christian concepts like the deity of Jesus and his resurrection, but rejects other traditional positions, such as Biblical inerrancy and the historicity of the virgin birth.

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Luke: no further interest in the virgin birth?

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In Born of a Virgin?, Andrew Lincoln expresses the view that Luke, in the early part of his account of the circumstances of Jesus’ birth, acknowledges the tradition that Jesus was conceived without the biological participation of a man.

But thereafter, according to Lincoln, all the signs are that Luke and his sources regarded Jesus’ conception and birth as being through entirely normal means.

  • The text underlines that Joseph is of the house and lineage of David (Lk 1:27-32).
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John 1:51 – ‘Angels ascending and descending’

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John 1:51 – “I tell all of you the solemn truth—you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

The allusion is to the experience of Jacob (later re-named Israel), Gen 28:17.  While on his way to see Laban, he had a dream in which he say angels ascending and descending between heaven and earth.  He concluded that ‘the Lord is in this place’, and named it ‘Bethel’, meaning ‘the house of God’.…