Why Were Gold, Incense, and Myrrh Appropriate Gifts for Jesus?
James Montgomery Boice focuses and reflects on the gifts the wise men brought to Jesus.
Articles on Christmas
117 results found
7 Passages to Read around the Dinner Table This Christmas
A Christmas gathering is a great time to center your family's celebration on the Word of God.
10 Key Bible Verses on the Incarnation
Read about God’s condescension and wonder anew at his redemptive plan for humanity this advent season.
May the God of peace be with believers—now and always—as we seek to usher in his kingdom here and now.
Celebrate the beginning of Advent season by reading these passages either on your own, with a friend, or with your family.
3 Reasons Jesus Is Our Only Hope
The Advent story is a hope story because it chronicles the coming to earth of the One who is hope, Jesus.
10 Key Bible Verses on Christmas
Read these familiar passages about God’s plan of redemption manifested through Christ at Christmas.
An Open Letter to the Depressed Christian at Christmas
In the midst of a tough season, learn ways to carefully navigate the holidays while also contributing to your long-term healing.
‘The Biggest Story’ Christmas Devotional with Printable Ornaments
Take a journey through the Bible this December with the help of stories from The Biggest Story Bible Storybook, and prepare your family for the birth of Jesus the Savior!
5 Passages to Read Christmas Morning
Rejoice in what God has done at Christmas in the reading of his Word and remember the foretold birth of the Savior. God is with us.
You need to understand that there are two parts of the Christmas story, and you need both parts to make proper sense out of the whole story.
7 Tips for Deeper Conversations at Family Gatherings
Cheryl Marshall, Caroline Newheiser
Preparation for your family gathering will involve shopping, decorating, and meal planning. But it will also involve preparing your heart for how to achieve deeper conversations at your family gathering.
10 Things You Should Know about St. Nicholas
Saint Nicholas was a real person, born in modern-day Turkey in 270 AD. Learn more about the life of the man who eventually inspired the character of Santa Claus.
The story of Christmas is meant to enliven, motivate, excite, and transform you. May the glory of the best gift ever recapture our hearts this season.
A Devotional on the Birth of Jesus by Martin Luther
I would not have you contemplate the deity of Christ, the majesty of Christ, but rather his flesh. Look upon the Baby Jesus. . . . See how God invites you.
10 Things You Should Know about the Incarnation
The Son, who is in eternal relation to the Father and Spirit, willingly humbled himself and chose to assume a human nature in obedience to his Father and for our salvation (Phil. 2:6-8).
The star is doing something that it cannot do on its own: it is guiding magi to the Son of God to worship him.
Reclaiming Christmas Carols for Our Worship
In the midst of confusing, chaotic, and despairing times, carols give expression to the hope, peace, and joy we’re all longing for.
Seeing Jesus the Way the Shepherds Did
Let us imagine that we are with the shepherds on those hills in Palestine. We come bursting into the presence of Mary, Joseph, and the baby, and immediately we wonder: what are we looking at?
10 Questions to Ask at Your Christmas Gathering
Here’s a list of questions designed not only to kindle a conversation in almost any Christmas situation.
When the Supreme Somebody Became Nobody
It’s what the Lord Jesus took to himself that humbled him, not what he laid aside. It was in taking to himself humanity that he became nothing.
7 Tips for Celebrating Christmas as a Family
For a Christian family, Christmas is a significant annual opportunity to disciple as you celebrate the incarnation of Christ. Here are seven tips on how to do that well.
Beware the Idol of Busyness at Christmas
We must be careful to guard the true meaning of Christmas, keeping it from becoming about busyness and bondage to creation.
Making the Most of the Holidays with Your Adult Children
It’s been estimated that one in four parents are estranged from at least one adult child. The sense of hopelessness mixed with guilt can leave parents feeling depressed and defeated.
At Christmas, God thunders into our lives in his flesh and beckons us to behold in him the glory of God, full of grace and truth.
A New Advent Devotional by Paul David Tripp
We all love the sights, sounds, colors, and tastes of the season, but are we loving Christmas for all the wrong reasons?
10 Things You Should Know about Christmas
The primary purpose for observing Christmas is remembering Jesus’s birth.
An Open Letter to the Overwhelmed Parent at Christmas
For the believer, the most important thing we can do this Christmas is not wrap another present, but open up our hearts and minds anew to the wonder of God coming to earth.
How Advent Teaches Us to Wait Well
The hardest thing about waiting is not knowing when it’s going to end, if it is going to end.
Podcast: Navigating Grief during the Holidays (Nancy Guthrie)
Nancy Guthrie discusses dealing with grief over the holidays and how God used suffering in her own life to teach her about his healing grace.
What Christmas Carols Get Right (and Wrong) about the Star of Bethlehem
Most of us love our Christmas traditions, especially singing the old, familiar carols. From time to time, however, we might well wonder about the correctness of some of the things we’re singing so gustily.
A Word to Those Who Are Lonely This Christmas
Human beings weren't created to be lonely. We were created for intimate relationship with God and intimate relationships with one another.
If Christ came to die so that when you do sin, there is a propitiation, a removal of God’s wrath, then what does this imply for living your life? Three things.
A Single Word to Sum Up Christmas
God’s response to our rebellion was to give us himself. He is the great redeeming, transforming gift. He is the rescue.
The place of Advent in our calendar as being the four-week period before Christmas day on December 25 certainly lends itself to that understanding. However, while this is true, it is only half the truth.
Single or married, young or old, man or woman—everyone experiences loneliness at various times and to varying degrees.
Why Is the Virgin Birth So Important?
The entry and exit miracles carry the same message. First, they confirm that Jesus, though not less than man, was more than man. His earthly life, though fully human, was also divine.
Andreas J. Köstenberger, Alexander E. Stewart
Jesus’s unusual supernatural conception, issuing in the virgin birth, served as a fulfillment of Scripture.
A Devotional on the Excellency of Christ Seen in Christmas by Jonathan Edwards
Christ came to subdue the mighty powers of darkness, and make a show of them openly, and so to restore peace on earth.
A Devotional on the Most Glorious of Birthdays by Charles Spurgeon
Leland Ryken, Charles H. Spurgeon
The birth of Christ should be the subject of supreme joy. We have the angelic warrant for rejoicing because Christ is born.
What Does Jesus Want This Christmas?
What does Jesus want this Christmas? We can see the answer in his prayers.
How to Maintain Everyday Faithfulness in Festive Times
God has equipped us to follow Christ faithfully no matter what season of life we’re living.
The Scandal at the Heart of the Christian Faith
If we imagine that Jesus was born in a freshly swept, county fair stable, we miss the whole point. It was wretched—scandalous!
Hopelessness Leads Us to the True Hope of Christmas
God created our lives to be propelled and directed by hope, and he meant our capacity for hope to drive us to him.
For the Joy before Him, Christ Came
When you come to Christ for mercy and love and help in your anguish and perplexity and sinfulness, you are going with the flow of his own deepest wishes, not against them.
The reason God became man was to die. As God pure and simple, he could not die for sinners. But as man he could. His aim was to die.
My Master wants room! Room for him! Room for him! I, his herald, cry aloud, Room for the Savior! Room!
The Most Shocking Story We've Ever Heard
You will never find anything so shocking, so strange, so weird and spellbinding as the story of the incarnation of the Son of God.
What "Christmas Spirit" Should Actually Mean
The New Testament does not encourage us to puzzle our heads over the physical and psychological problems that the incarnatiton raises, but to worship God for the love that was shown in it.
The Doctrine of the Incarnation in the Bible
God came to dwell with man and as man at Christmas. Coming to the manger should lead us to worship.
Help! I Don’t Know How to Help My Kids Focus on Christ this Season
To see the goodness of God most clearly—to focus on Christ during Christmas—your children will need to see you enthralled by him and captured by him.
Reading the Christmas Story on the Shoulders of Giants
Read through this well known passage from Luke chapter 2 along with commentary notes from giants of the faith such as Martin Luther, John Owen, Charles Spurgeon, and Jerome.
A Guide for Your Personal Worship Entering Advent
A liturgy of daily worship aims to help us worship God by meditating on the first coming of his Son while we wait for the second coming of his Son.
5 Lessons from One of the Most Famous Christmas Carols of All Time
How we live in the world should manifest the change the Spirit is working in us, carrying the impact of the joy of God “far as the curse is found.”
How Not to Share the Gospel at Christmas
Christmas is a wonderful opportunity to share the hope of Christ with people in your life—both in word and deed.
Why Gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh?
God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything. The gifts of the magi are not given by way of assistance or need meeting.
Christmas is about the coming of Christ into the world.
Are You Far from God This Christmas?
The Christmas story is a story of God making himself available, making himself near. And, so it's a story for everyone who feels distant from God.
Advent Is for Looking Forward and Looking Back
During Advent we look back, thinking how it must have been, waiting for the promised salvation of God, and we look ahead, preparing ourselves to meet Jesus at his Second Coming.
How to Pray for the Advent Season
How do you pray to prepare for Advent season?
Andreas J. Köstenberger, Alexander E. Stewart
Christians know that Christmas is all about Jesus (or at least it once was all about Jesus), and we want it to be all about Jesus again.
God’s People Are a Waiting People
As early as Eden, God’s people have been a waiting people. Following the fall of our first parents, God made a promise that permanently oriented his people toward the future.
Finding God in My Loneliness This Christmas
In other words, loneliness is an indicator that something is missing, and that something is found only in Jesus Christ.
Jesus has come to inaugurate that peace among God’s people and to unveil the true joy of Christmas.
3 Things We Often Forget about the Christmas Story
Three words that sum up what we’ve tended to miss about the Christmas story are sacrifice, honesty, and glory.
His Blessings Flow Far as the Curse Is Found
What is the scope of the work of redemption? What in the world is God working on? What does the final chapter of the grand redemptive story look like?
Podcast: Distinguishing Christmas Tradition from Truth (Andreas Köstenberger)
Andreas Köstenberger explores how to distinguish fact from fiction when it comes to the Christmas story, discussing the real date of Jesus's birth, the wise men and the star, and key Old Testament prophecies and allusions surrounding the incarnation.
How to Show Your Kids Grace This Christmas
In this season, the very message we have staked our lives on gets obscured by the message of the world.
Excited about Christmas, Less So about Christ
As Christians, we sometimes find ourselves excited about Christian things, but surprisingly indifferent to Christ.
God’s Passion for God at Christmas
The deepest reason why we live for the glory of God is that God acts for the glory of God.
Despite the commercialization of Christmas and its overall worldly cast, God still infuses wonder into the season.
Andreas J. Köstenberger, Alexander E. Stewart
God does not always do things the way that we think he should or act as we might expect.
The True Way of Keeping Christmas
I entreat that your time may be thus spent. Let it not be about your dressing, your plays, your profits, or your worldly concerns but let it be the wonders of redeeming love.
Why the Christmas Story Isn't Finished
Christmas is a promise and invitation of a celebration to come.
Introducing ‘Good News of Great Joy’ by John Piper
Joyous reflection and eager anticipation mark the season of Christmas, as Christians around the world celebrate the coming of their Savior.
The Present Hope of the Gospel
It is life-changing to know and believe that Jesus came so that we would have all that we need to live as he intended right now.
Out of chaos, Christ came. In spite of, and out of, the pandemonium, Christ came.
Praying for Fullness this Christmas
Paul prays that we would experience Christ’s fullness—not just know about it, but be filled with it.
John Piper’s Favorite Christmas Text
Jesus wasn’t humble for the same reasons we are (or should be). So how can looking at Jesus’s Christmas humility help us?
Use these Christmas crafts to help explain the truths of the Christmas story to children in your church or family.
Christmas marked the beginning of God’s most successful setback.
What Really Happened At the First Christmas
Andreas J. Köstenberger, Alexander E. Stewart
In order to appreciate the significance of Messiah’s coming—and thus to understand the true meaning of Christmas—we need to travel back in time, back to the first Christmas.
Favorite Christmas Traditions from Crossway Kids’ Book Authors
Read what the authors of Crossway kids' books had to say about their favorite Christmas traditions, and perhaps even find inspiration to incorporate new traditions into your own celebrations this year.
How a Pastor Can Prioritize Family during the Holidays
For those of us in ministry, Sunday is not a day of rest. We should try to ensure that we have a Sabbath rest so the family can refresh itself.
Creative Ways to Use Tracts This Christmas
Short gospel tracts are a great way to succinctly present the true story of Christmas to a world longing for deep and enduring peace.
4 Ways to Strengthen Your Marriage This Christmas Season
Be intentional to focus on the gospel this Christmas. Here are some suggestions for how to do this in your marriage this year.
Christmas Is for the Poor and Humble
Without a doubt we could spend our lives searching the literature of the world for a story as beautiful as that of the nativity and never find it.
Andreas J. Köstenberger, Alexander E. Stewart
The Bible is God’s story, recounting the Creator’s involvement with his creation.
How Christmas Cuts History in Half
We often think of prophecy as relating to what is yet future or to what is now beginning to happen in the world, forgetting that what is past for us was future for the prophets.
How to Center Your Family on Christ During the Holidays
How can you always point your children and family to the spiritual significance of this time of year?
Although we cannot bequeath God to our children, we can help them know him and understand him in ways that prepare them to believe in his name.
Grace: The Dominant Note of Christmas
God the Son, who is God, and who is with God, came to reveal God in a way he had never been revealed before.
5 Ways to Use Your ESV Digital Scripture Journal at Christmas
The ESV Digital Scripture Journal makes a great gift and resource for digging into Scripture this Christmas.
Podcast: Teaching Your Kids the Real Meaning of Christmas (William Smith)
William Smith offers parents simple advice for viewing the holiday season as a special opportunity to point our kids’ hearts to their Savior.
11 Notable Quotes from Come, Let Us Adore Him
Recapture your attention and reactivate your awe for Christ and his coming during Christmastime.
Remembering the Awesomeness of Immanuel
Jesus is Immanuel. The man Jesus is “God with us.”
Elyse Fitzpatrick reflects on the humanity of Christ at Christmas.
Video: John Piper Reads "The Innkeeper"
John Piper reads his illustrated poem The Innkeeper.
The Christmas Invitation You Can't Ignore
No matter how you feel about holiday parties, you need to know that you have been invited to a very important celebration this Christmas that you don’t want to miss.
One day the ruler—the King of kings and Lord of lords—will return and make peace a reality.
Jesus Didn’t Show Up Unannounced
The surety of past prophecies and the specificity of how Jesus fulfilled them is also your guaranteed future hope.
Crossway recently interviewed Starr Meade, the author of the new children's book Keeping Holiday, about literature, her new book, and more.
Guest Post: Keeping Christmas with Martin Luther
Salvation comes in and by and through an infant Son. This is more than a paradox, this is a miracle.
Why did God come into this world?
Bible Q&A: What Was the Incarnation?
The incarnation was the quiet eruption in the middle of history of a mercy that defies comprehension—when, as C. S. Lewis put it, God wrote himself into the story.
If the Son of God had not joined himself to us in our humanity, what could it possibly mean to say that Jesus is Savior?
Christin Ditchfield discusses Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes in relation to Christmas.
There is no peace nor good will at Christmas, unless there is glory to God in the highest first.
Getting to the Heart of Materialism
In Worldliness (edited by C. J. Mahaney), contributor Dave Harvey gives some practical warnings and advice about materialism.
There's No Such Thing as the "Christmas Spirit"
As has often been pointed out, Christianity is Christ. It all centers around Him, and every doctrine that we have and every idea that we possess is something that comes from Him.
We must train ourselves to slow down and recognize the greatest need we have is met in Christ’s coming.
Avoiding Not-So-Constructive Criticism
Christin Ditchfield offers some practical words of wisdom as we interact with those we love during the holidays.
Podcast: How to Wait for Christmas in an Age of Instant Gratification (Jonathan Gibson)
Johnny Gibson discusses what it looks like to truly prepare our hearts for Christmas and talks about how and why the Advent season is meant to be a season of waiting.
When the Gospel Transforms Your Christmas Expectations
Stephen Altrogge reflects on how he can be content at Christmastime.
Grace: The Dominant Note of Christmas
God the Son, who is God, and who is with God, came to reveal God in a way he had never been revealed before.
It is impossible that our Divine Lord could have had fellowship with us unless He had given to us from His own abounding wealth and had become poor so as to make us rich.
Why Do Christians Care So Much About Christmas?
Christians care about Christmas because it marks the beginning of the gospel, the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.