One of the problems about the development of traditions around Christmas is that people writing hymns or plays set Jesus’ birth in their own world rather than in what we know of the first century. In ...
This Sunday’s lectionary reading for Advent 4 in Year A is Matt 1.18–25. It is a short reading, but laden with significance as Matthew gives his distinctive account of Jesus’ origins. (The epistle is ...
The lectionary epistle reading for Advent 4 in Year A is Romans 1.1–7, which is a single sentence in Greek! Paul offers not just an opening greeting, but a programmatic introduction to the whole of ...