Glen Davis

Christ­mas Eve draws to a close and I can hear rein­deer in the dis­tance, so I’m sign­ing off for the night.

In those days a decree went out from Emper­or Augus­tus that all the world should be reg­is­tered. This was the first reg­is­tra­tion and was tak­en while Quirinius was gov­er­nor of Syr­ia. All went to their own towns to be reg­is­tered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Beth­le­hem, because he was descend­ed from the house and fam­i­ly of David. He went to be reg­is­tered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expect­ing a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliv­er her child. And she gave birth to her first­born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shep­herds liv­ing in the fields, keep­ing watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glo­ry of the Lord shone around them, and they were ter­ri­fied. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bring­ing you good news of great joy for all the peo­ple: to you is born this day in the city of David a Sav­ior, who is the Mes­si­ah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And sud­den­ly there was with the angel a mul­ti­tude of the heav­en­ly host, prais­ing God and say­ing, ‘Glo­ry to God in the high­est heav­en, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’ When the angels had left them and gone into heav­en, the shep­herds said to one anoth­er, ‘Let us go now to Beth­le­hem and see this thing that has tak­en place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shep­herds told them. But Mary trea­sured all these words and pon­dered them in her heart. The shep­herds returned, glo­ri­fy­ing and prais­ing God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Luke 2, NRSV

Mer­ry CHRIST­mas. Enjoy the rest of your break–Paula and I look for­ward to see­ing you all when Win­ter Quar­ter kicks back off! Don’t for­get to pray for us at Win­ter Con­fer­ence.

I just ran across a most remark­able online Bible study tool: the Greek New Tes­ta­ment brows­er. If you ever want to do some seri­ous study this site will be pret­ty help­ful. I can’t say enough good things about this site’s ele­gant inter­face and sol­id con­tent.

Hat tip to the two excel­lent blogs who brought it to my atten­tion: the New Tes­ta­ment Gate­way and the Bible Soft­ware Review.