Timothy's Thoughts

E ven though the wise men didn’t show up for a couple of years later, I find them a fascinating part of the Christmas story. Here these guys were watching the night sky in the east and something unusual happened, a star appeared. Somehow, they knew that meant something important had happened and they set off after it. That seems to indicate that this wasn’t the kind of star we see in the sky, but it was a bright light close to the earth. They follow it to Israel, like one might seek the end of a rainbow, but then they catch it. Only it doesn’t show them anything, so they ask the ruler. After some research, they discover that the child was to be born in Bethlehem, but not just any Bethlehem. There were actually two Bethlehems. Their research revealed which one. It wasn’t like today. They couldn’t Google, “odd star in the sky” and find out what it meant. They had to pull out the books to find that information. So, when they started looking in the book, they were looking for prophecies a...

Yesterday, was Christmas. If you read my blog, you may have noticed that I didn’t use the word Christmas —not one time. You may have been offended because I chose to say Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas . You might be upset with me for taking Christ out of Christmas, but what you can’t do is say that my blog post wasn’t Christ centered. It is probably the most Christ centered post I have had in a while. I say all that to make a point. For the past few years, I have seen many Christians who are upset about people saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas . A few years ago no one cared, but now people are upset about it. The irony is that people are ready to get up in arms about a lost man saying Happy Holidays or telling his employees to say Happy Holidays , but many of these people won’t say a word about this man’s need for salvation. The issue of Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays isn’t really about taking Christ out of Christmas. It is really about change. People...