Index of Christmas posts | Christmas Nights at Home
- Read the opening chapters of Matthew, Luke and John in various familiar and unfamiliar translations. Listen to them in audio or dramatic readings.
- Explore your Bible dictionaries, Bible maps, and Study Bible notes.
- This season is an inspiring occasion to read through the nativity discussions in your favorite Bible commentary series, such as Tyndale, The Bible Speaks Today, Ancient Christian Commentary, Word, Bible Background Commentary, Pillar, etc. I recommend Michael Card’s Biblical Imagination devotional commentaries:
- Consider anthologies of readings for the church calendar, which contain sections for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany:
- One of my favorites is Celtic Daily Prayer.
- Ancient Christian Devotional series (A, B, & C) contains excerpts from the Ancient Christian Commentary series, ed. Thomas Oden.
- Feasting on the Word: Year A: Advent Through Transfiguration (2010), ed. David L. Bartlett, Barbara Brown Taylor. Quoted above: Volume 1, “Pastoral Perspective,” by Stacey Simpson Duke. Thanks, Matt!
- Exegetical studies of the nativity accounts:
- Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives
- Karl Barth, The Great Promise: Luke 1.
- See also Karl Barth, “To you is born this day a Saviour” (Christmas 1954), in Karl Barth, Deliverance to the Captives (London: SCM Press, 1961), pp. 20-27. To explore how any theologian has come to grips with the doctrine of grace, watch how he preaches to inmates – see my post on Columbo. While Professor of Theology at Basel University, Barth regularly preached to men and women in the Basel prison.
- Rene Laurentin, The Truth of Christmas: Beyond the Myths.
- Richard Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness.
