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    Christmas: What the Bible Tells Us About the Christmas Story
    Christmas: What the Bible Tells Us About the Christmas Story
    Christmas: What the Bible Tells Us About the Christmas Story
    Ebook78 pages1 hour

    Christmas: What the Bible Tells Us About the Christmas Story

    By William Barclay

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    About this ebook

    People know the often-told story of Christmas so well that it is hard to hear or feel afresh the joy of the meaning of Christmas. This book features original Biblical texts.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSaint Andrew Press
    Release dateAug 5, 2014
    ISBN9780861537365
    Christmas: What the Bible Tells Us About the Christmas Story
    Author

    William Barclay

    William Barclay (1907-1978) is known and loved by millions worldwide as one of the greatest Christian teachers of modern times. His insights into the New Testament, combined with his vibrant writing style, have delighted and enlightened readers of all ages for over half a century. He served for most of his life as Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow, and wrote more than fifty books--most of which are still in print today. His most popular work, the Daily Study Bible, has been translated into over a dozen languages and has sold more than ten million copies around the world.

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      Book preview

      Christmas - William Barclay

      Publisher’s Introduction

      We all know the story of the wise men. They visited Herod and their news troubled him. They followed a star and found the baby Jesus and offered gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

      That’s all in the Bible.

      Some people say that the wise men were kings and that there were three of them. Some people can even name them – Casper, Melchior and Balthaser.

      But that’s not in the Bible.

      Insights: Christmas explains what the Bible really says, and why.

      Because of his gift for clear explanation and insight, author William Barclay has millions of fans across the globe. He believed that it makes all the difference who said something, when they said it, how they said it, where they said it and to whom it was said. So he made his own modern text of the New Testament by translating from the original Greek and then commented on the stories by considering, afresh, the particular circumstances of each writer. He made clear what was meant, what was possibly meant and, as in the example of the naming of the three wise men, what may have inspired the legends.

      Each book in the Insights series takes a particular theme and allows the reader to engage with the New Testament, bringing the people and the times to life. For example, this book shows that, in the Christmas story we all know so well, the wise men appear only in Matthew’s Gospel and the shepherds in Luke’s. Insights makes no assumptions about our knowledge, but enables us to understand the Bible in new ways by starting with something familiar and then finding some surprising twists in the tale.

      Introduction to Matthew

      The gospel of the Jews

      First and foremost, Matthew is the gospel which was written for the Jews. It was written by a Jew in order to convince Jews.

      One of the great objects of Matthew is to demonstrate that all the prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus, and that, therefore, he must be the Messiah. It has one phrase which runs through it like an ever-recurring theme: ‘This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.’ That phrase occurs in the gospel as often as sixteen times. Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ name are the fulfilment of prophecy (1:21–3); so are the flight to Egypt (2:14–15); the slaughter of the children (2:16–18); Joseph’s settlement in Nazareth and Jesus’ upbringing there (2:23); Jesus’ use of parables (3:34–5); the triumphal entry (21:3–5); the betrayal for thirty pieces of silver (27:9); and the casting of lots for Jesus’ garments as he hung on the cross (27:35). It is Matthew’s primary and deliberate purpose to show how the Old Testament prophecies received their fulfilment in Jesus; how every detail of Jesus’ life was foreshadowed in the prophets; and thus to compel the Jews to admit that Jesus was the

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