When I saw The Fire is Upon Us recommended on Twitter, I purchased it immediately. I’ve long had a fascination with William F. Buckley Jr.. The Buckley’s had/have a home in Camden, SC, about thirty miles from my hometown of Sumter and considerably less miles from Dalzell, SC, where I went to school at Thomas Sumter Academy. When I was a student there I knew Reid Buckley who is either WFB’s nephew or grand-nephew. I certainly do not want to overplay this: Reid and I knew each other the way you know everybody in a small private school. I claim no other connection to the Buckley family and I do not claim that that particular connection was close. Anyway, I was aware of and impressed by his being in the family of the great WFB! As an aside, my mother dropped almost casually over Thanksgiving last year that somebody (Reid, perhaps?) had given her name to WFB and he had written her some questions concerning Latin (she was the Latin teacher at Thomas Sumter, again, maybe twenty miles from the Buckley home in Camden). She went on to say that she answered the questions and provided the information he was looking for and that he wrote back thanking her and saying that he would acknowledge her in print. I was, to put it mildly, amazed that I had never heard this before. I have no idea if my mother was ever acknowledged in any of Buckley’s books.

As for my interest in Buckley, I suppose it was a result of the type of Republican I grew up being. I grew up a conservative but a conservative who has always had a weary eye of the lunatic fringe of our own side (I would characterize myself as this kind of conservative to this day, by the way). I suppose I grew up less charitable of the left, considering most all of them as lunatics! Nowadays I’m all out of charity and consider pretty much everybody on all sides to be lunatics, but that’s another story. Buckley represented thoughtful conservatism to me growing up, conservatism in a suit with a strange hybrid accent, conservatism that engaged the best thinkers on the left through the Firing Line TV show. Furthermore, Buckley was a Christian. Lastly, he was a free thinker in many ways. I remember as a young man feeling the thrill of some of Buckley’s libertarian positions that were, to my more provincial mindset, dangerous. So, yes, I grew up a Buckley fan.

As for James Baldwin, I knew next to nothing about him as I approached this book other than his name and that he spoke prominently to civil rights issues. That’s it, and I was a little fuzzy even on those two points.

Enter The Fire is Upon Us, Nicholas Buccola’s absolutely fascinating and riveting account of the 1965 debate between Buckley and Baldwin at Cambridge on the proposition, “Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?” Baldwin argued for an affirmative answer to the question and Buckley for the negative.

Now, as a frequent viewer of old Firing Line clips and episodes on YouTube, I had come across and watched most of this debate before, but this book really brought it to life for me. Buccola does a great job of unpacking the events that led up to this clash in Cambridge, but the book truly is about much bigger issues than simply this exchange. In truth, the book, it seems to me, is about two movements in America, two ways of seeing reality as Buccola defines them.

At this point it should be noted that Buccola shows his cards explicitly near the end of the book. He writes:

My study of history and political science led me to grow up from conservatism, but when Buckley reentered my life through the study of Baldwin, I became mildly obsessed about the possibilities of thinking about the two of them together. (p.369)

Well, let me say that even a person like myself who appreciated this book by and large, who agrees that Buckley’s views on civil rights and racial questions were tragic and certainly inconsistent with the teachings of the Jesus Buckley professed to follow, who winces at reading some of Buckley’s positions on these matters, and who would say that he has cooled in many ways on Buckley can also say that the idea that studying history will lead one to “grow up from conservatism” is one of the most flabbergasting statements I have ever heard. I am no shill for the conservative establishment, but history cuts both ways, does it not? There are numerous people (like, say, the late theologian Tom Oden) who grew up, thankfully, out of liberalism and realized the dead end that it is. So, sorry, I do not think that Buccola’s work, as damning as it in many ways is, confirms the veracity of his personal experience that the study of history will cause one to “grow up from conservatism.” Really, now.

Anyway, what the book does establish is that Buckley had some ugly and tragic views on civil rights and stubbornly held to them until he offered something of an apology and showed signs of growth in his views later in life (as this defense of Buckley from National Review argues). Here is an example of Buckley’s unfortunate views:

In private correspondence after Up from Liberalism was published, Buckley told a friend, “I pray every Negro will not be given the vote in South Carolina tomorrow” because such a development would cause him to “lose that repose through which, slowly but one hopes surely, some of the decent instincts of the white man to go to work, fuse with his own myths and habits of mind, and hence a man more likely to know God” (pp. 115-116).

Perhaps less philosophically, here is another look at Buckley’s mindset at the time:

As the summer wore on, Buckley and Baldwin had the civil rights bill and upcoming march on their minds. In an August 3 column on the bill, Buckley conceded that many of the “[Negro] protests” that had taken place throughout the summer were “warranted,” but he continued to express skepticism about the aims being sought by the protesters. The issue “goes to the heart of political philosophy: should a Constitution be an instrument for impressing on the community at large the people’s general, and even specific ideas of morality?” Against the idea that the Constitution should be used to “bring Paradise” to the people, Buckley argued in favor of the relativist notion that “each community [has] the right to govern its own affairs, according to its own individual lights.” South Carolinians and New Yorkers tend to have different moral views, and ought to be free to decide for themselves how they will live together. “The states’ rights argument,” Buckley concluded, “is deemed by a lot of impatient and right-minded idealists to be a plea for continued racism. It is not. It is a plea for the survival of the federal system, which was once considered, by idealists, to be a glory in itself.”78 In an August 17 piece called “Count Me Out,” Buckley offered direct criticisms of the March on Washington, which he suggested would be an “unruly” and “mobocratic” affair that could do great damage to “inter-racial progress” as well as “our free institutions” (p. 203).

This particular selection is helpful because it shows the fairly consistent line that Buckley tried to walk: yes, blatant racism is unfortunate and not desirable but this does not warrant naked federal aggression against the way states choose to approach these issues. What is more, Buckley seemed to think, equality, while slow going, will eventually come about. The upshot of this approach was that Buckley did not support federal civil rights actions.

Baldwin, on the other hand, had a sharp mind and fire in his belly and was keenly aware of racial injustice in America. One could not imagine somebody more different from Buckley. Black, liberal, and one who had rejected the Christianity of his youth, Baldwin would emerge as a passionate and creative voice for racial equality in America.

As a Christian I am particularly interested in Baldwin’s rejection of Christianity. There were a lot of factors involved with this. The first factor was Baldwin’s perception of the type of Christianity his stepfather embraced and what this faith did to him.

One of the ways David [Baldwin’s father] dealt with his status at the margins of society was to shield himself with a rigid armor of religiosity. In an open letter to his nephew that was published in 1962, Baldwin explained the connection between his father’s marginalization and his faith when he wrote that his father “had a terrible life; he was defeated long before he died because, at the bottom of his heart, he really believed what white people said about him. This is one of the reasons he became so holy.”36 The church, he explained to an interviewer, was the “only means” his parents had to express “their pain and their despair.” David was convinced that it was only holiness that could protect him and his family from the cruel world that surrounded them. This led him to express his love in an “outrageously demanding and protective way,” and to be extraordinarily “bitter” in his outlook and “indescribably cruel” in his personal relationships. David’s bitterness was rooted in the “humiliation” he felt in his everyday life, and it led him to view those he thought the authors of that humiliation—all white people—with suspicion. It also extended to his fellow blacks, though, most of whom he viewed as insufficiently holy. At home, David attempted to rule the family in an authoritarian fashion that left James and his siblings in a constant state of fear. “I do not remember, in all those years,” he wrote in 1955, “that one of his children was ever glad to see him come home” (pp. 17-18).

And again:

Baldwin’s stepfather, David, is the centerpiece of “Notes of a Native Son.” Baldwin said that David, like the character Gabriel in Mountain, “could be chilling in the pulpit and indescribably cruel in his personal life and he was certainly the most bitter man I have ever met”; he treated other blacks in the neighborhood “with the most uncharitable asperity” and distrusted all white people (p. 65).

But there were other factors that compelled Baldwin to leave the church.

Baldwin’s exit from the church will be discussed in great detail later in this book, but for now suffice it to say that the seeds of doubt were planted by a broadening of his intellectual horizons and the hypocritical deeds of the “true believers” he saw around him. Though not as sudden as the conversion experience that drew him into the church, Baldwin’s conversion experience out of the church was just as profound. The “fortress” of his faith, he wrote later, had been “pulverized” (p. 19).

The intellectual components of Baldwin’s rejection of the faith is later spelled out in interesting detail:

Baldwin also launched a direct attack on theology generally and NOI [Nation of Islam] doctrine specifically. “To me,” he said, “all theologies are suspect” because they encourage human beings to escape reality and construct false identities. As an alternative to theological thinking, Baldwin proposed the “reckless” idea that we attempt to live our lives without the support of mythology and ideology. “I would like to think of myself as being able to face whatever it is I have to face as me,” he declared, “without having my identity dependent on something that finally has to be believed.” He conceded that reliance on religion, race, and culture as the bases of identity might be useful in some circumstances, but we must never lose sight of the fact that this reliance “has something very dangerous in it.” As long as we rely on such things to make sense of where we fit into the world and how we ought to act in it, “the confusion … and the bloodshed will be great” (p. 140).

This is regrettable. One may understand wanting distance from an overbearing and psychologically and spiritually grasping father’s stunted faith. One may also understand struggling with the Western church’s rank hypocrisy in its failure to apply the teachings of Jesus to social and racial issues. But the idea of “being able to face whatever it is I have face” as some sort of self-in-a-vaccuum without any ideological foundations and without recourse to “something that finally has to be believed” is so meaningless as to warrant the descriptor “absurd.” This is because, of course, Baldwin was as committed to certain things that “had to be believed” as we all are. Life simply cannot be lived without belief. The views expressed in the selection above strike me as a kind of village empiricism that is beneath the obvious keenness of a mind like Baldwin’s.

Regardless, the hypocrisy of the church proved to be ruinous to Baldwin’s faith.

Speaking of the West generally, Baldwin argued that time had demonstrated the “Christian world” to be “morally bankrupt and politically unstable.” For Baldwin, this indictment had little to do with the moral, religious, and political doctrines that had been rhetorically dominant in the West, but rather with the behavior of Western countries. For the second time in the essay, he referred to the obscene spectacle “when priests of that church which stands in Rome gave God’s blessing to Italian boys being sent out to ravage” Ethiopia. And of course, Baldwin found it difficult to accept the idea that Christianity was synonymous with civilization “when a Christian nation surrenders to a foul and violent orgy, as Germany did during the Third Reich.” For Baldwin, the fact that the Nazi movement could rise and thrive in Christian Germany was revealing and damning indeed. “In the heart of Europe,” millions of people “were sent to a death so calculated, so hideous, and so prolonged that no age before this enlightened one had been able to imagine it, much less achieve and record it.” “The fact of the Third Reich alone,” Baldwin observed, “makes obsolete forever any question of Christian superiority, except in technological terms.” If this was the record of the “White God,” it is not surprising that those seduced by the NOI [Nation of Islam] were ready to give the “Black God” a chance (pp. 158-159).

Here, then, were the two men who met in Cambridge in 1965. That amazing debate is worth watching. Baldwin is largely considered to have won the debate (those in the room voted 544 to 164 to that effect). I would agree. Still, take the time to watch and listen. The selections from the book mentioned above will help give some context. But if you really want to get the most out of it and if you really want to understand all of the currents and crosscurrents, both personal and social, that were at play in that debating hall, you can do much worse than read Buccola’s book.

So who’s side am I on? Simply put, I stand with Baldwin in his plea for racial justice and I stand with Buckley on the truthfulness of Christianity. Buckley’s lamentable inconsistencies in practicing his faith are just that: lamentable inconsistencies, hypocrisies. Should they be condemned? Indeed. I hereby condemn them! But does that mean that Buckley has nothing to offer in other areas? No. Of course not. It does not mean that and many of his works may still be read with profit.

I believe that Baldwin is not beyond critique either. Some of his philosophical assertions strike me as vacuous and naive as do some of his theological musings. But those do not negate his call for equality, for justice. Baldwin too can be read with profit, but must also be read with care.

This is a very interesting and thought-provoking book about two complex men addressing issues that remain critically important to our own day. Well worth reading!

In his truly fascinating book, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, Alan Kreider describes a practice that was widespread in the early church, the “kiss of peace.” Kreider writes:

After the believers have concluded the prayers, according to Tertullian “they shall give the kiss of peace.” Tertullian is the inventor of the term “the kiss of peace.”…When Tertullian wrote, peacemaking in worship already had a considerable history. From a very early date, both the author of the Didache and Hermas saw reconciliation as a precondition for the community to celebrate the Lord’s Supper; and in the mid-second century, in the early stages of the morning service tradition, Justin Martyr reported that in his Roman house church “we greet each other with a kiss” after the common prayers, evidently as a means of preparing relationships for the Eucharist that followed immediately. In the morning service tradition, the peace greeting occupied a sensitive, crucial position between these central actions of early Christian worship, the prayers and the Lord’s Supper. The kiss of peace formed a ritual bridge between them that had its own significance. At the heart of Christian worship was a community whose habitus both celebrated and made peace.[1]

Christians early on exchanged a “kiss of peace” as a sign that their relationships had been transformed in and through Christ Jesus. The practice came from Romans 16:16a, “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” It was act that had to be monitored, of course, for it could give way to abuses. So you find in the early church warnings about keeping the “kiss of peace” chaste and appropriate and worshipful. This practice has continued into our own day in some churches literally and in many other churches verbally through the “passing of the peace.” In these churches there is a time in the service in which the congregants go to one another and say something like, “The peace of God with you” and you are to respond, “And also with you.” This is one modern continuation of the “kiss of peace” without the awkwardness (for modern Americans) of an actual kiss. And, perhaps more familiar to us, the tradition has continued on in many churches in the form of the handshake and hug that happens in our worship services. These are all varied modern expressions of the ancient Christian “kiss of peace.”

Now, I am not in favor of bringing back a literal kiss of peace. There is too wide a cultural disconnect and I can frankly think of few things more horrific in modern North American churches than asking everybody to start kissing one another! But what intrigues me is the fact that this practice was so ubiquitous in the early church. In his book Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church Michael Philip Penn calls the “kiss of peace” “one of the most prevalent features of early Christianity.”[2]

In fact, intentional efforts at fostering peace in the body of Christ are evident in numerous ways in the history of the early church, be they symbolic or more literal. Kreider quotes the early Christian Clement in this regard:

Throughout his writings, Clement described these nonkilling, nonadulterous people as people of peace who are formed in catechesis. God has created humans to be peaceable: “man is an instrument made for peace.” But humans have been stunted by sin. The catechumenate is a time to “cut out sins like parasitic growths.” In the course of their catechesis, God’s people “are educated not for war but for peace.” Clement comments: “We do not train our women like Amazons to manliness in war; since we wish the men even to be peaceable.” In their catechesis Christians become “a peaceful people,” “soldiers of peace” in God’s “bloodless army” who wear “the armor of peace.” Marshaled by God in “the ranks of peace,” they “stand in array against the evil one.” The peaceableness of the Christians’ culture is expressed by telltale things, such as the signet rings Christians buy in the markets to authenticate documents. What images should there be on these rings? According to Clement, the rings may have an intaglio of “a fish or ship in full sail . . . or a ship’s anchor” but not of “a sword or bow, for we cultivate peace.”[3]

When I hear all of this I am left with an obvious question: if peacemaking and peacekeeping was such a fundamental value in the life of the beleaguered early church, why is it not so in our own day? If the early Christians fought so hard for peace, why do we simply assume that peace just happens, on its own, as it were?

No, peace does not just happen. Peace is cultivated and fostered and fought for in churches of peace. And this happens especially in times of conflict and community distress. This raises another interesting and important question: what exactly should the church do when conflict arises in her midst? What is our job, the job of the community of Christ, the wider church, when members in her midst begin to clash?

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Matthew 3

¹ In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ² “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” ³ For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” ⁴ Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, ⁶ and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. ⁹ And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰ Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ¹¹ “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

My father once told me about something interesting that happened when he and my mother visited the city of Assisi in Italy. Their tour guide was a Franciscan, a monk in the order founded by St. Francis, Assisi’s most famous son. Their guide, he said, was wearing the Franciscan habit—a brown robe with a thrice-knotted rope belt—but it was, my father went on to explain, a very nice robe and rope! It looked to have been tailored and made of very nice fabric. In all, the guide looked clean and well-dressed in his seemingly not-inexpensive Franciscan habit.

My father said that at one point in the tour there came around the corner toward them another Franciscan brother. But this one looked different. His brown robe was old and frayed and threadbare. It had obviously not been tailored. The rope belt was dirty and frazzled. He looked, my father said, like something out of Francis’ own day, like he came from that first group of zealous men who took up with Francis of Assisi so very long ago. This less-refined monk did not have the amiable face of a tour-guide either. He looked stern and focused.

My dad said that as this other Franciscan passed them by he noticed the look that he gave their tour guide. He said it was a look of exasperation, of judgment. The haggard Franciscan, in that brief moment, communicated with his eyes that he did not care much for the tour guide Franciscan. My dad said it looked like a clash of different worlds in just that instant and he wondered what the two men thought of each other.

I thought of that while reading our text about John the Baptist. There was something old-school about John, something very different from the other religious leaders of the day. John was dressed haggard and odd. His diet was raw and made one flinch: locusts and honey! He wore a camel hair garment. And he looked askance at the comfortable clergy of the day, the leaders and rulers of the people in their nice robes with their cushy stations in life.

We are privileged in Matthew 3 to see what happened when John and these others crossed paths. Who was this odd man, John the Baptist? What exactly was this seemingly surly, cantankerous prophet up to? And why exactly was he so important? Why did Jesus call John the Baptist one of the greatest of all time?

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Galatians 2

¹¹ But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹² For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. ¹³ And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. ¹⁴ But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

I once attended a church business meeting when I was a college student in which tempers flared over the question of whether or not to adopt the proposed budget. I remember being amazed and uncomfortable when an elderly man who was opposing the budget turned on the elderly lady who was sitting at the organ bench and berated her for a comment she had made.

In another and later instance, I presided over a business meeting in which one member turned on another church member and called him out for his bad attitude after the first had made a negative comment (one of many, as I recall).

Both of these were awkward moments. As I look back on them I felt, perhaps, that one of them was appropriate and one was inappropriate. But even as I ponder these situations I am uneasy. It raises an interesting and important question: does conflict resolution in the shadow of the cross ever call for public confrontation in the body of Christ?

Certainly we would want to say that public confrontation, ideally, should never happen and that if it happens it is usually wrong, given the carelessness with which human beings tend to handle such. Usually it is the case that public confrontation results from public outbursts of temper. But is that always the case and is it always wrong? After all of these careful considerations concerning conflict resolution we have looked at through this journey, we must now ask whether or not there is ever a time for public correction?

In Galatians 2, Paul recounts an instance in which he publicly rebuked Peter for something that Peter did. It is an astonishing passage! David Platt and Tony Merida call this text “one of the most dramatic and tense episodes in all of the New Testament.”[1] It is so surprising and uncomfortable that some interpreters over the years could not bring themselves to believe that it even really happened! “Some early church leaders (Origen, Chrysostom and Jerome) could not believe that this conflict really occurred,” writes G. Walter Hansen, “They explained that Paul and Peter must have staged the conflict to illustrate the issue at stake.”[2]

Well our text certainly does not sound like it was staged. We can almost certainly reject that notion outright. No, what Paul says happened actually happened. Paul publicly rebuked Peter. Why? And should this ever occur today?

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Matthew 2

¹³ Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” ¹⁴ And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt ¹⁵ and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” ¹⁶ Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. ¹⁷ Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: ¹⁸ “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” ¹⁹ But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, ²⁰ saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” ²¹ And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. ²² But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. ²³ And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Matthew’s account of the holy family’s flight to Egypt is fascinating and theologically rich. David Platt writes that “when Jesus and His family flee to Egypt and then later return from Egypt, Matthew helps us see that Jesus inaugurates the new exodus.” This seems clear enough. Matthew, whose interactions with Old Testament texts and themes is so very powerful and thorough, is depicting Jesus as the new and greater Moses in this text. Platt then adds that “[t]he flight to Egypt for Jesus and His family was about much more than simply running away from Herod; this was about painting a picture…”[1]

I like that: it was “about painting a picture.” That is a helpful idea, and true! And what is the picture that is being painted? Again, is the picture of Christ as the new and greater Moses leading His people out of bondage. This is true, but what is really amazing is to see just how nuanced and detailed the picture that Matthew paints of this scene truly is! In this recasting of the Exodus in the person and work of Jesus, Matthew truly touches on the primary aspects of the great episode in Israel’s history. In doing so, he lifts it to new heights showing how it was but a foreshadowing of the person and work of Christ.

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You will notice that we are not calling this series “Conflict Management in the Shadow of the Cross.” We are calling it “Conflict Resolution in the Shadow of the Cross.” The goal of Christians in conflict is to press toward resolution using all of the wisdom and guidance that God has offered us in His Word and under the leading and prompting of the Holy Spirit. In the first part of our consideration of what to do when conflict comes we laid out three initial steps:

1. Assess the conflict from the perspective (1) of heaven and (2) of the other person.
2. Move quickly with forgiveness and/or an apology.
3. Keep the circle of conflict as small as possible for as long as possible.

We now continue with steps 4, 5, 6, and 7. Each of these steps are rooted in scripture and each is geared toward resolution and the reestablishment of unity. What is more, each step must be taken in love and genuine concern for peace and the other’s well-being as opposed to taking them mechanistically or in a detached spirit of simply checking the boxes.

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Matthew 2

¹ Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, ² saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” ³ When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; ⁴ and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. ⁵ They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: ⁶ “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” ⁷ Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. ⁸ And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” ⁹ After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. ¹¹ And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. ¹² And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

In his book Is the New Testament Reliable? Paul Barnett pointed out a very interesting possibility related to the star of Bethelehem. He writes:

Every 805 years the planets Jupiter and Saturn draw near to each other.  Astronomers have calculatedthat in 7 BC the two planets were conjoined three times – in May, September and December and that in February, 6 BC they were joined by Mars, presenting a spectacular triangular conjunction.  It appears likely that the magoi, knowing the ancient star prophecy, on seeing the brilliant planetary formation, decided to visit Judaea to see the new king of the world.  Incidentally, the Biblical record does not say there were three magoi.

            In 1871 the astronomer John Williams published his authoritative list of sightings of Comets. Comet number 52 on Williams’ list appeared for seventy days early in 5 BC and would have been visible in the Middle East.  Was this the “star” which guided the magoi?  Why did Herod kill the boys who were two years old and younger?  Could this figure be explained by the time in 7-6 BC when the conjunction of the stars appeared?

            Time Magazine, in its cover story of 27 December 1976, commented that while “there are those who dismiss the star as nothing more than a metaphor…others take the Christmas star more literally, and not without reason.  Astronomical records show that there were several significant celestial events around the time of Jesus’ birth.”[1]

I find things like this interesting, natural explanations for miracles. Seen from the human and scientific perspective, perhaps there is something to it. But, of course, if this is so, then astronomical history would only be confirming what scripture said happened, not getting behind the event to the why of it. For that, only scripture can help. And scripture does give us the why of the event of the star: it is bound up in God’s loving and gracious giving of the Son for salvation and life to a lost world. The star is a signpost, yes, pointing the magi to Christ. Yet, it is more than that. It is also a sign of coronation, for the baby that was born is a King, a King, in fact, above all other kings. We will let this understanding of Christ as King guide us in our approach to the amazing events of Matthew 2.

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Matthew 1

¹⁸ Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. ²⁰ But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ²³ “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). ²⁴ When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, ²⁵ but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Just when you thought you had heard it all, I offer you the following from                                          www.st-josephstatue.com:

St Joseph Statue

Saint Joseph has helped thousands of people to sell their homes and other real estate. The biggest part of this help is to give you faith in Saint Joseph and yourself; the belief that you now will sell your house with the help and blessing of Saint Joseph. So if you need help to sell your real estate or another house please read more on our Saint Joseph Statue homepage.

Sell My House

Do you have friends that are having trouble selling their real estate? Are you about to put your own house out in the home sales market? Have you tried everything but still haven´t sold your house? Are you in the real estate business and need an extra incentive for your customers?
– In all cases above you have come to the right place. The use of a St Joseph statue and the belief in St Joseph is a tradition known all over the world for helping you to sell your house in a smooth way. To bury a statue of Saint Joseph is both a wonderful tradition and a great gift to friends and customers.

The Home Seller Kit

There are some different home sales kit from which you may choose. It is not that important which one you prefer, the most important thing is that you have faith in yourself and in Saint Joseph. You can read more about how to use the home selling kit here.[1]

I actually first heard of this in Georgia a number of years ago when a lady mentioned it to me. She said that she had buried a statue of Joseph upside down in the yard and that her house sold not too long thereafter. She appeared to be a believer in this.

To put it mildly, I am not. But I am a fan of Joseph the earthly father of Jesus. Some call Joseph Jesus’ “foster father” or “step father.” All of these titles are efforts to recognize that God, of course, was truly Jesus’ father. But there was a man who loved Mary, the mother of Jesus, and this man played a very important role in the story of Jesus’ first advent. Even so, it seems like we never quite know what to do with Joseph. We either say a few polite words about him and move on, or we try to do strained detective work to figure out exactly what happened to him, or we ignore him outright, or, heaven forbid, we bury statues of poor Joseph upside down in our yards as some sort of real estate hocus pocus.

Yet, behind all of these approaches stands Joseph the man. All that really matters for us on this side of heaven is what we know of him from scripture. As it turns out, the portrait that scripture paints of Joseph is a beautiful portrait indeed.

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Sometimes conflicts come upon us so stealthily that we seemingly wake to find ourselves in the midst of strife with another person. There are those who love conflict. That cannot be denied. Even so, I suspect that many are frustrated to find that despite their best efforts not to be involved in conflicts, they sometimes cannot avoid them. And I would say this is true: try as we might, we will at times find ourselves in conflicts. Of course, at other times, there really is no great mystery to it at all, is there? Sometimes we know perfectly well why we are in the midst of conflict and it is because we caused it! Sometimes—perhaps more rarely than we like to tell ourselves—we find ourselves in conflicts because there truly is a matter of righteousness and unrighteousness at stake. Sometimes issues are black and white.

What, then, do we do? How do we handle conflicts? While exceptional situations may call for unusual and varied responses, I believe that scripture gives us certain strong and guiding principles that, if adhered to, can greatly lesson the amount of conflicts in our lives.

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Matthew 1

¹ The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. ² Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, ³ and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, ⁴ and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, ⁵ and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, ⁶ and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, ⁷ and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, ⁸ and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, ⁹ and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, ¹⁰ and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, ¹¹ and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. ¹² And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, ¹³ and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, ¹⁴ and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, ¹⁵ and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, ¹⁶ and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. ¹⁷ So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

James Montgomery Boice tells a fascinating story about a young man who came to know Jesus through reading and wrestling with the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke.

       Ron Blankley, a former area director of Campus Crusade for Christ, was walking through the student union of the University of Pennsylvania one day when he saw a student reading a Bible. He remembered Philip’s approach to the Ethiopian, so he walked over to the student, introduced himself, and asked, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”

       The student replied, “No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. I’m reading the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, and I don’t understand them because they seem to be different.” Blankley had been at Tenth Presbyterian Church the Sunday immediately before this when, curiously enough, I had explained the genealogies exactly as I have just done here. He explained them to this student, and as a result of that explanation, the young man came to faith in Jesus Christ as his Savior.[1]

This is a reminder that I and, perhaps, all of us need, for the genealogies of scripture can too easily become “fly-over country” for many modern readers. We assume, wrongly, that all of those strange names perhaps meant something to the original readers (if they meant anything even to them!) but they cannot mean much to us. When we hear a story like Boice’s above, however, we are reminded of the amazing fact that all scripture truly is God’s word and can therefore be used mightily of God for the salvation of sinners. We skip over or skim these sections to our own loss.

Let us, then, listen carefully to these words which, while strange sounding in many ways, are yet “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16) and valuable! What does this geneaology tell us?

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