Good morning. Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. At
first that seems arrogant – we would never have the audacity to tell someone to
do that of us. However it does say as Paul imitated Christ, not everything he
did. I praise you because you hold firmly to the traditions, just as I
delivered them to you. Now traditions in the church can be a bad thing. A
church has been doing a certain thing for dozens of years. When it was first
started, it may have been a great thing; but now they dare not do anything
differently, and anyone who suggests doing something different is a heretic.
The traditions Paul is talking about are those from the beginning of the church
on the day of Pentecost. And now what many have made to be a controversial
verse. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and
the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ. Some have used
that verse to say that whatever the husband says, the wife must submit to it
without any argument. Others say that it has to do with spiritual authority –
that ultimately the husband is responsible for the spiritual direction of the
family, though not a dictator. After all, it says that God was the head of
Christ. God was not a dictator to Christ. Remember that in the garden Jesus
said, Father, if it be Thy will… Father thank You that ultimately You are our head.
Help us to listen to Your directions constantly.
Merry Christmas!
Good morning, and Merry Christmas! We are going to digress and look at the first Christmas. This was something that had been foretold centuries before; and yet people still did not understand what was going to happen. They were thinking that the Messiah was going to come as an adult and was going to re-establish the nation of Israel above all other nations. They were not expecting Him to come as a baby, supposedly born to a carpenter and placed in a manger. Many things had to happen at precisely the right time. You had to have the right person to be His mother and the right person to be His supposed father. You had to have a reason for them to be in Bethlehem on the night He was born – the census. It had to be when shepherds would be in the field near Bethlehem watching their flocks. And just at the right time – an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them...
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