Away in a Manger, Humiliated

The great conundrum of weakness and power.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Luke 2:6–7

IF YOU’VE EVER HAD the enjoyable (and chaotic) experience of being involved in a children’s Christmas play, you probably remember the scene at the inn. Perhaps you were cast as the stern innkeeper whose first-century version of a Motel 6 was full for the night. Eventually, his reluctant generosity overtakes him and he makes space for the young couple out back with the animals. Or perhaps you were cast as a sheep. (“There are no small parts,” they said).

It’s almost a throwaway verse for Luke, helping to explain why the Savior of the world ended up in a feeding trough for his first night on the planet. But attentive readers of Luke’s entire gospel will see that he takes great care throughout his narrative to highlight the state of contrasts (rich vs. poor; proud vs. humble) that surround Jesus, and in particular the contrasting responses to Jesus. Luke 2:7, then, is no throwaway.

Not only does it highlight the incredible humiliation that Jesus and his family endured (and which Jesus continued to choose throughout his life and ministry), but it hints at something else—something that would also be a continued theme throughout Jesus’ life: Rejection.

Consider that Joseph and Mary were returning to their hometown, Bethlehem, where there no doubt would have been extended family still residing, and many more returning for the census. It would have been customary (if not an absolute given) for Mary and Joseph to be invited to stay with relatives. Most houses had guest rooms of some kind, for situations just like this. For context, Luke uses the word translated “inn” in the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:3 when referring to an actual commercial inn, whereas the translation here seems to refer more closely to a guest room. Are we to assume that all the guest rooms in every home of any relative of Joseph’s were full? Wouldn’t priority have been given to a very pregnant relative?

The answer would have likely been “yes,” unless there was a stigma associated with this pregnancy. Unless Mary and Joseph arrived in his hometown under the whispers and cuteye of a shameful situation.

The fact that the Son of God was born in a cave set aside for animals instead of a warm, safe, and much more sanitary guest room, surrounded by a doting and loving family, is not simply a product of a busy night on the motel strip. We should read this as another prophetic foreshadowing of just how difficult life was going to be for Jesus and his parents. The stigma, shame, and resulting rejection by extended family and friends made clear in this manger scene is a recurring theme in the Gospels.

The manger represents not only the humility of Jesus but also his humiliation. The manger in which he was laid is as much a symbol of rejection as is the cross on which he died. It tells us that from the beginning to the end, our Savior’s life was marked, scarred, and difficult.

And yet, we cannot miss what immediately follows verse 7 in Luke’s account: At the same time that he was being shamed and rejected by the ones he came to save, all the hosts of heaven were declaring his honor, his glory and his reign. Indeed, the shepherds who also felt a sense of rejection and ignominy would come running to see and worship him, caught up in the great mystery, the great conundrum of humiliation and glory; of weakness and power.

Vijay Krishnan is the lead pastor at The Well in the Greater Toronto Area. Vijay, Jennifer and their 3 boys love being a part of what God is doing through the local church.

This article is part of A Time for Wonder, a 4-week devotional to help individuals, small groups, and families journey through the 2024 Advent season. Learn more about this special issue that can be used Advent, or any time of year at http://orderct.com/advent.

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Church Life

Glory in the Eyes of the Shepherds

Julia Bartel

How angelic wonder initiates the announcement of Christmas.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Luke 2:9–11

“DO NOT BE AFRAID.” Each time an angel appears in Luke’s nativity story, they say these words. Mary hears them from Gabriel during the Annunciation; Gabriel speaks them to Zechariah, too, when he appears in the temple (Luke 1:13, 30). Now, in the breaking dawn of Christmas, we hear them a third time as humble shepherds witness an inbreaking of supernatural wonder in the unlikeliest of places.

Angels represent God’s power and glory whenever they appear in the biblical narrative. Their holiness is otherworldly to us; they may be the closest thing in the Bible to aliens. Their appearance in the world initiates an overlapping of heavenly reality with earthly life so powerful and extraordinary that it causes those who see it to fall on their faces in awe and fear. Luke 2 details the terror that the shepherds felt as “the glory of the Lord shone around them” (v. 9). They were utterly overwhelmed by the sight.

It seems odd that heavenly beings, messengers of the Lord in all their extraordinary glory, would rush to comfort those who are witnessing this power. Yet here, that is exactly what the angel does. “Do not be afraid,” he tells them, and goes on to share the news of “great joy for all the people:” the Messiah has been born (vv. 9–10).

That God’s heavenly messengers speak words of reassurance, as they often do throughout their biblical appearances, points to the character of God and to the way the supernatural world is ordered under him. In this moment in Luke 2, the angel’s majestic glory points not to himself, but to the greater glory of the incarnate God; his words of consolation point to the Savior who, at that moment, had finally arrived to bring comfort to a hurting world. The moment of announcement to the shepherds juxtaposes the terrifying glory of the Lord with his loving purposes: using his power not to harm, but to comfort; not to scare, but to strike with wonder; altogether pointing to Jesus, in whom these seemingly diametric aspects of God’s character are perfectly united.

As the shepherds heard the angel’s words of comfort and joy, awestruck—perhaps doing their best to comfort their frightened sheep—they witnessed only a sliver of the full glory of the Good Shepherd, the Great Comforter, the Sacrificial Lamb whose blood would redeem the world.

Julia Bartel is a recent graduate of the University of St Andrews’ Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts. She lives in Scotland.

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Church Life

The Ultimate Wonder

Gabrielle McCullough

Celebrating the dependence and sacrifice of Christmas Day.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Luke 2:1-20

I’LL NEVER FORGET the first moment the nurses laid him on my chest. The sound of a cry that screamed of helplessness. His body shocked by cold air but warmed by the comfort of my skin. The way his lips opened and closed, rooting for his hunger to be satisfied. The way his eyes were looking for someone who was looking at him. It’s in this kind of utter need that unconditional love is found. This love is what I find my days filled with in this season; both the joy and chaos of caring for a newborn baby boy, dependent on me in almost every way. He relies on me for nourishment, for comfort, for help in the big and small; he is physically and emotionally helpless without the care of his parents. It is now more than ever, on Christmas Day as I stare into the precious eyes of my baby son, that I am struck by the humility of our Savior who chose this state of vulnerability as his marvelous entrance into the world.

Luke 2:6–7 gives an account of this entrance, as “the time came for [Mary] to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (ESV). There was no palace, no red carpet rolled out for Jesus Christ. The Savior of the world, the king who is enthroned forever, was born of the virgin Mary and likely placed in a feeding trough used for animals. Our almighty God willingly chose dependence and weakness. He was subject to the full mortality of man in order that he might live a sinless life, and die a sinner’s death, to be our perfect substitute that we might be reconciled to the Father by grace through faith. It’s the greatest story of love and most radical expression of sacrifice in all of history. God became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14) so that he might save us through his life, death, and resurrection.

Both in our current era, where leadership is equated with a big stage and a large following, and in the Roman Empire, where force and domination were the norm, Jesus’ incarnation is the most countercultural form of leadership we can imagine. Where we are way too easily impressed by worldly markers of success, and search for significance in our own independence, Jesus’ birth and embrace of utter dependence completely flips the script on how we ought to view influence. His leadership is service; he bends down low and draws near to us in gentleness; he forfeits his might to lay his life down, both through his entrance in a manger and his exit on the cross.

As followers of Jesus and the way of life he offers his creation, the Christmas season offers an invitation to meditate on the humility of Jesus and seek to follow his lead. May we trade a craving for power for a craving for sacrifice. May we be marked by our patience with those who hurt us, our service to the least of these, and our unconditional love for our neighbor. And as we follow in his way, may we also assume a posture under his care as weak, needy, and dependent, for we are completely helpless without him. On Christmas Day, Jesus became weak in human form so that we might find life through him and his ultimate power.

Gabrielle McCullough is an evangelist and Bible teacher currently in Waco, Texas, eager about reaching all people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Church Life

An Invitation Written in the Stars

Ken Shigematsu

The wonder and conviction that lead us to the king.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Matthew 2:1–11

IN THE FILM CONTACT, there is an emotional scene where the astronomer Ellie Arroway, played by Jodie Foster, explains to her friend her decision to venture into outer space, despite the clear dangers. She says, “For as long as I can remember, I’ve been searching for something, some reason why we’re here. What are we doing here? Who are we? If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer . . . I don’t know, I think it’s worth a human life. Don’t you?”

We may not have a yearning to venture into outer space, but at a conscious or unconscious level, we all want to know why we’re here—we long to discover the meaning of our existence. Despite this innate human longing, we discover something surprising in another story with cosmic proportions. In the story of the Magi, it is revealed that we are not the greatest seekers—God is.

The Magi have been described across many centuries as the wise men. Were they wise? Yes, but not in the way we typically think of. They were experts in discerning the meaning of the stars.

A Jewish person would have regarded the Magi— magicians, astrologers, and sorcerers—as idolaters, as Gentiles who were racial, cultural, and spiritual outsiders in the family of the one true God.

So why does Matthew include these Gentiles in an account written primarily to Jews? It seems that Matthew wants to show us that God seeks outsiders and invites them to the birthday party of his Son. No matter what our racial or cultural background, regardless of what we have or haven’t done, or how we feel we’ve fallen short of our own standards or our Creator’s—God also seeks us out.

In Matthew’s account, we see that while the star leads the Magi to Jerusalem, it’s Scripture that ultimately leads them to Jesus. When King Herod heard about the star that announced the birth of the great king, he gathered all the high priests and religious scholars and asked where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem,” they answered. Then they quoted words of Scripture from Micah 5:

But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are not the least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you shall come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel. (Matt. 2:6)

The star got the Magi to the “target” of Jerusalem, but it was Scripture that took them to the “bull’s-eye” of Bethlehem—to Jesus. God can use all kinds of things, including beauty and affliction, to draw us closer to Jesus, but the vehicle that God often uses to lead us most clearly to Jesus is Scripture.

However, simply being exposed to Scripture or knowing the Bible isn’t enough. The chief priests and teachers of the law knew that a star had announced the birth of the great king and that this anointed ruler, the Messiah, would be born in Bethlehem, yet they did not make the brief six-mile journey there.

It’s possible for us to be exposed to Scripture and yet not respond. Years later, Jesus would say to the religious elite, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39–40).

This Advent, as we allow the wonder of the stars and the conviction of Scripture to lead us afresh to Jesus, we can know great joy like the Magi of old. And also like the Magi, as we bow down in adoration before Jesus, we will find in him the true meaning of our lives.

Ken Shigematsu is the senior pastor of Tenth Church in Vancouver. He’s the author of bestsellers God in My Everything and Survival Guide for the Soul.

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News

Died: ‘Late Great Planet Earth’ Author Hal Lindsey

Daniel G. Hummel

He brought apocalyptic theology to the masses, arguing the Bible has the answer to the question “What happens next?”

Courtesy of the Hal Lindsey Report / edits by Christianity Today

Hal Lindsey, who popularized end times theology by connecting biblical prophecy to current and near-future events, died on November 25 at the age of 95.

Lindsey became a household name in America in the 1970s with the success of The Late Great Planet Earth, which he cowrote with journalist Carole C. Carlson. The book sold an estimated 35 million copies by the end of the century, and several follow-up titles, including Satan Is Alive and Well on Planet Earth and Planet Earth Two Thousand AD: Will Mankind Survive? were also bestsellers.

Lindsey’s books demonstrated an incredible appetite for apocalyptic speculation in America and paved the way for many other prophecy writers, including Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, and Joel Rosenberg. He brought the once-obscure theology of dispensationalist premillennialism into the mainstream, introducing wide audiences to the concepts of the Rapture, the Antichrist, and the mark of the beast.

Lindsey’s lasting legacy is perhaps most clearly seen in the way those ideas have been adopted and adapted with great flexibility, from critics of COVID-19 vaccines saying immunization might be the mark of the beast to Jewish comedians Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg proving their film-writing talent with a Rapture movie.

Lindsey, for his part, believed applying Scripture to the “signs of the times” was the best way to demonstrate that Scripture was not only relevant to modern life but also urgent. The Bible had the answer to all of life’s questions, he said, including “What happens next?”

“There are other places men search for answers: philosophy, meditation, changing environment, science,” Lindsey and Carlson wrote in the opening of The Late Great Planet Earth. “Let’s give God a chance to present His view.”

Harold Lee “Hal” Lindsey was born in 1929 in Houston. He joined the US Coast Guard during the Korean War and served in New Orleans, where he worked as a tugboat captain. Though he attended church regularly, it was not until a near-death experience on the Mississippi River that Lindsey grew serious about his personal faith. In 1955, after meeting with a prominent Houston pastor, Robert Thieme of Berachah Church, Lindsey had a born-again experience. Faith became central to his life—and so did prophecy.

Thieme, who was called “the Colonel” by his congregation, was a self-described fundamentalist and an avid proponent of the theological system called dispensationalism. To understand the Bible, dispensationalism said, one had to see how God related to people differently in different historic epochs.

The interpretive approach was developed in 19th century prophecy conferences and the fundamentalist movement in the early 20th century. It was codified with the Scofield Reference Bible, compiled by Cyrus I. Scofield and published by Oxford University Press in 1909. Notes in the Scofield Bible explained to readers that God had two chosen peoples: the Jewish people, known as Israel, and the church. The former would fulfill God’s earthly plans while the latter, made up of gentiles, would reign with God in heaven.

Lindsey studied this approach to Scripture with Thieme and then went to Dallas Theological Seminary, a center of dispensationalist theology. He graduated in 1962 with a degree in Greek New Testament.

After seminary, he joined Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru) and moved to the University of California, Los Angeles, to evangelize students. He started a Bible study focused on prophecy. Week by week, Lindsey spoke about current crises facing baby boomers, including the war in Vietnam, protests, riots, the exploding counterculture, conflict in the Middle East, and the threat of nuclear war. He told the students it was all predicted by the Bible.

“We are able to see … predictions made centuries ago being fulfilled before our eyes,” Lindsey explained. “A person can be given a secure and yet exciting view of his destiny by making an honest investigation of the tested truths of Bible prophecy.”

The Bible studies became wildly popular, drawing both skeptical college kids who were nonetheless curious about the future fate of the world and young Christians who were thrilled by the way Lindsey could make the Bible seem relevant.

“I recall, almost wistfully, the sense of excitement, intensity, and urgency we felt as Hal linked the Scripture to our world, our dilemmas, our questions,” wrote Chris Hall, a theology professor who attended Lindsey’s Bible studies as an undergraduate. “As Hal interpreted apocalyptic images from Daniel and Revelation, a new world opened up—a world that God controlled, even in its worst moments, and promised both to redeem and judge.”

After six years, however, Lindsey’s success became a problem for Campus Crusade. Founder Bill Bright worried the group was becoming too closely associated with what he called a “particular theological hobbyhorse.”

Lindsey decided to start his own ministry, the Jesus Christ Light and Power Company. Headquartered in a former frat house at the edge of the UCLA campus, he continued to hold popular weekly Bible studies that invariably connected Scripture and current events.

His teaching reached a wider audience in 1970, when Zondervan, at the time a small Christian publisher, released The Late Great Planet Earth. The book, cowritten with Carlson, sold 500,000 copies within a few years.

It was successful enough that Bantam Books, a mainstream publisher, picked up options for a mass-market paperback. Bantam released its edition in 1971 and sold it in hundreds of thousands of locations across the US—at newsstands, bus stations, airports, and supermarkets, not to mention bookstores—right alongside other popular paperbacks, including The Exorcist, East of Eden, The Catcher in the Rye, the Warren Commission report on the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, fiction about sex in the counterculture, and Agatha Christie novels.

The Late Great Planet Earth sold more than 10 million copies before the end of the 1970s, becoming the best-selling nonfiction book of the decade.

Lindsey’s vision of the approaching apocalypse was not innovative, even though his style was intended to reach baby boomers in their early adulthood. He stuck to the accepted dispensationalist timeline for the unfolding of biblical prophecy. Before the return of Christ, he said, four prophetic events had to be fulfilled. Three of them involved the Jewish people: They needed to return to their land, recapture Jerusalem, and rebuild the temple destroyed by Roman legions in the year 70. The fourth involved Christians and could happen at any moment: the Rapture.

With the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the victory in the Arab-Israeli War in 1967, when the Jewish people took Jerusalem, two of the four steps had been fulfilled, indicating the end was in fact quite near.

Lindsey had a popular touch that his dispensationalist teachers at Dallas Seminary lacked. Where most dispensationalist writing had been technical and byzantine, Lindsey jettisoned the old jargon and adopted the easy style of the baby boomers. He called the rapture “the ultimate trip” and dubbed the Antichrist the “Future Fuhrer.”

“We have been described as the ‘searching generation,’” he explained, including himself in the group born two and three decades after him. “We need so many answers—answers to the larger problems of the world, answers to the conditions in our nation, and most of all, answers for ourselves.”

Lindsey realized prophecy preaching could have mass appeal, and he was right. After the success of the paperback, The Late Great Planet Earth was made into a television series and a film narrated by the legendary director Orson Welles.

Lindsey accrued a fortune with his book sales, media appearances, and multimedia products. In 1977, Publisher’s Weekly described him as “an Adventist-and-Apocalypse evangelist who sports a Porsche racing jacket and tools around Los Angeles in a Mercedes 450 SI.” In 1981, the Los Angeles Times reported that Lindsey was making “thousands of dollars a week” from combined sales of books, films, and cassette tapes. He also kept up a busy schedule of public speaking and consulting, meeting with low- and mid-level government officials around the globe to advise them on the future.

During the 1970s, Lindsey became convinced he should support politicians who would prepare the United States for what was to come. In The 1980’s: Countdown to Armageddon, he urged his Christian readers to support the US military buildup, including the expansion of America’s nuclear arsenal, while also opposing big government at home. The book, published with Bantam, sold 360,000 copies in 1980 and held a spot on The New York Times bestseller list for 20 weeks that election year. When Ronald Reagan entered the White House, administration officials made sure that Lindsey knew he had their ear.

In the midst of his professional success, Lindsey’s personal life suffered. His first marriage failed around the time of his conversion. He got divorced and remarried to Jan Houghton, who worked alongside him at Campus Crusade and appeared with Lindsey in author photos until the mid-1980s, when an updated edition of Late Great Planet Earth used a different picture and removed her name from the dedication.

Lindsey’s second divorce—and subsequent third and fourth marriages—raised questions about his character for many evangelicals. But the biggest blow to his reputation was his failed predictions.

In his early books, Lindsey said all of the Bible’s prophecy would likely be fulfilled “within forty years or so of 1948,” when the nation of Israel was founded, based on his typological reading of Matthew 24. He qualified his prediction, giving himself an escape hatch with phrases like “or so.” But few readers came away with the impression that Lindsey was unsure whether Christ would return by 1988.

CT asked Lindsey about the risk of failed predictions when he published The Terminal Generation.

“There’s just a split second’s difference between a hero and a bum,” Lindsey said. “I didn’t ask to be a hero, but I guess I have become one in the Christian community. So I accept it. But if I’m wrong about this, I guess I’ll become a bum.”

When 1988 came and went and the Soviet Union, one of the main objects of dispensational analyses, ultimately collapsed, Lindsey was forced to defend himself and his end times speculation. He directed his book The Road to Holocaust at evangelicals and fellow conservatives in 1989, making the case for the continued relevance of dispensationalist interpretations of Scripture and current events.

While he was dismissed and marginalized by many evangelicals, Lindsey continued to see commercial success. Retooling his analysis for a post–Cold War geopolitics, he returned to bestseller lists with Planet Earth Two Thousand AD: Will Mankind Survive? in 1994.

That same year, Lindsey began the prophecy-oriented television news show International Intelligence Briefing, which eventually found a home on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The show was renamed The Hal Lindsey Report in 2007.

Lindsey continued offering commentary on current events, connecting them to biblical prophecy, until a few months before his death. The fall of the Soviet Union; the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001; and the war on terror all prompted him to reevaluate his interpretations of prophecy, a process he seemed to relish. He spoke about the 2024 election and Israel’s war with Hamas.

“Remember that all this was foretold by the prophets, and it leads to something wonderful—the return of Jesus,” Lindsey said. “So, stay faithful. Continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Draw especially close to the Lord and His Word in this hour. Spread the good news of God’s amazing salvation.”

Lindsey is survived by his three daughters from his second marriage, Robin, Heidi, and Jenny, and his wife JoLyn.

- More from Daniel G. Hummel

Culture

New Christmas Music with Just the Right Holiday Vibes

Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

From Matt Redman’s rich sing-alongs to CeCe Winans’s surprising crossovers, these 2024 releases are getting us in the spirit.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons, Getty

Have you ever heard a medley of “Feliz Navidad” and “O Holy Night”? I hadn’t either, until this year (thank you, CeCe Winans).

This batch of new Christmas releases was full of fun surprises: elaborately orchestrated arrangements of favorite carols, bluesy ballads, and an array of thoughtful, original songs reflecting on the arrival of Christ and the eternal echoes of the first Christmas.

Whether you’re looking for Christmas music to accompany hosting and feasting or gentle songs to listen to in a quiet house with a cup of cinnamon tea, there’s something here for you.

As I write this, I’m looking at our family’s first batch of Christmas cookies, creatively decorated by my three kids. (I’m calling it our test batch.) We listened to some of these albums as we mixed and frosted. Their favorite new song so far is Cochren & Co.’s “This Christmas.” I don’t have a favorite yet, but Ben Folds’s new album has been a nice accompaniment to these first chilly days.

Matt Redman—In Excelsis (EP)

Finding new, singable Christmas songs can be challenging for churches that want to include traditional carols alongside music that reflects their usual worship style. Matt Redman’s “When We Behold (In Excelsis)” borrows the familiar melody of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” making it an ideal seasonal congregational song to introduce at a time of year when people look forward to gathering and singing well-loved melodies.

The song is cowritten and performed by Redman and Jon Guerra, who replace the first verse of the hymn with lyrics that preserve the theme of “surveying” or “beholding” Christ in a new context:

When we behold that scene long ago,
Shepherds in fields under cover of night,
Breaking the silence, a heavenly choir,
As angels appeared in glorious light.

The EP also includes an arrangement of “Silent Night” and a song called “God the Son,” a hopeful, piano-driven original with rich string accompaniment, cowritten with Andrew Bergthold, Quintin Trotter, and W. David O. Taylor.

We Are Messengers—Rejoice! A Celtic Christmas (EP)

For fans of Keith and Kristyn Getty’s Irish Christmas music and tour, this release from We Are Messengers will be a welcome addition to the rotation of Celtic Christmas music. What is it about Celtic music that feels so cozy and perfect for Christmastime?

The festive, spirited arrangements of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” and “The Wexford Carol” showcase tuneful string lines and close vocal harmonies.

“Thorn and Thistle,” a contemplative original carol cowritten with Kristyn Getty, has a haunting, lilting melody reminiscent of “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.”

The lyrics meditate on the mysterious, even sorrowful realities of the Incarnation—that Christ’s arrival was good news to humanity but was also an act of sacrifice and love that brought a perfect God into contact with the world’s brokenness and darkness:

To a world of thorn and thistle,
Shadowed still by Eden’s fall,
On a night so unexpected,
Enters the Lord of all.

CeCe Winans—Joyful, Joyful: A Christmas Album

CeCe Winans has been a force in Christian music for decades, winning 15 Grammy Awards, 31 Dove Awards, and 19 Stellar Awards. Her new Christmas album—produced and cowritten with her son, Alvin Love III—showcases Winans’s iconic voice across high-energy gospel tracks, simple arrangements of carols, and dance-pop infused Christmas favorites.

The opening track, “Joy to the World,” is a pop-EDM setting of Isaac Watts’s classic hymn, infused with exuberant choral interjections. “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is a piano waltz with unexpected chromaticism and dramatic orchestral flourishes.

A surprising Latin jazz mash-up combines “Feliz Navidad” and “O Holy Night.” The final track is a simple setting of “Silent Night,” with Winans and a choir singing in resonant unison over guitar and orchestra.

Future of Forestry—Symphonic Christmas (Live)

Ambient rock artist and composer Eric Owyoung blends his electronic scoring techniques with the drama and dynamic range of a live orchestra for a unique, unified live project. The album begins with a plaintive solo of the first few lines of, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” dissolving into a gentle, uplifting “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.”

Owyoung’s orchestrations are lush, playing with texture and timbre to build a narrative arc into each track. A choral interlude in “Emmanuel” delivers wistful, close harmonies.

The closing track is a setting of “Joy to the World” over first suspenseful then increasingly anticipatory percussion and strings, finally breaking into a rock anthem setting of the hymn “All Creatures of our God and King.” It’s worth making time to listen to the album in its entirety to experience the emotional trajectory of the whole performance, from the first “O come, O come” to the final “rejoice.”

JJ Heller—The More The Merrier (full release Nov. 29)

Folk singer and songwriter JJ Heller’s vibrant voice and gift for lyrical imagery come together on an album of richly arranged Christmas favorites and thoughtful originals.

The personal, evocative “Thanksgiving Song” lovingly calls to mind encounters and images from family gatherings. “God With All of Us” is a stirring musical narration of human encounters with Christ as an infant—starting with an intimate vignette of Mary. Its anthemic chorus builds throughout the song:

God with us, close enough,
For our eyes to see and our hands to touch,
Hope for all, great and small,
God with us, God with all of us.

A very fun and un-grumpy cover of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” and a retro-jazz version of “Jingle Bells” both feature playful original orchestrations and a kids’ choir. The album has something for everyone looking to add to their Christmas playlists—whether for quiet morning reflections or a party.

Ben Folds—Sleigher

Fellow millennial indie pop enthusiasts rejoice—it’s a Ben Folds album, complete with the lively, bright piano riffs and cheery vocal melodies that listeners expect from Folds. Instrumental tracks like “Waiting for Snow” and “Little Drummer Bolero” draw on the same festive energy as Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown standards. Something about the jazz-pop piano harmony sounds like taking a walk on a still, snowy day.

“Sleepwalking Through Christmas” is a gently swung, bluesy track about going through the motions of merrymaking when your mind is somewhere else:

I’m sleepwalking through Christmas.
Everybody thinks that I’m awake.
I keep my eyes open; I’m eloquently spoken.
Oh, this might be the year I make a change.

The album has a magnetic blend of winter melancholy, introspection, and hopefulness that Folds always manages to turn into something warm and bright and comforting.

Jonathan McReynolds—Red & Green

Grammy Award–winner Jonathan McReynolds has become one of today’s most celebrated gospel vocalists, collaborating with artists like Marvin Winans and Chandler Moore. His first Christmas album is a gospel–R & B project with almost-cinematic scope in its arrangements and emotional range.

The title track, “Red & Green,” is a driving, feel-good pop anthem that showcases McReynolds’s vocal power and virtuosity.

“Sent Me a King,” a soulful duet featuring and cowritten by gospel singer and pianist Smokie Norful, is both personal and expansive in its reflection on Christ’s reign, proclaiming both “God sent me a king” and “God sent us a king.”

Tedashii—’Tis the Season

Celebrated Christian hip-hop artist Tedashii is known by his fans as a prolific rapper and member of the 116, a collective of artists signed to Reach Records (the label founded by Lecrae). Tedashii has had a long and successful career, helping build the Christian hip-hop scene and collaborating with artists like Trip Lee, Sho Baraka, KB, and Andy Mineo.

’Tis the Season is a departure from Tedashii’s usual musical output; it’s a warm, inviting collection of Christmas originals and rearrangements. His mellow singing voice is perfectly suited to the understated renditions of “Away in a Manger,” “The Christmas Song,” and “Silent Night.”

Alongside Christmas standards are several vibey romantic tracks—“Cold Outside” and “Christmas Call,” a charming, lighthearted duet featuring Christian electronic dance singer V. Rose—for anyone looking for something slightly steamy.

Cochren & Co.—The Company Christmas Album

Cochren & Co.’s Christmas album is a spirited southern-rock and blues-inflected collection of covers and originals. Lead singer Michael Cochren’s versatile and agile voice has the right amount of smoothness for an R & B standard like “This Christmas” and enough grain and soul for a driving, rough-and-tumble blues rendition of “Caroling, Caroling.”

“Ribbons and Bows” has the infectious, hook-driven flavor of a contemporary country ballad, and “That Spirit of Christmas” is a laid-back, loungy slow track. Both songs balance the sentimentality of familiar Christmas themes with fresh musical ideas and lyricism.

- More from Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

Church Life

From Village Girl to Evangelical Leader

Surinder Kaur

How Martha Das grew into a powerful voice for Bangladesh’s Christian minority.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Getty, Portrait Courtesy of Martha Das

Draped in a beautiful sari and smiling warmly, Martha Das stands out in any setting. As general secretary of the National Christian Fellowship of Bangladesh (NCFB), she is the only female leader of an evangelical alliance in Asia. Das’s rise to this position is a major milestone in her Muslim-majority nation of 174 million people, where fewer than half a million are Christians according to the 2022 census.

In her seven years as head of NCFB, Das has built unity among Christian leadership, managed crises, improved evangelical relations with the government, undertaken community development programs, and empowered women through various initiatives.

Asa Kain, superintendent of the Bangladesh Assemblies of God (BAG) and Das’s own pastor, praised her work in reorganizing the BAG national women’s ministry. “She does well to unite different denominations by her patient communication,” Kain said.

Born in the village Kotalipara about 90 miles from Dhaka, Das grew up in a nominal Christian family. Her mother was a deaconess in their small village church of about 15 families, where “few could read the Bible,” she recalled. “Therefore, no one taught us about the Bible, about Jesus, or at Sunday school.” Whatever they learned came from apastor from another community, who visited once a month to administer communion.

Despite this minimal access to Christian instruction, Das felt a pull toward God and the church at age nine. She would skip the first period of school every Sunday (as Bangladesh has weekly off on Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays are working days) to visit the church—often earning herself a smack on the face from her teacher for missing a class. “I didn’t feel embarrassment or shame; I thought to myself that I was not at fault, as I had gone to no other place but to church,” she said.

In 1987, at age 17, Das had a transformative spiritual experience. During the great floods in Bangladesh, a visiting Bible college student shared the gospel with her. “While he was sharing, I felt a strong force inside me, and suddenly, in the presence of my relatives, I went on my knees and accepted Jesus. He prayed over me, and joy, peace, and heat began to overflow inside me like a flood,” Das said.

This event sparked a passion for sharing her faith, and she soon began leading a youth group in her village. “So I got my first congregation,” Das said, laughing. The youth began to spend time meditating on God’s Word, fasting, singing, and praying, and “miracles of physical healing began to happen.”

Das’s early leadership was not without challenges. Her work aroused suspicion from her own mother and some older church members, and they asked Das not to gather the youth for prayer or Bible study. When the youth continued to meet at a different location, the Christian organization that was sponsoring Das’s college studies permanentaly suspended her scholarship. However, her determination led to the formation of a new church, which eventually grew to include many members from her community, including her parents.

An educational pioneer

Historically, few women in Bangladesh have pursued higher education. Das has sought to break that barrier, not only for herself but also for others.

“I wanted to see Bangladeshi young girls admitted to Bible colleges, so I wrote letters to the leadership requesting them to help them pursue studies,” she said.

Her own educational journey was full of obstacles, including visa issues and cultural expectations about marriage. Potential sponsors worried that if she went overseas to study, she would marry in that country and never return. To allay that concern, she agreed at age 20 to enter an arranged marriage with Dennis Das. Both of them then enrolled at Southern Asia Bible College (SABC) in Bangalore, India.

Jacob Cherian, a New Testament professor at SABC who taught the couple, called Martha Das an “engaged learner” whose “vibrant faith shone through.”

Upon returning to Bangladesh, the couple started a church near the Dhaka airport and initiated the formation of a slum school that grew to serve 180 children. In 2004, they earned MDiv degrees from Asia Pacific Theological Seminary in the Philippines.

Martha Das’s career progression included serving as BAG’s national ministry coordinator for women, head of the translation department for the Bangladesh Bible Society, and manager of Christian commitment at World Vision, where she was responsible for arranging spiritual retreats.

New direction for NCFB

In March 2017, Das became general secretary at NCFB. The position had been vacant for two years. When Das wondered why NCFB would hire a female and not a male, the alliance explained that they recognized her competence and valued having “a female figure with motherly qualities to trust and lead.”

“There should be no difference of gender,” said Philip Adhikary, chairman of NCFB. “We found Martha to be a right choice for this position whereas many male leaders weren’t.”

As she weighed whether to take the job, “God told me that he gave me good platforms and a lot of experience with different denominations and ethnic minorities,” Das said. “And if I do not step into this service, then who will? It also helped that I had the support of my husband and family.”

Demonstrating her leadership early on, Das persuaded denominational leaders to clear their outstanding dues and successfully raised sufficient funds for NCFB’s annual conference, challenging traditional expectations about women’s roles in organizational leadership.

As general secretary, Das said her primary mission is to foster unity not only among evangelicals but also within the wider Christian community and beyond, facilitating an effective witness of the gospel. When conflicts arise, Das steps in as a peacemaker and mediator. Her ecumenical influence extends further through her role as the secretary for the United Forum of Churches (UFCB), a collaborative platform that includes the NCFB, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, and the National Council of Churches in Bangladesh.

Das’s influence also extends beyond religious circles. Among her noteworthy achievements, Das delivered a speech at a Christmas function hosted by former president of Bangladesh Abdul Hamid in 2022.

Das sees her position as an opportunity to inspire other women, especially younger ones, to step into positions of responsibility. Adhikary, the NCFB chairman, affirmed that “as a woman, she [Das] can reach many women to follow her lead.”

As part of her effort to establish Christians’ credibility in Bangladesh, Das conducts programs with other faith leaders. The NCFB has also initiated dialogues to raise awareness around such issues as child protection, violence against women and children, and human rights, in partnership with World Vision Bangladesh and other organizations.

A determined leadership style

Das’s leadership style, which evangelical leaders say is characterized by humility, inclusivity, and strong faith, has received international appreciation. Grace Hee, executive director of the Asia Evangelical Alliance, called Das “a visionary leader with a righteous indignation. Despite limited resources, Martha identifies what needs to be done and pursues it with unwavering faith.”

Much of this was on display during the pandemic. When COVID-19 shut down houses of worship across the country, NCFB distributed relief to thousands of families through various denominations in several phases. Simultaneously, NCFB started various initiatives, including income-generation programs, to support hundreds of pastors who had been adversely affected by the lockdown

Along with leaders from UFCB, Das also spearheaded nationwide prayer initiatives while making theological and devotional resources available to the church at large.

Das is “a warm-hearted person” who is “pastoral and with a passion for evangelism, mission, and social justice in Bangladesh,” said Godfrey Yogarajah, chairman of the Asia Evangelical Alliance, noting her theological astuteness and her commitment to equipping younger leaders for kingdom work.

The 54-year-old leader maintains an ambitious workload despite excruciating pain in her back, for which she has undergone two surgeries that have yet to eliminate the discomfort.

Das continues to push the NCFB to stretch its capacity. In one case last year, she proposed an evangelism program in an unreached district but was turned down. “So we prayed for an entire year, and this year they said yes,” she added.

Another big challenge is the uncertainty Bangladeshi churches are facing due to the political unrest in the country. After student protests last July turned violent, the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, had to flee for her life in early August. While Islam is the official state religion of Bangladesh, activists—including some Christian leaders—continue to advocate for a more religiously pluralistic and inclusive national framework, seeking to protect the rights of religious minorities.

A firm advocate for a secular state, Das emphasized that “everyone should have the right to live in peace and harmony and propagate and practice their own religion.” However, she does not always experience such security herself. If she does not cover her head when walking in public, strangers sometimes approach her and insist that she do so.

“Many believers, especially those who converted from a majority background, face persecution and threats,” said Das, who noted that the Christian minority lacks a voice in Bangladesh’s parliament.

Das also hopes to address the lack of theologically trained leadership in the churches of Bangladesh.

Das is a “motivation for Asian women,” said Jyoti Bhattarai, a member of the Asia Evangelical Alliance Women’s Commission from Nepal. Bhattarai recalled that after their first meeting—which occurred after Das asked the predominantly male evangelical leadership in Nepal to introduce her to a Nepali female leader—“Martha called me many times to encourage and inspire me. It is only because of her that I am connected with the female leadership of Asia.”

Das reflected on the skepticism she encounters as a young woman occupying a high leadership position: “Some may even feel envious, though they don’t show it outwardly. I’ve come to understand that this isn’t their personal problem but rather a result of the culture they grew up in and the mindset they’ve developed.”

To navigate these cultural dynamics, Das has developed a nuanced approach. “I’ve learned to respect older leaders as I would my own parents,” she explained. “In that way, they treat me as if I were a younger family member rather than as a threatening authority figure. While the hierarchical mindset may never go away completely, I certainly do not expect them to put me on a pedestal. I maintain respect for their experience while fulfilling my role.”

Das’s husband, Dennis, who teaches at Gloria Theological Seminary in Dhaka, agreed that Bangladesh’s traditional social system “subjugated” women (under men) and that women had fewer opportunities than men, but he believes things have changed significantly.

“Women now receive free education, and gender discrimination is minimized in job settings through quotas for women in political leadership and through loans for women in business,” Dennis Das stated. “Churches are more in favor of encouraging female leadership due to their proactive involvement and greater participation.”

Das appreciates the progress. But she is still praying that more women will “help alongside men evangelizing the nation” and not be “left behind.”

Additional reporting by Morgan Lee

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Culture

Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Misunderstood

Paul Marchbanks

“Wicked” calls our judgments into question.

Cynthia Erivo is Elphaba in WICKED

Giles Keyte / Universal Pictures

Belief in wickedness both clarifies and complicates human relations. Accepting that an Adversary bent on our destruction actually exists, one who can’t be bargained with or appeased, places the sword of the Spirit in ready hands (Eph. 6:17). Configuring metaphysical struggles as active combat helps energize not only the prayer warrior on their knees but also the caregiver committed to returning love for endless demands and the day worker who braves mistreatment from a series of oppressive employers.

If we can remember that our true foe is neither the recalcitrant coworker nor the disgruntled family member, martial imagery can prove useful—focusing devotion and inspiring endurance.

But a mind primed for conflict can also mistake difference for malevolence or confuse an imperfect individual with the author of deception. Lucifer only inhabits a stabbable body in video games and horror films, and crossing swords without causing collateral damage requires discernment. No matter how flawed the person in question, remembering the call to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44), those who also bear the divine imprint (Gen. 1:27), should prevent us from targeting pesky people as if they were the Devil incarnate.

Victorian novelist Mary Ann Evans (aka George Eliot) had little patience for knee-jerk assessments of others’ moral character. She recognized the temptation to inflate our own sense of righteousness by deriding those who appear to fall short of invisible, exacting benchmarks. In the novel Adam Bede, she anticipates her reader’s desire to label as pagan a rural pastor who neglects to prevent sexual malfeasance. Pausing the tale to speak directly to her audience, her narrator declares that condemning others for such failures, as for their brusque manners or lack of beauty, constitutes egregious self-deception.

Jesus cautions against seeking specks with our log-filled eyes (Matt. 7:1–5). Similarly, the narrator of Adam Bede insists we remember our shared fallibility with those we denounce, lest we “leave them quite out of our religion and philosophy, and frame lofty theories which only fit a world of extremes.”

If we can instead learn to sympathize with fictional characters in books like hers, Eliot argues, we’ll be primed to extend charity in the real world.

This merciful ethos transformed storytelling in the last half of the 20th century with the retconning of established villains. Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) reimagined Charlotte Brontë’s Bertha Mason as a mistreated, wrongly imprisoned Caribbean heiress instead of the violent adulteress in Jane Eyre. John Gardner’s Grendel (1971) recast the monster of Beowulf as a stymied philosopher. In the years since, nearly every classic villain bent on frustrating the happily ever after of a Snow White, Little Mermaid, or Sleeping Beauty has been reconfigured as a misunderstood victim of prejudice or bad luck.

Or take George Lucas’s original trilogy, in which a murderous psychopath fond of telekinetic chokeholds turns into a remorseful, conflicted father willing to die for his son. Darth Vader’s return to the light mirrored the redemptive arc of a Christian penitent, supercharging my young imagination with salvific possibility.

Today’s storytellers tend to either flatten baddies into risible, easily dismissed puppets whose defeat moves us not at all or grant villains the depth traditionally reserved for heroes. Marvel’s Killmonger, Loki, and Magneto fit the ranks of the latter, as do J. J. Abrams’s Kylo Ren, Todd Phillips’s version of the Joker, and Gregory Maguire’s Elphaba, otherwise known as the Wicked Witch of the West.

Maguire’s first novel about Elphaba, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, launched a book series and Broadway musical so popular that cinematic translation was inevitable. The movie Wicked: Part One (Part Two arrives in November 2025) writes backward from that weird moment in The Wizard of Oz when the diminutive inhabitants of Munchkinland sing a rousing, eerily vengeful chorus of “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead.” Wicked opens with a similarly disturbing anthem, “No One Mourns the Wicked.”

“Ding-Dong” assumes that an individual can be wholly evil, that there is social utility in a scapegoat, and that an enemy’s death constitutes an intrinsic good. “No One Mourns the Wicked” ironizes such thinking by pushing its suppositions to the breaking point. Its cheerful melody is undercut with barely disguised cruelty. “The good man scorns the Wicked,” we’re told, leaving the pariah to “cry alone” until, finally, thankfully, they one day “die alone.”

How do we justify such marginalization? By convincing ourselves “we know what Goodness is” and “the truth we all believe’ll by and by / outlive a lie.” Lyricist Stephen Schwartz nimbly undermines the conviction that we can ever know another person well enough to damn them by appending the subtle caveats “we all believe” to “truth” and “we know” to “goodness.”

The Christian knows we are prone to rely too heavily on appearances (1 Sam. 16:7; John 7:24), and that darkness often obscures our understanding of truth (1 Cor. 4:5). The Munchkins’ summary judgment of Elphaba should make us cringe, not cheer.

Like the book and the musical, Wicked: Part One refuses to limit its critique to a single social dynamic. The most obvious target is racial discrimination, an abhorrence of green skin standing in for race-based prejudice writ large. (That cinematographer Alice Brooks lights certain passageways so Cynthia Erivo’s green makeup briefly resembles the dark brown of the actor’s skin underscores this commentary.)

Wicked also questions why we dole out pity toward people with mobility impairments. And (in a move C. S. Lewis would approve) it questions the mistreatment of talking animals. Every point in this multipronged assault on intolerance hinges on the central premise that all bigotry proceeds from unquestioned conclusions about others’ moral constitution.

Some might ask whether all this restructuring goes too far. If we recast every evildoer as a survivor of trauma and attribute actions we once thought evil to mischance and others’ willful misinterpretations, are we whitewashing the human condition? Does such relentless character revision amount to a methodical deconstruction of brokenness that explains away human error by blaming it on faulty design and unhappy circumstance?

Not really. For every villain we rehabilitate, there’s another waiting in the wings, hiding behind a veneer of respectability and effectively deceptive propaganda. Wicked is no exception. The film’s big reveal does not ask us to disbelieve in badness, merely to question those biases that so often mislead and misname. Something wicked this way comes, just not by way of the usual suspects.

Paul Marchbanks is a professor of English at California Polytechnic State University. His YouTube channel is “Digging in the Dirt.”

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News

Mozambique Drops Terrorist Case Against Missionary Pilot Helping Orphans

James Thompson

MAF’s Ryan Koher plans to return to the country where he was imprisoned now that investigators have cleared charges related to “suspicious” cargo.

Annabel and Ryan Koher

Courtesy of Ryan Koher

November 8 started off as a normal Friday for Ryan Koher.

The 33-year-old missionary pilot was at his desk in a hangar at Mission Aviation Fellowship’s (MAF’s) headquarters in Nampa, Idaho, where he had been working for several months.

But then a colleague came in with some long-awaited news: Authorities in Mozambique had finally closed an investigation of Koher on suspicions of supporting insurgents in the northern region of the country. No charges would be filed.

“It was kind of unreal,” Koher said in an interview with CT. “We’re really excited, and the main reason we’re excited is that this allows us to go back to Mozambique.”

Almost two years ago to the day, Koher and the volunteers flying with him were arrested. The three men spent four months in prison before being granted provisional release, after which Koher returned to the states last year.

MAF had always maintained that the charges were erroneous.

“From the very beginning, we knew that Ryan was carrying out a legitimate and needed flight and was completely innocent of the suspicions that were investigated,” MAF president and CEO David Holsten said in a press release.

“During this lengthy ordeal, Ryan and [his wife] Annabel have faithfully trusted the Lord and experienced His sustaining care on many occasions. We are so grateful to everyone who has diligently prayed for the Koher family. We know that God will use this situation for His glory.”

The public prosecutor’s office in Mozambique came to the same conclusion earlier this month. The document announcing the decision to drop the investigation stated that “it was not possible to determine any connection between the accused and any terrorist or terrorist organization at a domestic or international level.”

Instead, officials determined that Koher and the volunteers’ activities were intended to “support vulnerable people (widows and orphans).”

The Kohers had moved to Mozambique in December 2021 with their two young sons. Ryan Koher began flying for MAF’s local partner Ambassador Aviation, which provides medical evacuations, transport for doctors and conservationists to remote areas, delivery of humanitarian aid, and general charters.

Koher was transporting a delivery destined for an orphanage in Balama—located in the embattled Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique—back in November 2022 when police became suspicious during a security screening.

Koher had met up with two South African volunteers—W. J. du Plessis and Eric Dry—who had the supplies for the orphanage. They were scheduled to fly from Inhambane to Nampula, Mozambique, where another pilot would take them further. However, police confiscated the materials and detained the three men.

A document from the Mozambique public prosecutor’s office announcing the end of the investigation states that authorities took notice of the supplies in part because they were destined for a province plagued by a violent Islamic insurgency. Security forces have been battling militants in Cabo Delgado since 2017.

Despite attempts to explain the destination and purpose of the supplies, officials at the Inhambane airport suspected that they would be used to support terrorist activity.

Police kept Koher, du Plessis, and Dry in a holding cell for several days. They were brought before a judge who ruled that they should be officially arrested. The men were taken to the city jail in Inhambane, then two days later to a provincial jail, before finally being moved to Machava High Security Prison in southern Mozambique on November 16.

When she first heard that her husband had been detained, Annabel remembers assuming that everything would likely be cleared up soon. That changed when she learned he was being investigated for terrorism-related activity.

“This is a situation where faith becomes real,” she remembered thinking at the time. “Are we going to trust that God’s plans for us are good … regardless of what’s going on?”

During the initial days of his incarceration, Koher recalled being comforted by a sense of “supernatural peace.” However, he also experienced feelings of apprehension and bitterness. Not long after being booked into the high security facility, he realized that he had not yet forgiven his captors.

Courtesy of Ryan Koher

Ryan Koher

“We need to love and pray for everyone, including the people who are seemingly wronging us,” Koher said. “That really hit me like a ton of bricks, that I need to forgive them. So I forgave them, [and] I prayed and asked for forgiveness for not loving them.”

Koher said that the officials and guards at the prison treated him humanely, even kindly. But there were plenty of challenges during his four-month incarceration. He and the two South Africans were kept in solitary confinement for nearly two months after arriving at the high security prison, and all three men suffered from terrible itching. They later learned the itching was caused by scabies.

These experiences gave Koher a new perspective on the Bible, which he read from cover to cover almost twice during his time in prison.

“Paul wrote a lot of these letters from jail, and it’s something that’s easy to take for granted until you’re actually in jail,” Koher said. “Paul is writing from jail to other Christians who are being persecuted [and telling them] to stay strong, keep praising, keep praying, have joy, and keep following God’s commands, even when unjust things are happening.”

Reading Scripture helped motivate Koher, du Plessis, and Dry to represent Christ well to the others at the prison. They had opportunities to talk with other inmates and prison officials about their faith.

The three men were finally released from the Machava prison on March 14, 2023, but were required to remain in Mozambique. Koher’s passport was finally returned to him in late September that year, but the investigation remained open.

Koher was able to successfully renew his visa and work permit, meaning that he was technically allowed to live and work in Mozambique; however, MAF staff wanted Koher and his family to return to the United States as a precaution until his case was officially resolved. They arrived back in the US on October 5, 2023.

Now that the case is resolved, the Kohers are making plans to return to Mozambique and resume their ministry sometime during the first few months of 2025. The family will be bigger on this trip, though. Ryan and Annabel’s two sons, Elias and Hezekiah, will soon be joined by a daughter, Abigail.

- More from James Thompson

Theology

Happy Thankless Thanksgiving

Wil Rogan

Paul hardly ever thanked anyone directly. What can his refrain “I thank God for you” teach us about gratitude?

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty, Unsplash

“Give thanks in all circumstances,” Paul says (1 Thess. 5:18). Usually, our difficulty with this instruction is the words all circumstances. Most of us, after all, are not thankful in all circumstances.

But there’s another difficulty. We have different ideas than Paul about who and how to thank. The surprising thing is that, for as much as he gave thanks, Paul almost never thanked anyone directly in his letters. Only one time do we see him do this: Paul thanked Priscilla and Aquila because they risked their lives for him (Rom. 16:3–4). But that’s about it.

Paul came close to saying thank you another time. He acknowledged that his friends at Philippi were the only ones in recent memory to lend him financial support (Phil. 4:15–20). He recounted his joy in the Lord and said it was good of them to share his affliction (4:10, 14). But instead of thanking them for the gift, Paul wrote about how he had “learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (4:11).

At best, Paul gave his friends a “thankless thanks” to show them he could have done without their support. Even today, such a response might be considered rude.

In his intellectual history of gratitude, Peter Leithart suggests even more was at stake in the ancient Roman world. Paul was disrupting a convention fundamental to social life: If you receive a gift, you owe the one who gave it to you. By avoiding direct thanks, Paul resisted this idea of social debt (though see Phm. 19).

What Paul did instead was direct all thanks to God. He had a peculiar grammar of giving thanks. Instead of “thank you,” Paul would say something like “I always thank my God for you” (1 Cor. 1:4) or “I thank my God every time I remember you” (Phil. 1:3).

So Paul almost never said thank you, but he was no ingrate. In fact, if his letters are any indication, Paul was a once-in-a-century giver of thanks.

It would be difficult to find a first-century Hellenistic author whose letters outdo Paul’s in terms of thanksgiving to God. By my count, the 13 canonical letters attributed to Paul have twenty thanksgivings to God (Rom. 1:8–10; 6:17; 7:24–25; 1 Cor. 1:4–9; 1:14–16; 14:18–19; 15:57; 2 Cor. 2:14–17; 8:16–17; 9:11–15; Phil. 1:3–11; Col. 1:3–14; 1 Thess. 1:2–10; 2:13; 3:6–12; 2 Thess. 1:3–12; 2:13–14; 1 Tim. 1:12–14; 2 Tim. 1:3–5; Phm. 4–6). Two letters have blessings in place of opening thanksgivings (2 Cor. 1:3–7; Eph. 1:3–14) and two do not have any expressions of thanks (Galatians and Titus).

There is some debate among scholars about whether Paul’s thanksgivings owed more to literary convention or to his own inventiveness—that is, did Paul have to give thanks at the start of his letters or did he do so by his own initiative? My own view tends toward the latter, allowing that he built on conventions that preceded him. Even where one finds thanksgivings comparable to Paul’s, they are, in my estimation, sparser in nature.

Note, for example, the contrast between thanksgivings in these excerpts from two letters of similar length—a second-century letter by a military recruit and Paul’s letter to Philemon:

Before all else I pray for your health and that you may always be well and prosperous, together with my sister and her daughter and my brother. I thank the lord Serapis that when I was in danger at sea he straightway saved me. (Letter from Apion to Epimachus, translated by Hunt and Edgar)

I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. (Phm. 4–6)

Both letters interpret something that happened as the action of a deity, but, as David Pao has observed, Paul’s thanksgiving focuses on how God is at work in both his life and his readers’ lives. In so doing, Paul interprets their lives together in terms of the love and faith made possible by Jesus. This basic difference between Paul’s letters and other ancient writings appears several times over.

It seems to me that Paul gave thanks to God as much as he did because he found much before him to give thanks for: that God had raised Jesus from the dead, that God had called pagans into communion with Jesus, that God’s Spirit was working to make people holy, and much more besides. Sometimes it seems that Paul simply could not contain his gratitude to God. He once asked the Thessalonians, “How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?” (1 Thess. 3:9).

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that ancient people were not in the habit of giving thanks to God. We are still discovering ancient texts with messages of thanks. In the mid-20th century, an ancient Jewish collection of thanksgiving psalms (Heb. Hodayot) was discovered near the Dead Sea. Earlier in the 20th century, a researcher found a nearly complete collection of early Christian hymns of thanksgiving to God called The Odes of Solomon in a stack of Syriac manuscripts.

But it is one thing to thank God in a collection of hymns and quite another to do so again and again in the personal letters you write to people. Rolf Jacobson speaks of a “costly loss of praise” when thanks to God happens only in the context of worship. We need also to articulate thanks to God in our daily lives. We need to learn to discern God’s work in the world, to name it as such, and to respond to God with thanks.

So thanksgiving calls forth attention. Paul does not give thanks to God for things in general but for particular things in the lives of his readers. He gives reasons for his thanksgiving based on what he knows of their lives. He thanks God for the Corinthians’ gifts of speech and knowledge, for the Philippians’ participation in the gospel, and for the faith and love of the Romans, Thessalonians, and Colossians. Whatever Paul thanks God for, he makes visible as God’s work in the everyday lives of the saints.

Thanksgiving, when done in this way, interprets what is most important in our lives in terms of what God is doing.

I remember the first time I experienced giving thanks like Paul. I had left home to attend university. I had only just begun to understand the effect that growing up without a father had on me. All that I might have learned, all the support I might have had—they now figured in my past as a shapeless absence. At that point, I wasn’t grieved so much as bewildered. What was I to make of it?

At a mountain retreat, in a windowed room surrounded by redwoods and twilight, we began to sing “This Is My Father’s World.” I couldn’t make it past the first verse before tears restrained me. What was it that so moved me? In that moment, I realized God had already made someone to be like a father to me: Ted Petrikis, a retired pastor who served at the local rescue mission where I volunteered. And as I gave thanks to God for Ted, I learned to think of the kindness and love he showed me as God’s own kindness and love.

Thanking God for Ted in the context of worship helped me learn to give thanks to God for Ted when I would see him. And in the years since, I have found myself thanking God for people who have loved me and whom I have loved. In recalling the faces of those I’ve been fortunate enough to know, I remember the grace of God. In this way, thanksgiving can convert memories into miracles.

To reverse an old saying—to thank is to think. That is to say, when we remember people and thank God for them, new possibilities open for how we think about our lives with them and with God. In giving thanks, we learn to think about our lives together in terms of God’s faithfulness, kindness, and mercy. I mean, think of it—in his thanksgiving for his friends at Philippi, Paul calls God the one “who began a good work in you” (Phil. 1:6).

I don’t want to give the impression that I’ve mastered thanksgiving—my everyday words of thanks to God for people are far too sporadic and thin. But in the last month, I’ve begun keeping a journal. And most mornings, I write half a page thanking God for someone. My prayers end up loosely following Paul’s structure: a line thanking God for someone in particular, a few lines on why I thank God for them, and a line or two praying for God to work in their lives. I’ve found the exercise worthwhile.

Beyond writing prayers, I wonder what it might look like to adopt Paul’s grammar of thanksgiving in our everyday speech. What if we said things like “You know, I was thinking of you, and I thanked God because …” or “I thank God for you, specifically for the way you …” or simply “Thank God”? Yes, there’s a way to do this that’s hollow and cliché. But if we express thanks in a way that shows how someone’s words or actions reflect God’s presence in the world, it’s more than likely to be weight-bearing speech.

In Paul’s thanksgivings to God (and his notable aversion to saying thank you), there is a deep theological conviction at work. Those of us in Christ are bound together in an exchange of kindness and love that originates from God. We can all thank God for the people in our lives because God really is at work in them and in us.

And if, like Paul, we are surrounded with people in whom God is at work, perhaps it is possible for us to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18).

Wil Rogan is an assistant professor of biblical studies (New Testament) at Carey Theological College in Vancouver and the author of Purity in the Gospel of John.

- More from Wil Rogan

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Jonathan McReynolds—Red & Green

Tedashii—’Tis the Season

Cochren & Co.—The Company Christmas Album

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An educational pioneer

New direction for NCFB

A determined leadership style

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