What Verses Anxious Bible Readers Turned to in 2024

Bible platforms see Philippians and the Psalms rise in popularity as stressed-out readers look for comfort.

In a year marked by economic stress and election anxiety, many turned to the Bible for comfort—particularly to the Pauline Epistles and the Psalms.

Philippians 4:6 was the most shared, bookmarked, and highlighted passage on the YouVersion Bible app and was named its 2024 verse of the year: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Philippians 4 was also the most read New Testament chapter on BibleGateway.com. Overall, the site’s annual rankings skew toward the Psalms, which represent nearly all of the top 25 verses. BibleGateway’s most read verse was Psalm 23:4: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

Anxiety was a major theme for 2024. The American Psychological Association’s Stress in America 2024 poll found that the country’s stress levels were slightly higher than in previous election years, with strong majorities naming the economy and the future of the country as their top sources of concern.

The Wall Street Journal reported this month that publishers and book stores experienced a boom in Bible sales, attributed in part to this rising sense of anxiety.

“They’re looking for hope with the world the way it is, and the Bible is what they’re reaching for,” Bethany Martin, manager of a Christian bookstore outside Wichita, Kansas, told the paper.

Two of the most searched terms in the Bible app were prayer and peace. And beyond “Do not be anxious,” other top verses on YouVersion directed readers to “not fear, for I am with you” (Isa. 41:10) and reminded them how “when anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy” (Ps. 94:19).

Peace was also a popular Bible search term last year on Logos, a Bible study platform designed for pastors, scholars, and theologians. The software has over a million monthly users and launched a subscription model this fall.

All of the top 25 most-clicked verses in Logos search results came from the New Testament, with Philippians 4:6 (“Do not be anxious”) and Matthew 11:28 (“Come to me, all you who are weary”) landing in the top 10. Logos only had two verses from Psalms in its top 100, Psalm 46:10 (“Be still, and know that I am God”) and Psalm 119:105 (“Your word is a lamp for my feet, and a light on my path”).

On BibleGateway, the top psalms were Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd”), with 6 verses in the top 10, and Psalm 91 (“whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High”), with 16 verses in the top 25.

Psalm 121 (“I lift up my eyes to the mountains”) and Psalm 1 (“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked”) were also popular.

“Christian use of the Psalms was much more robust a few generations ago,” said Carmen Joy Imes, associate professor of Old Testament at Biola University. “As Protestant churches moved away from liturgy, our familiarity with the Psalms decreased. Now, Christians tend to gravitate towards a handful of inspirational or comforting verses without realizing the wide spectrum of spiritual riches available to us in the Psalms.”

Bible Gateway said that “the ascendancy of the Psalms” was a surprise in its findings, which span billions of online searches. The Psalms are always popular, but John 3:16 or Jeremiah 29:11 usually top the list.

The Psalms had 39 verses in the top 100 this year, 6 more than last year. “With Psalms and Paul each claiming around one-third of the top 100, that leaves only 30 verses from the entire rest of the Bible combined,” the report said.

Tish Harrison Warren wrote back in 2020, “In an age in which we often run to distraction, numbing both pain and joy with endless hot takes, retweets, and busyness, the Psalms call us out to the depths—the depths of the human person, the depths of pain and joy, and the depths of knowing God.”

Beyond the US, Philippians 5 was YouVersion’s top verse across 17 other countries: United Kingdom, Spain, South Africa, Philippines, Nigeria, Netherlands, Mexico, Kenya, Indonesia, India, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Columbia, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and Argentina.

With record downloads and 14 million daily users, the app saw global readership continue to grow. The largest increases came from countries that experienced particular hardship in 2024.

Engagement tripled (up 209%) in Burundi amid a human rights crisis. Use of the Bible app doubled in Haiti as gang violence escalated and left more people displaced. And Venezuela saw a 74 percent increase in daily users on the app during a chaotic election year, economic recession, and period of political oppression.

Americans wondering how to pay the bills and Haitians searching for safety and stability face vastly different circumstances. However, as YouVersion CEO Bobby Gruenewald noted, “These Bible engagement trends highlight the commonalities that can be found throughout the global Church.”

Christians everywhere contend with worry—and recognize the exhortation to prayerfully hand anxieties to God, trusting that he will care for them.

- More from Rachel Pfeiffer

Church Life

When Boko Haram Survivors Regret Returning to Their Christian Communities

Godwin Adeboye

Kidnapping victims need the church’s care. They often receive its judgment.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty, Pexels

Ten years ago, the world was horrified when the radical Islamic group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 young girls from a school in Chibok, a town in northern Nigeria. Though many eventually returned home, about 80 haven’t been seen since.

That horrifying story has a shocking sequel: Some of the Chibok girls who escaped or were released have found their lives as bad or worse than when they were in captivity. “I do regret coming back,” one of them, who gave birth to two children while held hostage in a Nigerian forest, said earlier this year.

Hindered by limited resources and an underdeveloped theology of trauma and abuse, the Nigerian church has failed to address the needs of actual and potential victims and to provide protection, justice, trauma care, and healing. Because much of this work requires strategic leadership training and empowerment, we Nigerian Christians covet the partnership of Christians outside Nigeria, who, like the whole world, were once captivated by this mass kidnapping but now rarely remember us.

The appalling consequences of interreligious conflict in the region are not new. In 1797, Muslim extremists abducted Neali, a 13-year-old girl. Taken along the infamous Hayan Yaki, the “war road” where Fulani jihadists terrorized non-Muslim villages, Neali faced a brutal, foodless, and waterless trek. “Her captors beat her severely when she became frail from exhaustion. Eventually, she was abandoned in the wilderness, where wild animals devoured her. Missionary explorer Karl Kumm, who documented the story, wrote, “Both slaves and animals are hunted in Africa.” One of the most vulnerable groups that often suffer from human hunting is the female children, like Neali.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty, Wikimedia Commons, Internet Archive

A drawing meant to depict Neali’s tragic death.

More than two centuries later, modern-day survivors reflect on new chapters of excruciating trauma. Earlier this year, Hauwa Ishaya, a Chibok abduction survivor, shared, “If I remember my sisters that are still there [in captivity], I am not happy sometimes. Sometimes I am crying because they are still there. I am not hearing anything about them again. People are not talking about them again. I feel bad.”

Amina Ali, who was forced into marriage and impregnated by a Boko Haram soldier, lamented, “There was a time [my daughter] came from school, crying, and she asked me that, ‘Mommy, is it true that I’m a child of Boko Haram?’”

Ishaya and Ali’s words reveal deep, persisting emotional scars that government educational aid and secular counselling alone cannot heal. One would expect the church to assist in the holistic reintegration of these girls, addressing both their emotional wounds and the cultural shame they face as survivors of sexual violence. Instead, the church adds to the problem in two main ways: by forgetting the victims and, sometimes, incredibly, by blaming them.

When a kidnapping occurs, Nigerian churches respond with fervent prayer and fundraise for the bereaved—for about three weeks. Then they move on.

I saw this pattern when one of the students I taught at the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) Theological Seminary Igbaja, Kuyet Shammah, was killed by terrorists four years ago. At first, people organized protests and mourned publicly. But Nigerians generally do not hold annual memorial events to remember the victims of tragedies as many other cultures do. As a result, the suffering of family members and other survivors is not sensitively honored.

Forgetting is bad, but blaming is even worse. Similar to Jesus’ disciples in John 9:1–2, many Nigerians, especially those in Pentecostal traditions, attribute misfortune to personal sin. They think that the victims of social ills such as abduction must have sinned to bring these misfortunes upon themselves and that the only proper response is prayer and repentance. On many occasions, the only thing many church leaders have been willing to do when Christian families are terrorized is to pray. No sustained, meaningful action follows.

Not all kidnappings in northern Nigeria are related to Islamic extremism. As John Joseph Hayab, a Christian leader in the city of Kaduna, has pointed out, multiple interconnected factors drive the kidnapping crisis.

“We must differentiate those with a religious agenda from those simply looking for food,” he explained. Some attacks are “mainly to convert people,” but others are just “for money.” When the perpetrators want money, they can kidnap Christians or Muslims, collect the money, and go. As for killing, Hayab said, they restrict that to Christians.

Boko Haram makes no effort to conceal its sinister motivations, using extremist ideology to justify its mission to spread an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam, including firm rejection of female education. Boko Haram leader Shekau infamously declared that he would “marry out a female at 12,” referring to the Chibok girls kidnapped in 2014, and justified his actions by citing Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha. (Although there are different views on the issue, some believe that Muhammad married Aisha when she was only six and use this example to justify marrying underage females.)

The perpetrators are indoctrinated into an absolutist worldview that sees violating innocent girls’ dignity as a weapon of warfare. Muhammad Alli, a former Boko Haram fighter involved in girls’ kidnapping, confessed, “At the time I married them, I did not feel any guilt. … But when I decided to surrender, I realized how awful they must have felt being forced to do these things.”

Kashim Shettima, former governor of Borno state, observed, “The sect leaders made a conscious effort to impregnate the women.” He added that some “even pray before mating, offering supplications for God to make the products of what they are doing become children that will inherit their ideology.”

Overcoming this level of cruelty requires a strategic and systemic approach. West African missionary history provides a powerful example of a positive response to the scourge of female child abduction. During the colonial era, children rescued from slavery and trafficking faced minimal rehabilitation opportunities, with many dying or becoming blind. Some were forced into marriage or prostitution because they lacked any means of survival and could not find or recognize their families, having been abducted at such a young age. In response, the Sudan United Mission (SUM) and the organization then called Sudan Interior Mission (now SIM) partnered with British administrators to provide care and establish freed-slave homes and boarding schools.

By 1925, SUM’s home had rehabilitated 5,000 children. Their strategy combined spiritual, psychological, and medical dimensions of care and meeting basic needs for food, clothing, and training. Many of the young children rehabilitated by SUM and SIM became part of the community’s first generation of educated and respected elites. These mission agencies started from a stance of unconditional acceptance, treating the freed girls as important to the future of Nigeria despite their unfortunate experiences.

How can similarly effective ministry occur through the Nigerian church today? The first step is to stop stigmatizing women who were forced to have nonconsensual extramarital sex, that is, sexual assault. John Campbell, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has noted, “There is law, and then there is social custom, and social custom is much stronger than law in many parts of Nigeria.” In some of Africa’s conservative denominations, social custom makes any woman who has had a pregnancy out of wedlock permanently ineligible for a church wedding—even if a Boko Haram rapist forcefully impregnated the woman.

After their release or escape from captivity, these women are still being perceived as unclean rather than finding comfort and healing in their community. Moreover, many Nigerians continue to discourage female education and promote early arranged marriages for Nigerian girls, thereby facilitating gender injustice and patterns of domestic violence.

Churches that do want to welcome survivors can make trauma counseling a priority. Few Nigerians have access to counseling other than on marital issues, and most African seminaries do not train pastors in trauma-counseling skills. For cultural reasons, many Africans do not consider counseling a significant career and instead take an uninformed, essentially trial-and-error approach to assisting people in emotional need. Christians outside Africa could assist by offering high-quality training opportunities to empower African church leaders in this area.

The Nigerian church could also improve its partnership efforts with government. With foreign donor support, the national government agreed to pay the American University of Nigeria (founded by a former vice president of the country) $350,000 a year to educate former Boko Haram abductees. But only three girls have earned degrees in ten years, and many of them have said the initiative failed in its education and professional aspirations because it failed to consider their background. Amina Ali, one of the girls confessed: “we didn’t choose AUN because we know the school standards are difficult for us, we girls come from poor backgrounds. The former minister forced us to come to this school.” Church leaders often have a more solidly grounded grassroots perspective. They could become partners in making the education of the released girls more effective and fostering emotional and spiritual healing.

Another key weakness in the church’s response is its inability to build strategic alliances with moderate Muslims who oppose Islamic extremism, largely because the church’s stereotyping of Muslims has hindered its ability to collaborate with them. When Nigerian Christians speak out of emotion and anger about Muslims, they add to the problem. The Nigerian church needs to develop a more accurate understanding of its Muslim neighbors, many of whom want to end the violence and reject Islamic terrorism as much as the church does. If we as church members join hands with moderate Muslims in public advocacy, we can achieve much more than if we treat them as if they were all terrorists.

The global church can best help Nigeria and other countries where Christians are threatened by shifting its support emphasis from providing handouts to building grassroots capacity, including training and empowering indigenous Christian activists who can advocate effectively with the government and engage relevant stakeholders. An indigenized advocacy program is more sustainable than foreign cash. At this point, few, if any, Christians in Nigeria are adequately equipped to gather details on incidents of hostility and to use the information to advocate for change.

The church should be a safe place where kidnapped girls and other victims can make sense of their experiences. In the past, Nigerian churches have welcomed and listened sensitively to the testimonies of some repentant witches. We should certainly do the same for former Boko Haram girls who cry every time they think of their friends who are still in custody. We can listen to and document their stories, honor their suffering, and show that the faithfulness of those who refused to renounce their faith in Christ is not in vain.

The world today knows Nigeria as one of the most dangerous countries to be a Christian. With focused attention and global support, Nigeria could become known as a place where the church is a transformational source of healing.

Godwin Adeboye (Ph.D.) is a pastor and theologian with Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), a Nigerian denomination.

- More from Godwin Adeboye

News

Victims Identified in Abundant Life Shooting

Emily Belz

The medical examiner named the deceased as a 14-year-old freshman and a 42-year-old substitute teacher.

People leave messages on crosses during a vigil on the grounds of the state Capital building to mourn the victims of the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Key Updates

December 19, 2024

Victims Identified in Abundant Life Shooting
December 17, 2024

Abundant Life Teachers Pray: ‘Our Hearts Are Confused’
December 16, 2024

Shooting at Christian School in Madison Leaves Three Dead, Multiple Injured

December 19, 2024

The two victims killed in the Abundant Life Christian School shooting were a 14-year-old who loved singing and playing keyboard in her family’s worship band and a 42-year-old teacher who colleagues said taught “with the love of Jesus.”

The Dane County Medical Examiner publicly identified the victims as Rubi P. Vergara, a freshman, and Erin M. West, the substitute coordinator for the school. Six others were injured in the shooting, and two remain hospitalized.

Police said earlier that the suspected shooter, 15-year-old Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on the way to the hospital.

“Rubi will be deeply missed” by her parents, brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends, according to an obituary from a local funeral home. She was an avid reader, loved art, and shared a “special bond” with her cat and dog.

She attended Abundant Life starting in kindergarten, according to a statement from the school.

“Her gentle, loving, and kind heart was reflected in her smile,” the school stated. “Rubi was a blessing to her class and our school. She was not only a good friend, but a great big sister. Often seen with a book in hand, she had a gift for art and music. Yet, it was Rubi’s love for Jesus that shined brightest and she shared his love with others by volunteering faithfully. She will be missed deeply by her teachers and fellow students.”

Vergara’s funeral will be held Saturday at City Church, a nondenominational church that shares a campus with Abundant Life (ALCS). The service will be livestreamed. City Church announced that in light of the shooting, the church was canceling all other events except Sunday church services and its Christmas Eve service.

West served as a substitute teacher at the school for three years before joining the staff as substitute coordinator and an in-house substitute teacher.

“ALCS is a better school for the work of Erin West,” the school stated. “She served our teachers and students with grace, humor, wisdom, and—most importantly—with the love of Jesus. Her loss is a painful and deep one and she will be greatly missed not just among our staff, but our entire ALCS family.”

December 17, 2024

The dark longing of Advent hung over the sanctuary at City Church in Madison, Wisconsin, Tuesday night.

Standing before a silhouette of the Nativity, teachers from Abundant Life Christian School cried as they prayed through grief and pain from a mass shooting on their campus the day before.

They recalled publicly how Emmanuel, “God with us,” came to Earth even when everything felt dark.

Police say a 15-year-old student shot eight people in a study hall, killing a teacher and a student. Two other students remain in critical condition. Police have not yet identified the victims.

“Jesus, that was scary,” Barbara Johnson, a middle school teacher, began her prayer.

Students, pastors, and other members of the community gathered at City Church, a nondenominational church that shares some staff and a campus with the school.

Katie Gruchow, who teaches art at Abundant Life, said in the aftermath of the shooting she kept thinking of the song “In Christ Alone,” which they sang together at the church.

One teacher read Isaiah 40, a popular Christmas passage that begins, “Comfort, comfort my people.” Another talked about looking forward to lighting the last Advent candle this coming Sunday, which symbolizes love.

They prayed for healing for those in critical condition and for their students’ minds to heal from things they saw.

“In the depths of our spirits we know you are good, but our hearts are so confused,” prayed Lisa Haynie, a middle school teacher, her voice shaky. “Our hearts waffle between being angry and afraid and being filled with memories and trauma. God, we don’t know how to manage all of that. We’re just coming to you and saying we need you.”

“I don’t know how to still and quiet my soul,” Haynie concluded.

Another teacher is also one of the pastors at City Church, Sarah Karlen.

“Despite our pain and our grief … we know you are not gone. You are standing here with scarred hands and feet and saying, ‘I am with you,’” she prayed.

City Church lead pastor Tom Flaherty commended the local police for how they made kids feel safe in bringing them out of the school after the shooting, showing them “kindness and steadiness.” Flaherty said the church had had offers of help from all over. Teachers shared that they felt a supernatural calm in front of their classes during the lockdown.

Gruchow said a student emailed her after the shooting to let her know she was okay. The student sent her a quote from The Lord of the Rings movies, where the main character Frodo says, “I wish none of this had happened.” And Gandalf replies, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Other local pastors came and prayed for the school too. Flaherty read from Psalms 34, 62, and 69, all psalms of lament.

“A third of the psalms are about the human situation in a world of grief, confusion, and loss,” he told the gathering. He talked about Job, and Job’s friends offering lengthy explanations for Job’s suffering.

“Everything they thought was happening was not happening,” he said. “At the end of it all, neither Job nor the friends get an explanation from God about what exactly happened.”

He said the shooting was “from hell” and was allowed to happen “for reasons that are unknown to us.”

“I am urging every student and every faculty member to get out of the, What if I had just done this? What if I had just done that?” he said. “God has more resources than you. He has a million ways he could have stopped yesterday. And he allowed it to happen. So I am begging you, stop blaming yourself. Stop assigning blame. What happens when you get into that vicious cycle of blame—you’re not going to receive the comfort that God wants you to have.”

The gathering concluded with the song “Raise a Hallelujah,” singing, “Up from the ashes, hope will arise / Death is defeated, the King is alive.”

National Christian organizations have offered their comfort and support as well in the day since the shooting. The Association of Christian Schools International, Abundant Life’s accreditor, stated its staff were praying for the injured and the school community, thanking law enforcement, and emphasizing the importance of school safety.

The National Association of Evangelicals also offered a statement.

“We join with so many others in grieving with the Abundant Life Christian School community in Wisconsin,” the organization wrote. “In this season in which we remember how light broke into our darkness, we pray that God’s presence would be close to those impacted by the shooting.”

December 16, 2024

Amid announcements about lunch menus, fundraisers, and Christmas concerts, Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, posted, “Prayers Requested!” It was the scenario so many teachers and parents fear: a shooter on campus.

By mid-morning on Monday, just days before Christmas vacation, two people had been killed, at least six injured, and the suspect found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police. Police later identified the shooter as a 15-year-old female student at the school, Natalie Rupnow, who went by Samantha.

A teacher and a teenage student were killed, police later updated. Two of the injured were in critical condition, they said. Four of the injured have non-life-threatening injuries.

The shooting took place in a study hall of children from different grades, police said in an evening briefing.

“I’m feeling a little dismayed now, so close to Christmas,” said Madison police chief Shon Barnes. “Every child, every person in that building, is a victim and will be a victim forever. These types of trauma don’t just go away.”

This would be the most casualties in a shooting at a Christian school since the 2023 shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, where six were killed, including three 9-year-olds. That shooting prompted private Christian schools to consider tighter security measures.

Barbara Wiers, the elementary and school relations director at Abundant Life, detailed the school’s security measures at an evening press conference alongside police. The school had done school safety training through the US Department of Justice as well as through the Madison Police Department, receiving grants “to harden our school, if you can use that language,” said Wiers. Students and staff trained in lockdown and evacuation drills.

Abundant Life did not have metal detectors, but the school doors remained locked after the school day started, and the school had security cameras in the building. Staff did visual scans of students arriving in the morning to check for anything unusual.

Wiers herself was teaching during the shooting and said that students heard a voice on the intercom say, “Lockdown, lockdown,” and then they realized the shooting was real and not a drill.

“The students handled themselves magnificently,” she said, and they did what they had trained to do. “They were clearly scared.”

At the reunification site later, Wiers spoke to parents.

“Whether their child was affected by this or not, they were affected by it, because what affects one part of the body affects all, as we know the Bible says,” she said. “We have a very strong faith in our community that in spite of tragedy, God is working, and we believe God is good in everything, and that he turns beauty from ashes.”

Madison police did not share details on the victims, saying they needed to notify relatives. Barnes said they do not have information on a motive for the shooter.

“My heart is heavy for my community,” Barnes said. “We have practiced, unfortunately, and practiced and practiced, and that’s why we’re able to reunify students with their parents within hours of a school shooting.” Barnes commended the officers who “selflessly ran into a building not knowing what they would encounter.”

The school wrote on Facebook, “Today, we had an active shooter incident at ALCS. We are in the midst of following up. We will share information as we are able. Please pray for our Challenger Family.”

The pre-K–12 school shares its a 28-acre campus with City Church, a nondenominational church that the school describes as a parent ministry, as well as Campus for Kids, another City Church ministry that provides preschool and afterschool care. City Church is affiliated with the Fellowship of Christian Assemblies, a network of autonomous churches with roots in Scandinavian Pentecostalism.

Abundant Life started in 1978 with a vision of “providing academic excellence in a Christ-centered environment,” according to the school website. “We are committed to developing the whole person: intellectually, spiritually, socially, and physically,” wrote principal Doug Butler on the school website.

“It’s a well respected Christian school in the community,” said Tom Lin, the CEO of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, which is based in Madison. Several InterVarsity staff members send their children to the school, he added, and they were thankfully all safe.

The school has an enrollment of 420 students, is accredited through the Association of Christian Schools International, and belongs to a Christian school network in Wisconsin called Impact Christian Schools. Another Christian school affiliated with Abundant Life through the Impact network, Ozaukee Christian School, held a prayer time for Abundant Life on Monday.

“That could be us,” Kris Austin, the head of school at Ozaukee Christian School told TMJ4. “No matter what happens in the next week or months, God is there for them, and we will be there too.”

Abundant Life had a Christmas concert last week, where children sang, “Glory be to you alone.” The students were supposed to have an Ugly Christmas Sweater Day this Friday.

City Church canceled all campus events for Monday evening, citing the incident, and said it would have a prayer meeting in response to the shooting on Tuesday.

Local churches called on congregants to pray for Abundant Life. New Life Church ELCA in Madison posted a prayer of lament for the school.

“God, giver of life, you intend for humans to live together in peace,” the church wrote. “Enfold in your loving embrace all who mourn.”

“We are praying for the kids, educators, and entire Abundant Life school community as we await more information and are grateful for the first responders who are working quickly to respond,” said Wisconsin governor Tony Evers, posting on X.

Madison mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway shared her condolences with “the whole Abundant Life community.”

“Our focus now is on supporting them and supporting the victims and their families,” Rhodes-Conway said. “We will continue to do that in the coming days and weeks.”

This is the second shooting at a Christian school this month. A gunman shot and wounded two kindergartners at a Seventh-day Adventist school in rural California on December 5, and then killed himself. The boys, 5 and 6 years old, were in critical condition but are recovering.

With reporting by Kate Shellnutt.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

- More from Emily Belz

Theology

Christmas Was Always God’s Plan

Philip Yancey

Columnist; Contributor

Jesus didn’t just come to earth to save us from our sins, but to invite humanity to participate in the divine life.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons / Lightstock

More than two centuries before the Reformation, a theological debate broke out pitting the premier theologian Thomas Aquinas against an upstart Scottish Franciscan priest, John Duns Scotus. The heart of the debate circled around the question “Would the event we celebrate at Christmas have occurred if humanity had not disobeyed God?”

Like most theologians, Aquinas viewed the Incarnation as God’s remedy for a fallen planet, a rescue plan that God first prophesied in Genesis 3. Aquinas pointed to Scripture passages that highlight the Cross as God’s redemptive response to a broken relationship with humanity.

Duns Scotus, nicknamed “the Scotsman,” saw much more at stake. To him, the Word becoming flesh, as described in the prologue to John’s gospel, must surely represent the Creator’s primary design—God’s original goal—and not a plan B. Duns Scotus cited passages from Ephesians and Colossians on the cosmic Christ in whom all things have their origin, hold together, and move toward consummation.

The evangelical tradition often emphasizes the atonement and Christ living in us. We urge children to “accept Jesus into your heart,” an image that can be both comforting and confusing. More pietistic strains speak of “the exchanged life” in which Christ lives in the believer. Yet far more often—164 times in Paul’s letters, according to one author—the New Testament speaks of us being “in Christ.” At a time when theories of the atonement seem mystifying to moderns, we could learn from the Christ-centered view of Creation once expounded by a Scottish theologian from the high Middle Ages.

Did Jesus only come to earth as an accommodation to human failure? Was the Incarnation a humiliation God had to endure, or was it the center point for all creation? Duns Scotus and his school suggested the Incarnation was God’s underlying motive for Creation, not merely a correction to it. God spun off this vast and beautiful universe for the singular purpose of sharing the divine life and love with humanity, intending all along for us to participate in eternal fellowship with him.

Ultimately, the church fathers decided that both approaches had biblical support and could be accepted as orthodox. And although most Western theologians followed Aquinas, prominent Catholics like Karl Rahner have since taken a closer look at Duns Scotus.

Imagine a time before the creation of matter. What did God have in mind with our planet, one of trillions in the universe? One answer to that question is Jesus: that he came to show us earthlings what God is like and what we should be like. The history recorded in the Old Testament serves as a prelude for God’s supreme act of incarnation. And as the Gospels’ genealogies stress, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, and others provided Jesus a family and a culture into which he would be born.

When Mary gave birth to Jesus in Bethlehem, she participated in an act of divine creation that continues to this day. Paul’s recurrent phrase “in Christ” hints at a reality made vivid in his metaphor of the church as the body of Christ, which extends the Incarnation through time. And when Jesus ascended, he turned over this grand mission to his followers.

Hang on—am I suggesting that the miracle of Christmas is somehow replicated and carried out in the lives of those who identify as Jesus’ followers? Some immediate objections arise, such as how fallen human beings such as ourselves could possibly be entrusted with this divine mission.

In the words of Eugene Peterson: “Friends, we are immersed in great and marvelous realities. Creation! Salvation! Resurrection! But when we come up dripping out of the waters of baptism and look around, we observe to our surprise that the community of the baptized is made up of people just like us: unfinished, immature, neurotic, stumbling, singing out of tune much of the time, forgetful, and boorish. Is it credible that God would put all these matters of eternal significance into the hands of such as we?”

In a sermon to his theology students at Oxford, Austin Farrer articulated this question in a different way: “What are we to do about the yawning gulf which opens between this Christhood of ours and our actual performance … between what Christ has made us and what we make of ourselves?”

His answer is simple: We do the very thing Jesus’ disciples did. On the first day of the week, we gather to “reassemble the whole body of Christ here, not a member lacking, when the sun has risen; and have the resurrection over again.” We remind ourselves, to borrow Paul’s words, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, that we are dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus, that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come (Rom. 8:1, 6:11, 2 Cor. 5:17)!

In short, we confront the stunning truth that God gazes at us through the redemptive lens of the Son who became incarnate and dwelt among us.

Then, assured of that new identity, we go forth to revitalize God’s world. Duns Scotus called his approach the doctrine of the Absolute Primacy of Christ in the universe. Those who root their identity in Christ have a holy mission to advance his kingdom. Christians minister to the poor and suffering not out of humanistic motives but because the least of these also express the image of God. We insist on justice because God insists on it throughout Scripture.

And we honor nature because it is God’s work of art and the backdrop for Christ’s incarnation. As Simone Weil put it, “The beauty of the world is Christ’s tender smile for us coming through matter.”

Some time ago, I had a conversation with Makoto Fujimura, an esteemed artist who founded the International Arts Movement to encourage Christian artists to look to their own faith for inspiration. “So many contemporary artists turn to other religions, like Buddhism,” he said to me. “I remind them that God is about Creation from the Book of Genesis to the Book of Revelation, in which God promises to make all things new.”

Among Jesus’ final words in Revelation are these: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (22:13). In this light, Christmas represents God’s masterpiece, the as-yet-unfinished act of cosmic restoration.

Philip Yancey is the author of many books including, most recently, the memoir Where the Light Fell.

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News

In Venezuela, Does Christmas Start When the President Says?

Hernán Restrepo

Trees and lights may be all around Caracas, but churches don’t exactly appear on board.

A child plays in front of a Merry Christmas sign in Venezuela.

Jesus Vargas / Stringer / Getty

In Venezuela, a flower farmer from the country heralds the beginning of the Christmas season. For years, the legend goes, Antonio Pacheco traveled from Galipán, a town in the northern mountains, to capital city Caracas, arriving with his flowers to sell each December. When he arrived at the Plaza Bolívar on the first of the month, his appearance signaled the advent of Christmastime.

This year, when Pacheco arrived via the local reenactment, he discovered a Christmas season in full swing, with a large Christmas tree in the center of the square, lights adorning every major building, and an illuminated placard wishing “Feliz Navidad” to passers-by. In fact, some of the decorations had begun to fade, having been up for two months. According to the official state calendar, Christmas began on October 1.

Traditionally, the Christmas holidays begin with the Catholic Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary on December 7 and end with Epiphany on January 6. But in recent years, the dates have been malleable.

In 2020, president Nicholas Maduro announced that Christmastime would begin on October 15. The next year, as the country was recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and successive lockdowns, he ordered the festive season to begin on October 4. Last year, he told his TikTok followers, “Merry Christmas beginning November 1. Baby Jesus is coming!”

For this year’s October declaration, one that came just weeks after an internationally disputed election, the president’s communication team published a PSA featuring smiling Venezuelan children and senior citizens, and reporters on the official state news channel played footage of citizens enjoying Christmas lights.

Maduro decreed that the government put up Christmas decorations in public offices and parks. The government erects special lights in places like Plaza Bolívar and Plaza Los Símbolos. Waraira Repano National Park illuminated their iconic cross. (This year, oppositionist media reported that the government had imposed fines on businesses that refused to put up Christmas decorations early.)

As in previous years, the government, through the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP), increased the amount of food it delivered in the poorest neighborhoods, prioritizing areas with a dense population of Chavistas, or those ideologically aligned with the socialism of Hugo Chávez, who ruled Venezuela between 1999 and 2013.

This year, Venezuela’s Ministry of Education also issued a press release stating that, starting October 1, schools must offer “pedagogical, artistic, and cultural activities that reflect the ancestral roots, customs, and traditions” of Christmas in Venezuela.

Despite the government’s proclamations, the church’s calendar seemingly hasn’t shifted.

“The manner and timing of its celebration is the responsibility of the ecclesiastical authority,” the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference (CEV) stated shortly after this year’s Christmas announcement. “This holiday must not be used for propagandistic or particular political purposes.”

The evangelical pastors contacted by CT preferred not to comment on the early Christmas, due to the political tension in the country. But the social media of some of the largest churches in Venezuela, such as the Iglesia Maranatha, Asambleas de Dios, or the Iglesia Pentecostal Unida, did not include posts about Christmas during October and November. (In October, as evidenced in their Instagram posts, many congregations of all denominations did observe the Month of the Bible.)

Instead, only since December 1 have most churches, both evangelical and Catholic, been promoting cantatas, themed services, and Advent celebrations and begun singing villancicos (Christmas carols) on Sunday mornings.

“To declare Christmas extemporaneously is to turn it into a festival of waste and spending,” said Cardinal Baltazar Porras, former archbishop of Caracas, whose resignation was accepted by Pope Francis just a month before the presidential elections on July 28.

“Curiously, what is promoted has nothing to do with Venezuelan identity but with little trees, snow, reindeer, and figures foreign to our culture that try to make us believe that we are happy and content because we live very well here, forgetting the prisoners, the torture, and the lack of freedom.”

Other Venezuelans who have stood up to Maduro share this cynicism.

“This measure seeks to associate Maduro’s image with well-being and joy in an attempt to monopolize popular sentiment,” Miguel Ángel Martín, the former president of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, currently exiled in the United States, told Christianity Today.

Though Maduro declared victory in the July 28 elections, the opposition has accused him of election fraud, a claim shared by foreign observers and the United States. The government has arrested at least 1,300 people who protested the results. The opposition has also blamed state security for sanctioning the deaths of at least 21 people.

To political unrest, social and economic problems have been added. According to a survey from the Universidade Católica Andrés Bello, 50.5% of Venezuela’s population lives in extreme poverty, despite being home to the biggest oil reserves in the world. Persistent crises have triggered an intense wave of migration. The United Nations estimates that 7.7 million Venezuelans currently live abroad. (The in-country population is 29.4 million.)

“The intention of forcing a Christmas atmosphere seeks to empty the meaning that the church gives to this celebration of content and tries to replace it, presenting it as a superficial palliative in the face of social discontent,” saidTeresa Flores, director of the Observatory of Religious Freedom for Latin America, based in Lima, Peru.

But Ender Urribarrí, who pastors Encuentro con Dios church in Colonia Tovar, a town located 60 kilometers east of Caracas, sees an extended opportunity for evangelism.

“I wish it were not just three months that Christmas was celebrated,” he said, “but all year round.”

Hernán Restrepo is a Colombian journalist who lives in Bogotá. Since 2021, he has managed the social media accounts of Christianity Today in Spanish.

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Theology

Wicked or Misunderstood?

The Bulletin

A conversation with Beth Moore about UnitedHealthcare shooting suspect Luigi Mangione and the nature of sin.

UnitedHealthcare shooting suspect Luigi Mangione being led into the courthouse for an extradition hearing.

Jeff Swensen / Stringer / Getty

Each week on The Bulletin, Russell Moore, Mike Cosper, and Clarissa Moll discuss the media’s top headlines—the people, events, and issues that are shaping our world. In this conversation, The Bulletin talks with best-selling author and Bible teacher Beth Moore about the new hit movie musical Wicked and the arrest of Luigi Mangione, the suspected murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Are the wicked truly evil or simply misunderstood?

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to the full episode.

Clarissa Moll: When it comes to these headlines [about the acquittal of Daniel Penny and the arrest of Luigi Mangione], the central question of Wicked has been applied over and over. Were these men inherently wicked, or did the situation in which they found themselves compel them to wickedness? Is this a fair question, or is it a false dichotomy? Are we actually wicked, or is wickedness thrust upon us?

Beth Moore: I’m thinking off the top of my head of Psalm 51: “In sin my mother conceived me.” In other words, we are born into wickedness by nature. Even in the very beginning of Ephesians 2 is that we have all been “children of wrath.”

“Wrath” is a strong, strong word. So we would, biblically speaking, very much believe that we were born with a very sinful nature, yes. Now, can circumstances take that and make it something that becomes overwhelming to us and turn us into something that we might never have otherwise been? That’s another matter, and for much greater discussion.

CM: In the case of Luigi Mangione, folks have responded very powerfully to the story of the manhunt. For example, while some were condemning him as a cold-blooded killer, others have been flooding the Macy’s website to buy his look-alike Levi’s jacket and lauding him as a folk hero.

While there is clarity mounting that he might be the shooter, people are really struggling with seeing this young man as wicked. Why do you think so many people respond to a complicated story like this and try to make it simpler, perhaps, than it actually is?

BM: Right now, it would be hard to sever that response from what our culture is like. In the politicization of absolutely everything, I’d have trouble trusting that it is the heart of what would be normal, rational judgment. There might be side taking otherwise, but I’m talking about the kind of side taking we’re seeing right now. I think it is very much a part of this present mood that we’re in.

Russell Moore: I also think there’s a line here. You think about the way the Bible talks about us as both created and fallen. If you think about the pop culture version of it—the Wicked movie and, before that, John Gardner’s Grendel and other things—it would take villains and put them in the protagonist role to show, kind of, this is how that person developed into this.

Something about that is, I think, embedded in the way God made us to see even villains as created in the image of God. But another part of it I think is sort of cynical and self-justifying when it becomes this attitude that, Well, we’re all just as wicked as we can possibly be.

We’re just pretending in various ways. So you can’t expect anything other than just the most base motives in people, which then gives me the justification to think, I’ve got to be just as wicked as the next person if I’m going to survive. I mean, that’s a mindset you see in so many different aspects of American life right now.

Mike Cosper: It’s interesting. I see it a little differently. The other way to think about it is that Wicked in particular is a product of a therapeutic culture. The dangerous message of Wicked is that once you understand somebody’s origin story, you realize that the evil they do is a result of their victim status.

At our core, at our inmost being, we’re creatures who are fallen and prone to sin. And the question then becomes what we do about our agency. I think there’s an aspect of these narratives—whether it’s about the shooter, whether it’s about Wicked—it robs people of agency.

Because it says, Well, they do these evil things because of what’s happened to them, because of where they’ve come from, rather than saying, I don’t care where you came from; you don’t shoot somebody because you’re unhappy with your health care coverage. That’s evil. There are lines we do not cross in civil society. And that seems to be lost a bit in this conversation.

RM: And it’s powerful because it is partly right. There are many situations where I will say, I don’t approve of what that person is doing, but I get it. It makes me think of when Joseph is receiving his brothers at the end of Genesis and he forgives them and says, You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

And many lives have been saved. Only Joseph can say that. The brothers can’t say that. The brothers can’t say, Well, in the end it all worked out, and kind of hand over their agency. And so I think there’s a sense in which we do need to look at people and say, in a lot of instances, they’re picking up what they learned.

We do need to understand that as we try to help them and disciple them, but never in a way that says you’re a victim of fate.

MC: And for every story of somebody who suffered something terrible and then did something terrible as a result, there are plenty of stories of people who suffered unimaginable suffering, and out of that experience, their contributions to the world were constructive and good and loving and for the common good, for human flourishing.

CM: When we think about the outside world, we have to consider that our culture does not operate according to the standards of the Lord, that it does not perceive sin the way we perceive sin. Taking this conversation into the church, though, we often tend to want to say as a method of defense that leaders are misunderstood. When we look at a pastor who maybe is an excellent speaker, we’re willing to push aside the things we don’t care for about him or explain them as, Well, he’s misunderstood, and that’s why he gets angry easily, without evaluating him with the clarity we might use to look at someone in the headlines.

BM: Yes, we have seen this so clearly. In recent years, it’s always been there, but this is not a recent thing. Social media just puts it out in front of us. If someone is particularly gifted, we sometimes act is if that means that in all areas of their lives, they are overtaken by the Spirit. In other words, if they can speak with what appears to us to be the anointing, we assume that every part of their life is like that. We’ve got to know better than that. There is the community life of the saints where there has to be the involvement of others close around us, where there is no elevation of leaders above the community.

I am already flagging when there is a leader who is unreachable, when there is a leader who is so authoritarian that no one will ever challenge them. I’m like, Listen, we might admire someone we cannot question, but we cannot love someone we cannot question. I truly believe that—we will never be able to trust someone we can’t question.

RM: There’s a kind of cynicism that assumes that if we only knew the real story, we would know that everyone is a villain and is out to get something. So there’s that kind of cynicism that people are trying to counteract, and there are bad actors who will use that. There are people who will exploit that.

CM: What would you say to the listener who says, I understand that I shouldn’t give the knee-jerk reaction on social media, but I’m nervous about being considered judgy? How can Christians practice real biblical discernment and avoid the twin dangers of moral relativism on the one side—the sort of Wicked mentality—and then simplistic judgment?

BM: I love where Hebrews says that we grow into maturity where we can distinguish between good and evil. It hits me profoundly because it’s conveying that discernment is something that comes with maturity—that in our more childish distinguishing, it’s like, This is all good. This is all evil—but as we mature in the faith, it’s a little more complex than that. It is a matter of discerning, by way of the Holy Spirit within us.

RM: It’s kind of unique how that requires both maturity and childlikeness at the same time. And so you’ve got that kind of language in Hebrews. You also have Solomon when he’s asking for wisdom: I am but a little child not knowing how to go in or to go out. So with the wisdom that’s granted to him, he’s able to deal with that situation with the two mothers who have a dispute over the child.

He’s able to understand enough about human nature, about what it means to be a person, to be able to ask the right kinds of questions to get to a discovery of what’s really going on with that person. We’re not always going to know. And so it’s important to have that sense of I’m not infallible in my understanding of somebody else’s heart. God is, and so there’s a limit to how much I can see and how much I can know.

Church Life

The Nine Days of Filipino Christmas

Samson Uytanlet

Some Protestants observe the Catholic tradition of Simbang Gabi, predawn services in the days leading up to Christmas.

Jam Sta Rosa / Getty

In the Philippines, Christmas starts in September with temperatures in the mid-80s (30 degrees Celsius).

The island nation with a strong Christian heritage celebrates the four-month holiday with street vendors selling bibingka (baked coconut rice cakes) and puto bumbong (purple rice cakes), colorful parol (ornaments representing the star of Bethlehem) hanging outside shops and homes, and people crooning Jose Mari Chan’s classic hit “Christmas in Our Hearts.”

For Catholics, who make up nearly 80 percent of the Filipino population, another uniquely Filipino Christmas tradition is the practice of Simbang Gabi, nine days of masses at dawn through Christmas Eve. The novena is held in honor of the Virgin Mary as she anticipates the birth of Jesus and is considered an opportunity for Catholics to ask for divine favors.

Some Protestant churches in the Philippines have adapted the tradition of Simbang Gabi in their Christmas celebrations by focusing on Jesus’ arrival rather than the expectant Mary. For three Methodist groups, Simbang Gabi is observed denomination wide. Other denominations, such as the Philippine Brethren Church, the Church of the Nazarene, the Presbyterian Church of the Philippines, and the Christian and Missionary Alliance of the Philippines, give local churches autonomy over whether to practice it or not.

During the Philippines’ 300 years under Spanish rule (1565–1898), the Roman Catholic Church practiced Misa de Aguinaldo(Gift Mass), another name for Simbang Gabi, according to parish priest Virgilio B. Hernandez. Beginning on December 16, Catholics gathered as early as 4 a.m. so that farmers could attend the services before working in their fields. Simbang Gabi then culminated with the Panuluyan(lodging place), a dramatization of Joseph and Mary entering the stable, on the morning of December 24.

On Christmas Eve, families would gather for a meal with hamon de bola (spherical honey-cured ham) and quezo de bola (spherical cheese), along with buko (young coconut) salad and seasonal castañas (chestnuts).

Traditionally, Catholic churches in the Philippines have conducted these masses uniformly down to the songs that are sung, according to Hernandez. In recent years, however, the rise in urbanization has led some congregations to meet in the evening instead of at dawn and, out of convenience, hold Mass in malls instead of churches.

From the time Protestantism entered the Philippines in the early 20th century with the arrival of Americans, some denominations such as the United Methodist Church (UMC) have carried on the practice of Simbang Gabi. Unlike Catholic churches, the UMC’s services are less formal and follow the format of a midweek service, said Adonis Abelard Gorospe, pastor of St. John United Methodist Church in Quezon City. Each service ends with the congregation eating a breakfast of pandesal (bread roll) and coffee before starting their workdays.

The nine-day worship service allows more members to participate, Gorospe noted, as some are asked to preach, lead in singing, and prepare food.

“It’s a bonding time for the members,” Gorospe said. “Everyone looks forward to it because they meet with their friends and relatives and they can serve together.”

Another Methodist denomination, Iglesia Evangelica Metodista en las Islas Filipinas (IEMELIF), likely started practicing Simbang Gabi in the 1920s, said Roland Gernale Sebastian, pastor of Melchora Aquino IEMELIF Church in Quezon City.

Pastors of the local churches write the homilies based on assigned themes and passages. Guest pastors or lay leaders are also encouraged to preach at this time. A growing number of IEMELIF churches now conduct services in the evening after parishioners leave work for the day.

On the last day of Simbang Gabi, Christmas Eve, churches hold parties with food, presents, and singing. Members give gifts of appreciation to their pastors and pastoral staff.

Courtesy of IRMEC

Members of an IRMEC church gather for Simbang Gabi.

The I Am Redeemer and Master Evangelical Church (IRMEC), an offshoot of IEMELIF, celebrates a shortened version of Simbang Gabi that lasts four to six nights and focuses on evangelism, according to the IRMEC district superintendent of Bulacan, Norberto Gole Cruz.

As with the other churches, IRMEC’s Simbang Gabi services are a time for the congregations to share meals and show appreciation to their pastors. In addition, they hold a raffle and put on Nativity plays. While some attend the services for the festivities, “the majority join because they are looking to be fed spiritually through the messages,” Cruz said. “Preachers make it their aim to prepare messages that would meet the spiritual needs of the congregation.”

Meanwhile, other Protestant churches shy away from observing Simbang Gabi. James Bryner Chu, pastor of Pilgrim Community Church in Quezon City, which belongs to the International Presbyterian Church (IPC), noted that they follow the regulative principle of worship, meaning that corporate worship must be based on specific directions from Scripture. Thus, Simbang Gabi is not considered part of their tradition.

Others avoid the practice because it was intended as a devotion to Mary. Benzon Shih Sy, pastor of the Quezon City Evangelical Church, who said he belongs to “an orthodox and reformed faith,” sees the practice as unscriptural.

Some Protestants push back against the practice, Gorospe said, because they want to avoid association with the folk belief that the Simbang Gabi novena(or nine days of prayer) guarantees the petitioner that their prayers will be answered.

Yet Gorospe noted that other Filipino Christmas traditions, like the hanging of the parol or the display of the belen (manger scene), also have Catholic origins.

Evangelicals can bring new significance to the tradition by focusing on the expectant joy of our incarnate Savior, said Laurence Gatawa, president of the PTS College and Advanced Studies (formerly the Presbyterian Theological Seminary). Gatawa also celebrates Simbang Gabi with the congregation he pastors, the Emmanuel Christian Church in Cavite.

“We want to remind the people that the Christian life is joyful, despite the sorrows and challenges in life,” Gatawa said. “We want to emphasize that we can have joy and a positive outlook in life, full of thanksgiving and worship. We can join all Christians in the celebration.”

- More from Samson Uytanlet

Books

Review

The Virgin Birth Is More Than an Incredible Occurrence

Patrick Schreiner

We’re eager to ask whether it could have happened. We shouldn’t forget to ask what it means.

WikiMedia Commons / Edits by CT

For the last 100 years, conversation around the Virgin Birth has centered on whether it actually happened. Could Mary really have had a child without a previous sexual union? Maybe, the thinking went, ancient people were simply more gullible in the face of stories like these.

While the historicity of the Virgin Birth is an important question, there are others worth asking. In his new book Conceived by the Holy Spirit: The Virgin Birth in Scripture and Theology, Rhyne Putman analyzes some of the most pivotal: Did the Virgin Birth need to happen? What if it hadn’t? And why does it matter today?

Not a lot of books exist on this topic from an evangelical perspective. But Putman, a professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, has provided a helpful overview.

In part 1, Putnam carefully examines the birth narratives of Jesus in the Gospels. Throughout this section, he responds to various objections critics have raised. Some have claimed, for instance, that the notion of the Virgin Birth came from pagan mythology. Some have posited that Mary’s place in the narrative of Jesus’ birth describes a metaphorical rather than a biological reality. Other challenges to the biblical accounts ask whether God violated Mary’s sovereignty, or whether the Virgin Birth contradicts the church’s belief that Jesus existed as God’s eternally begotten Son before his incarnation.

In part 2, Putnam discusses the theological meaning and implications of the Virgin Birth. Here, he puts this doctrine into conversation with others, considering how it bears on subjects like Creation, the Trinity, the person and work of Christ, his status as the Second Adam, and his second coming. Putnam closes with two appendices: one that proposes a “harmony” of the biblical nativity stories and another that evaluates traditional Catholic beliefs about Mary.

My favorite parts of the book concern the significance of the Virgin Birth. Putman argues that it was fitting for Jesus to come to earth in this way even if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

There are three reasons for this. First, the Virgin Birth is fitting because it reveals that Jesus is truly human as well as truly divine. Usually, when we think of the Virgin Birth, we emphasize the improbability of a virgin giving birth while downplaying the birth itself. However, treasures reside in both terms. The Virgin Birth is certainly amazing because Jesus was born of a virgin, but it’s equally amazing that God himself was born.

Early Christian heresies denied that Jesus was born. The Docetists, for instance, taught that Jesus was only a spirit being. The church responded by affirming that Jesus was truly and fully human and was born like any other human (except for the virgin part). Jesus took his flesh from Mary, and thus he could truly thirst, be tempted, and suffer. The second person of the Trinity descended from David and was born according to his flesh.

Second, the Virgin Birth is fitting because it signals Jesus’ uniqueness. It indicates that Jesus, though fully human, is unlike every other human being. He is naturally the Son of God but adopted a human father for himself in Joseph. The Virgin Birth displays Jesus, in the words of the Nicene Creed, as “God from God, Light from Light.”

Jesus’ existence did not begin when human sperm fertilized a human egg. In fact, Jesus did not ever begin to exist, since he has existed from before the creation of the world (John 1:1–3; Col. 1:15–17). The Virgin Birth bears witness to the fact that Jesus’ life didn’t begin at conception like ours.

Third, the Virgin Birth is fitting because it signals that we are saved by grace alone. Jesus’ coming was not the result of human ingenuity or the forethought of Israel. Like Mary and Joseph, we are simply recipients of God’s favor and grace. It was God’s action that caused Jesus to be born, not the grand plan of humanity. This reminds us that our salvation is based on God’s initiative. We didn’t orchestrate our salvation; it was wrought by God.

If the Virgin Birth is fitting in all these ways, then what we celebrate at Christmas is not simply an interesting factoid we can marvel at until the novelty wears off. Nor is it something that should cause embarrassment. Rather, the Virgin Birth contains the story of salvation. This miraculous event signals who Jesus is and how he will save us. It touches, then, on core Christian convictions.

I can’t think of many comprehensive books on the Virgin Birth, and Putnam’s volume is a wonderful resource to help people think more carefully about this essential event. (Amy Peeler’s book Women and the Gender of God touches on some of the same subjects, but her focus is narrower.)

Still, there are two aspects of Conceived by the Holy Spirit that I would alter. Putnam spends more time on the scriptural interpretation of the Virgin Birth (249 pages) than on the theology it communicates (92 pages). I think he should have flipped this ratio, or perhaps integrated these subjects more naturally. There are plenty of good biblical commentaries that walk readers through the narratives of Christ’s incarnation; not as many present a comprehensive theology of the Virgin Birth.

Additionally, by separating biblical interpretation from theology, Putman risks furthering the flawed impression that these are separate subjects. I’m convinced that biblical scholars and theologians alike should exemplify how the work of interpreting Scripture includes theological judgment as a matter of course.

Additionally, I think Putnam could have devoted more than an appendix to Marian dogmas within Catholicism. His discussion is quite brief, leaving little room to unpack the most controversial Catholic claims regarding her immaculate conception (the belief that she was born apart from Original Sin), her perpetual virginity, her bodily assumption to heaven immediately after death, her intercession before God, and her presence in various icons.

For example, Putman might have interacted with a recent contribution to Marian theology by Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah, which attempts to ground the Catholic position in typological arguments from Scripture. Such engagement might fall outside the scope of the book as Putman envisioned it. But I think readers would benefit from added attention to Marian points of division between Catholics and Protestants.

Ultimately, Putnam aims to encourage our faith, especially during Advent season, by having us carefully consider the Virgin Birth. Contrary to popular misconceptions, having faith doesn’t mean believing that which is opposed to evidence. Faith seeks out evidence.

If you carefully examine the scriptural texts on events like the Virgin Birth or even the Resurrection, you’ll notice that ancient people also had a hard time admitting such things could happen. Mary asks questions of the angel who announced she would give birth to Jesus. Joseph assumes Mary’s infidelity until an angel sets him straight. Thomas doubts the truth of Jesus’ resurrection until he sees and touches his wounds. Ancient people affirmed natural laws, but they could be convinced of realities beyond nature.

Faith, then, allows us to open ourselves up to what might initially seem unbelievable. As theologian Geerhardus Vos once wrote in his classic study Biblical Theology, “Religious belief exists not in last analysis on what we can prove, but on the fact of God having declared it to be so.”

Abraham believed in his old age that he would become the father of many nations. His hope in God enabled him to believe this “against all hope” (Rom. 4:18). We must believe, like Abraham, that God can do what seems beyond belief. When we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate God’s supernatural power not only to enter our world as a child but also to bring new life to those under death’s curse.

Patrick Schreiner is associate professor of New Testament and biblical theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of The Transfiguration of Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Reading.

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Church Life

Why Armenian Christians Recall Noah’s Ark in December

Jayson Casper

The biblical account of the Flood resonates with a persecuted church born near Mount Ararat.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Wikimedia Commons

If you want a break from Santa this December, try Hagop instead, an Armenian tradition that dates back as far as Old Saint Nick.

Santa Claus, the modern icon of Christmas, is derived from traditions associated with Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century bishop of Greek descent who was known for giving gifts. He is also mentioned among the church fathers at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, for which the Nicene Creed is named.

If Nicholas was indeed at the council, he may have met Saint Hagop, who was also reputedly there. English speakers refer to him as Jacob of Nisibis, though in the Armenian language both Jacob the biblical patriarch and the Nicene saint are called Hagop. He is believed to have been a relative of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, who converted the Armenian king to Christ in circa AD 301. As a result, Armenia became the world’s first Christian nation.

Whereas Nicholas eventually became a secular stand-in for Jesus, Hagop is intimately associated with Noah. The Armenian Apostolic Church commemorates Saint Hagop in the second week of December—not because of any connection to Christmas (which its churches celebrate on January 6), but for his reputed role in demonstrating the historicity of Noah’s ark.

Many children delighted by tales of the animals that boarded the ark later turn skeptical, questioning the reliability of this miraculous story. But doubt about the Flood is nothing new. Back in the fourth century, Hagop heard reports that the local population did not believe the biblical account of Noah. A wandering ascetic, he undertook his own search for evidence and journeyed to Mount Ararat.

According to tradition, an angel appeared to Hagop in his sleep as he rested near the mountain peak and left a wooden fragment of Noah’s vessel by his side. Today, it is preserved within a reliquary dating to 1698, lying below an ornate gold cross and housed in Armenia’s St. Etchmiadzin Cathedral.

For many Western audiences, the story of Noah recalls little more than flannelgraph cutouts from Sunday school. But for Armenians, he is a national ancestor and figure of transcendent meaning. In fact, one of Armenia’s top soccer clubs is named FC Noah, and recently played a match against the English powerhouse Chelsea FC.

CT spoke with four Armenians to understand more fully Noah’s importance to their people, whether living beneath the shadows of Mount Ararat in the Caucasus Mountains or in the extensive Armenian diaspora. Each one shared memories of childhood, perspectives on tradition, and lessons from Noah for Christian faith today.

Hrayr Jebejian

Armenian general secretary of the Bible Society of the Gulf, headquartered in Cyprus and resident in Kuwait

The story of Noah and the ark fascinated me when I was a child growing up in the Armenian Evangelical Church. The fact that the ark landed on Mount Ararat gave us a special sense of pride as Armenians, that our land is mentioned in the Bible. We are an ancient people.

As we grew older, for some the sense of wonder turned into skepticism: How did the animals march two by two, and was the Flood truly worldwide? But as Armenians, we never wondered if it was a myth or a fairy tale—it was part of the Bible. And as evangelicals, the Bible is the essence of our faith and inspired by God.

It is different with Saint Hagop. Many friends are named after him, and we give them special greetings on his ecclesial holiday. But we treat everything outside of the Bible as tradition. We respect his importance in our Armenian heritage, but we do not consider his story within our doctrinal teaching. From our youth, we learned to go straight to our heavenly Father with our prayers.

As adults, however, we see the history of our people in the story of Noah. The Armenian genocide of 1915 was a flood, but God saved us and landed us again at Mount Ararat. The first Republic of Armenia was subsumed into the Soviet Union, but we survived, and the modern republic represents us today. These floods were of a different kind and context; we do not say they came from God. But as with Noah, God gave us new life as a people.

This is true in the diaspora as well. My family lost 25 members in the genocide that killed 1.5 million Armenians overall. Thousands went to the Levant, others to the West. But we viewed Beirut as a kind of Mount Ararat. My grandparents, displaced from Turkey, found new life in Lebanon.

In fact, our history has been full of floods—ups and downs—as our lands were invaded by Persians, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks, Russians, and others. And the flood continues today, as Azerbaijan has ethnically cleansed Armenians from our ancient territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which we call Artsakh. We do not see ourselves as righteous, as Noah is called in Scripture. Yet even in writing this contribution today, I give evidence that God—as he did with the ark—has preserved us as a people.

Paul Haidostian

President of the Lebanon-based Haigazian University and the Union of Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East

I heard the story of Noah as a very young child in Sunday school, accompanied by the images of a large wooden boat and animals marching in, two by two. The lesson was that we live in a world that departs from God, who nonetheless calls us to safety as we await deliverance. The dove represented the good news of salvation.

Noah, the ark, and the Flood reflect an actual historical event. But our perspective of the scriptural narrative has evolved alongside developments in our understanding of God and humanity. We should not audit history as we do in accounting, nor can we. Yet while the Bible is not to be read as a classroom textbook of history, we should be humble enough to believe that as the Word of God, it includes concrete details of the history of human sin and God’s grace—and the story of the Flood is one illustrative aspect of that theme.

Chronicling human civilization is a subjective endeavor, and the biblical accounts of many events may be as well. As a university president and church minister, I am primarily interested in their meaning and how this connects with our Armenian self-understanding.

Mount Ararat is mentioned in the earliest documents of Armenian history. The Bible speaks of it in the plural, and our ancient ancestors lived in the regions surrounding its peaks. Its monumental presence above the fields below is a source of great strength, hope, and pride for the Armenian nation.

Noah, meanwhile, represents credibility, leadership, and obedience to God, along with the promise that God hears the prayers of the righteous. He will be on our side if we remain true to his goodness. Yet since we believe that the ark rested on a mountain that is now on the Turkish side of the border, the Noah story also recalls the loss of our land and the Armenian genocide. This is a constant reminder of continued injustice, in contrast to the promises of God for deliverance.

As evangelicals, we do not have differences with the Orthodox in these matters. Perhaps we see more lessons about the need for personal piety. But in the face of Armenian suffering over many centuries, including the ethnic cleansing of our people from Turkey and Nagorno-Karabakh, the biblical story reminds us all to respond through faithful Christian witness. And like Noah before the Flood, we patiently await the justice of the Lord.

Arthur Aghajanian

Founder of Contemplatives in Conversation and member of the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art

The significance of Noah for Armenians is rooted in the notion of sacred land; we revere Mount Ararat as a symbol of resilience and God’s favor. But as an American Armenian, I grew up disconnected from much of its biblical context, even though my family belonged to a local Armenian Apostolic church. And over the years, despite enthralling Sunday school stories and Protestant church sermons, Noah’s ark remained for me no more than a colorful episode in the grand narrative of the Old Testament, like that of David and Goliath or Jonah and the whale. Simply fantastical, the story seemed impossible to interpret literally and was therefore easy to dismiss.

It wasn’t until I began visiting my ancestral homeland and studying Armenian Christianity that the story of Noah evolved beyond a childhood tale.

Two fifth-century foundational texts, The History of Agathangelos and Movses Khorenatsi’s The History of the Armenians, present the Flood as a literal event. Yet for me, the importance of the ark lies not in its historical plausibility but in its mythic resonance. Myths convey spiritual truths and provide guidance in times of despair, along with rites and rituals that offer strength and purpose when the resources of the rational mind fall short.

The fourth-century church father Eusebius of Caesarea connected Noah to the Armenians through his great-grandson Togarmah, father of the nation’s ancient founder, Hayk. But on the mythical level, the integration of these figures into a biblical ancestry is the creative adaptation of a sacred lineage meant to distinguish Armenia from its neighbors. As a people whose history involves displacement and the struggle to survive, this gives us a profound sense of continuity and belonging.

The Apostolic Church affirms the ark’s historical reality while also embracing its mythic significance, which is not contradictory. This multidimensional lens infuses the received text with traditions that reach far beyond the literal. Noah’s journey then becomes an allegory of salvation, spiritual renewal, and rebirth after catastrophe. The Flood becomes a metaphor for purification and the ark a symbol of spiritual refuge, as even our ecclesial architecture envisages the church as a ship that embodies the journey of faith. Others have posited that the distinctive, pointed dome of the Armenian church may be a reference to Mount Ararat itself.

And why shouldn’t it be? The ark’s arrival imbued the mountain with holiness, and from that sacred foundation, Armenian churches rose. Built from the very earth touched by this divine legacy, they continue to sustain the spirit of Armenian identity today.

Christine Tanielian

Lebanon country director for the Jinishian Memorial Association, dedicated to poverty alleviation and spiritual support for the local Armenian community

Since I grew up within the Armenian Apostolic Church, the biblical story of Noah’s ark has always held profound significance for me. It is an integral part of our Christian Armenian identity, a cherished narrative passed down through generations. In our community, the story of the ark is often recounted when Mount Ararat is mentioned, for the two are inseparable in our collective consciousness.

Even though Mount Ararat now falls under the jurisdiction of Turkey, it remains a symbol of inspiration and aspiration for Armenians. The story of the ark is deeply embedded in our heritage, representing a divine privilege in hosting the vessel that carried Noah’s family. The region at the foot of the mountain, known as Nakhchivan, translates to “First Descent,” reflecting its connection to Noah’s journey. This area is now within Azerbaijan, but many hope our nation can regain sovereignty over the biblical lands within historic Armenia.

One of the major feasts of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Vardavar, celebrates this connection through the tradition of sprinkling—and sometimes drenching—each other with water. Mentioned in the book Avandapatum (The Book of Preserving Armenian Traditions), this practice was initiated by Noah after the ark’s descent for future generations to remember God’s preservation. Commemorated each July, Vardavar was later associated with the Transfiguration of Christ.

The landing of Noah’s ark on Mount Ararat takes on even greater significance when viewed in the context of other pivotal events. The Armenian church teaches that the land of Ararat, which became the cradle of humankind, was later blessed by the teachings of Christ’s disciples, Saints Thaddeus and Bartholomew. Tradition states that Thaddeus came to Armenia in AD 43, with Bartholomew arriving in AD 66. Both are reputed to have been martyred in Armenia, and monasteries were established for each, respectively in northern Iran and southeastern Turkey—which were then part of our historical kingdom.

Unlike some Christian communities that question the historicity of Noah’s ark, the Armenian church, along with its sister Oriental Orthodox denominations, upholds it as an undeniable truth, affirmed by Jesus Christ in Matthew 24. Symbolizing Noah’s unwavering faith and closeness to God, it represents the salvation of the one human family spared from the Flood—an enduring metaphor for eternal life. Just as the ark withstood the storm and bore its passengers to safety, our faith teaches that salvation comes only through Christ and our membership in the new ark—the church—which leads us from life to Life.

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