As you survey the landscape of Churches, you will find a variety of approaches when it comes to preaching the Bible.

Most commonly, you will find topical preaching - that is, the Preacher chooses a topic and gathers a variety of verses from the whole of the Bible that speaks to that topic.

The advantage of topical preaching is that it allows you to speak most quickly to the felt needs of the congregation.

The disadvantage of topical preaching is that it tends to quickly descend into a conglomeration of the preacher's hobby horses, as well as allowing the preacher to skip over the more difficult passages.

Our chosen method is expositional preaching - that is, we take a book of the Bible and walk through it verse by verse, chapter by chapter - expounding the meaning of the text by explaining the historical context, the definitions of words within the original language and seeking to illustrate the message in such a way that allows you to comprehend the text on the same level as the original readers.

The advantage of expositional preaching is that it allows the human author as well as the Divine author to lead the conversation. Dr. Jerry Vines once said, “Expositional preaching doesn’t respond and react to all of the questions people are asking, but rather it instructs them as to the questions they should be asking.”

The disadvantage of expositional preaching is that it does not allow us to fully develop the great doctrines of the faith. You must understand that certain truths are foundational to the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. Truths that men have given their lives to preserve and protect. Fundamental, foundational doctrines that are presumed in every text we read.

In my opinion, expositional preaching is at its best when it allows for brief excursions into what is called “systematic theology.” Systematic theology is the branch of theology that organizes and synthesizes the teachings of the Bible into a coherent and structured framework.

When are we to do this? When are we to pause our journey through a book of the Bible and dive into a particular doctrine? Well, hypothetically, we can do it at any point - perhaps when a truth is mentioned - for example, if I were preaching the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, I might take a few Sunday’s and expound the doctrine of the Trinity. For in that text, we see all three members of the Godhead in one scene- the Son being Baptised, the Spirit descending in the form of a dove, and the Father speaking from Heaven, “This is my beloved Son.” You see?

Another time we may pause is when a cultural phenomenon draws our attention to a particular doctrine. This is the case with Christmas and this series on the INCARNATION.

You see, we are never told in the scriptures to remember the birth of Christ, but rather His death. The date of Christ’s birth is not given. The practice of celebrating Christmas as a holy day emerged after the conversion of Roman Emporer Constantine, who legalized Christianity.

312AD, Constantine had the vision of the Cross at the Battle of Milvian Bridge.

313AD, the Edict of Milan was issued, legalizing Christianity in the Roman Empire.

336AD, is the earliest known reference to December 25 as the date of Jesus' birth on a Roman calendar.

Keep in mind what we know as Roman Catholicism developed into its current form around 100 years later in the 5th Century. It was then that the term POPE was used as the title of an office to refer to the Bishop of Rome as the prime human authority in the church.

The date of December 25 could be accurate; I have always tended to favor the early dates and locations that the church agreed upon simply because they were chronically closer to the event than anyone else.

However, the selection of December 25 also coincided with Roman pagan festivals:

Sol Invictus ("The Unconquered Sun"): Celebrating the winter solstice.

Saturnalia: A week-long festival of feasting and gift-giving.

It was common practice for the church to introduce Christian holidays to replace pagan holidays. The intention was to eradicate the pagan idolatry while not disrupting the non-religious cultural aspects of the holiday. The danger has always been a tendency to synchronize the two - polluting the biblical truth in the process.

Our PURITAN ancestors outlawed the celebration of the Christ-mass because they didn’t want to have anything to do with Catholicism. In fact, the fine 5 shillings if you were caught going to church on Dec. 25th.

Nevertheless, Christmas prevailed again and again for the last 2,000 years. It is a part of our culture at this point. As such, I have found it helpful to take a particular aspect of the Christmas story and do a deep dive into it’s DOCTRINAL TRUTH.

If we do it well - a good systematic study will inform and improve our EXPOSITIONAL study once we return to the Gospel of Luke after Christmas.

So this year I want to look at the INCARNATION of Jesus Christ from 4 different angles.

The Philosophical

The Historic

The Doctrinal

The Practical