It is the last week of 2022, and in then this last week of 2022, there are all sorts of things happening, all sorts of retrospectives, where people are remembering the year that we’re just about to complete. There are all sorts of things where people are making these sorts of year-end recommendations of the best movies of 22 and the best books of 22, and the best television series of 22, and all these kinds of things. As we reflect, I want to give you some book recommendations for the best books I read in 2022. I’ll tell you at the start; I’m going to make two recommendations. I’m telling you at the start that I’m doing this a little bit reluctantly. I don’t know that the books that I like are the books that you’re going to like. I certainly...

Here we are in the height of the Christmas season, just a little less than a week before Christmas Day, and on Marked by Grace, we are talking about the various Christmas traditions that are central to our celebration of Christmas. This week, I want to talk about the Christmas tradition of Santa Claus. There might not be a more popular tradition for folks with kids than Santa Claus. He is everywhere at this season of the year. You see him in commercials and advertisements in stores. You see him in Christmas decorations. People are baking cookies for him. He is world famous with regard to Christmas. I want to talk about where he came from. Well, the man we call Santa Claus is actually a man whose name is Nicolas. His actual real existence is shrouded in mystery. We know that Nicolas was...

We are here in the middle of December, and that means we are in the throes of the Christmas season. Everybody is thinking about their Christmas traditions, their Christmas celebrations. And as we are in the lead-up to Christmas, I want to focus on some of our Christmas traditions over this week and next week. The reality is we don’t just celebrate Christmas; we celebrate Christmas with all sorts of traditions with all sorts of customs. And what I want to do is evaluate some of those traditions and customs and find out where we get them and what they mean. There are a few traditions that are as noticeable and as apparent as the Christmas tree. Most of you listening to this, maybe every single last one of you listening to this, will have a Christmas tree. Many of you will have...

I love answering your questions each week. I try to always address things that are of interest to you. And always try regularly to answer specific questions that you have asked. Several questions have come in lately about what it means to be a one-woman man, what it means to be the husband of one wife. If you are familiar with Paul’s instructions in 1 and 2 Timothy and in Titus called the pastoral epistles, you know that this language of being the husband of one wife is language that is used in those books to refer to qualifications for pastors and deacons. For pastors, the requirement turns up in 1 Timothy 3:2, where we’re told that a pastor, an elder, and overseer must be “above reproach the husband of one wife.” We read about it again in Titus 1:6 if “anyone is above...