Month: December 2017

People often assume that the term “Xmas”is an attempt to take “Christ” out of Christmas. But did you know that:

• The term Xmasdates all the way back to the Middle Ages.

• X is an abbreviation for Christ (it’s the first letter of Christos, Χριστόςin the Greek).

• X is a traditional symbol of the cross.
  
  

• By using Xmasinstead of Christmas, theologians were reminding us not just that God’s son came to earth, but why.
  

• Hence the term reviled by so many for taking Christ out of Christmas was originally intended to keep him init!

P.S. Ministers were historically referred to as churchmen, or simply Xmen!(No, they don’t have superpowers. But God does. I mean, like, there was this one time when… Oh, just read the book.)

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” ~William Shakespeare

Are we free? Or is the ability to choose an illusion? Why is our understanding of this subject so dim? It seems clear that we are programmable creatures, as famously demonstrated by Pavlov and Skinner. But we also have a higher consciousness or spirit that enables us to take charge of our programming (to become our own programmers), or at least the most important aspect of life: our moral choices.

The Bible teaches both. This is called an antinomy: two apparent contradictions that are both true, nevertheless. I sometimes think of it this way: God determined my fate (predetermination) at the moment of creation, knowing the choices I would make (free will). But this argument has its flaws, and in the end is merely an attempt to apprehend what I can only partially grasp.

It’s…