Click on the image to the right to see the Advent Doodle for Wednesday, December 14. For the last seven years, I have put up an online Advent calendar during the season of Advent. It featured pictures suitable for the season, matched with passages of Scripture. This year, I’m doing an online Advent Calendar once again, but with some exciting new content. I am using Advent Doodles by my wife, Linda. She has a unique ministry of doodling, combining her... Read more
Part 7 of series: Christmas According to Dickens Why Did Ebenezer Scrooge Change? Stave I As A Christmas Carol begins, Ebenezer Scrooge is one of the most unlikable characters in all of literature. Here, once again, is the full version of Charles Dickens’s classic description: Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge. a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire;... Read more
Click on the image to the right to see the Advent Doodle for Tuesday, December 13. For the last seven years, I have put up an online Advent calendar during the season of Advent. It featured pictures suitable for the season, matched with passages of Scripture. This year, I’m doing an online Advent Calendar once again, but with some exciting new content. I am using Advent Doodles by my wife, Linda. She has a unique ministry of doodling, combining her... Read more
What Made Scrooge Scrooge? If you call somebody a Scrooge today, everybody will know what you mean. You’re implying that someone is miserly, grumpy, and selfish, especially but not only during Christmastime. Soon I want to examine what made Ebenezer Scrooge change from being, well, Scrooge, to being a generous man who loved both people and Christmas. But before I get to this, I want to consider what turned the human being named Ebenezer Scrooge into the archetypal mean-spirited miser.... Read more
Click on the image to the right to see the Advent Doodle for Monday, December 12. For the last seven years, I have put up an online Advent calendar during the season of Advent. It featured pictures suitable for the season, matched with passages of Scripture. This year, I’m doing an online Advent Calendar once again, but with some exciting new content. I am using Advent Doodles by my wife, Linda. She has a unique ministry of doodling, combining her... Read more
Part 5 of series: Christmas According to Dickens “Ebenezer Scrooge” – The Meaning of the Name As a first step in our consideration of the question “Why did Ebenezer Scrooge change?” I want to examine the character’s name. Charles Dickens was an author who paid attention to the tiniest details of a story. Surely he chose the name “Ebenezer Scrooge” quite intentionally, fully aware of its multiple layers of meaning. The Meaning of “Scrooge” For us, the word “Scrooge” is... Read more
When we talk about the Christmas spirit, we think of giving, caring, and generosity. Yes, of course I realize that the theological core of Christmas is the birth of Jesus. But this is actually a supreme act of giving, in which God the Father “gives” his Son out of love for all of us (John 3:16). Can the Christmas spirit, the spirit of giving and generosity, improve your marriage? Yes, absolutely, according to a recent study from the University of... Read more
Click on the image to the right to see the Advent Doodle for Sunday, December 11. For the last seven years, I have put up an online Advent calendar during the season of Advent. It featured pictures suitable for the season, matched with passages of Scripture. This year, I’m doing an online Advent Calendar once again, but with some exciting new content. I am using Advent Doodles by my wife, Linda. She has a unique ministry of doodling, combining her... Read more
Advent Reflection on Streams in the Desert and Shouts of Joy Psalm 126:1-6 Restore our fortunes, LORD, as streams renew the desert. Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. Psalm 126:4-5 Where I live in the Texas Hill Country, hundreds of creeks meander through the oak-covered hills, canyons, and ranches. A few of these creeks run year round, but most are seasonal. Many of the creeks are, in fact, dry most of the time. This has... Read more
Part 4 of series: Christmas According to Dickens The First “Ebenezer Scrooge” If I were to tell you that Charles Dickens wrote a story about a solitary, crotchety old man who despised both people and Christmas until some supernatural visitors came to him on Christmas Eve and taught him to have a new perspective on life, you’d probably say, “Yes, of course, Ebenezer Scrooge.” But if I were to tell you I wasn’t thinking of Ebenezer Scrooge at all, but... Read more
Mark D. Roberts
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