Pod Show is pleased to bring you the following killer content direct from the all-new feature-rich podshow.com. Get it. Play it. Dig it. Dig it. The Bible Study Podcast, Episode 9. Today, the Bible Study Podcast looks at Luke's version of the Christmas story.

If you're a fan of the Charlie Brown Christmas special, and really who couldn't be,

you've already heard the verse that we're going to deal with today, which comes from Luke to the beginning of the chapter. At one point in the Charlie Brown Christmas story, Charlie Brown says,

does anybody really know the meaning of Christmas? And Linus goes up on stage and reads this story.

Starting in verse one, in those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the

entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Corinius was the governor of Syria, and everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee, to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him, and was expecting a child.

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn a son.

She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

In the last two weeks, we looked at Matthew's account of the Christmas story,

which focuses in on Joseph more than Mary.

Luke's account tends to focus in on Mary,

and Luke's account talks about shepherds, as we'll see in a bit,

instead of the wise men, which Matthew brings up.

So they just point out different parts of the story.

Luke actually started his part of the story one chapter earlier, so I should go back there a bit.

When Luke opens his gospel, he talks about two different births. He talks about the birth

of John the Baptist being foretold, and actually spends more time talking about that than he does

the birth of Jesus. So go back and check that out on your own, but I will read one particular part of chapter one,

and this is chapter 1, verses 26 through 38.

And this is when Mary hears that she's going to have a baby.

Matthew told us, in his account, of the dream that Joseph had where an angel appeared,

and Mary also had a visitation.

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