On Christmas: The Best of 'The Crossway Podcast'

The Crossway Podcast

Crossway

Arts, Religion & Spirituality, Books, Christianity

4.8 • 684 Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In today's very special episode, we take a look back into The Crossway Podcast archives and put together our favorite clips of authors talking about Christmas. Check out the interviews featured in the episode below: ❖ The Gettys’ Favorite Christmas Hymns (Keith and Kristyn Getty) Apple Podcasts | Spotify ❖ Distinguishing Christmas Tradition from Truth (Andreas Köstenberger) Apple Podcasts | Spotify ❖ What Was the Trinity Doing on Christmas Day? (Matthew Emerson and Brandon Smith) Apple Podcasts | Spotify ❖ There’s More to the Christmas Story Than You Think (Benjamin L. Gladd) Apple Podcasts | Spotify ❖ Navigating Grief during the Holidays (Nancy Guthrie) Apple Podcasts | Spotify ❖ How to Wait for Christmas in an Age of Instant Gratification (Jonathan Gibson) Apple Podcasts | Spotify Authors featured in this episode: ❖ Keith and Kristyn Getty are award-winning hymnwriters who co-cofounded the Getty Music organization. In partnership with Crossway, Keith and Kristyn worked with their team to create the 'Sing! Hymnal', which features nearly 500 of the best Christian hymns, past and present, is specially curated and organized by the Getty Music Team. ❖ Andreas Köstenberger is the theologian in residence at Fellowship Raleigh, a cofounder of Biblical Foundations, a host at Oak Tree Cottage, and the co-author of 'The First Days of Jesus: The Story of the Incarnation' from Crossway. ❖ Matt Emerson serves as co-provost and dean of theology, arts, and humanities at Oklahoma Baptist University, where Brandon Smith also serves as an associate professor of theology & early Christianity. Together, they’re the authors of 'Beholding the Triune God: The Inseparable Work of Father, Son, and Spirit' from Crossway. ❖ Benjamin Gladd is the executive director of the Carson Center for Theological Renewal. He has written several books, including 'From the Manger to the Throne: A Theology of Luke' from Crossway. ❖ Nancy Guthrie teaches the Bible at her home church, Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee, as well as at conferences around the country and internationally, including her Biblical Theology Workshop for Women. She is the author of numerous books, including 'What Grieving People Wish You Knew about What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts)' from Crossway. ❖ Jonathan Gibson is an ordained minister in the International Presbyterian Church, United Kingdom, and associate professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is also the author of 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel: A Liturgy for Daily Worship from Advent to Epiphany' from Crossway. ⁠Read the full transcript of this episode.⁠⁠ Previous compilation episodes: ❖ On Marriage: The Best of ‘The Crossway Podcast’ | ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠ | ⁠Spotify⁠ ❖ On Apologetics: The Best of ‘The Crossway Podcast’ | ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠ ❖ On the End Times: The Best of ‘The Crossway Podcast’ | Apple Podcasts | Spotify If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review, which helps us spread the word about the show! ⁠⁠Complete this survey for a free audiobook by Kevin DeYoung!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to another episode of the Crossway podcast.
0:07.0	I'm Matt Tully, and today we have something special for you.
0:10.0	In celebration of Christmas, we decided to go back through the archives
0:14.0	and highlight some of our best insights from our guests about the importance, the beauty, and the hope of Christmas. We'll start off today with an interview I did last year with Keith and Kristen Getty, who have partnered with Crossway to release the Sing hymnal. In this clip, we talk about Christmas hymns and why they have so much power to prepare our hearts for worshiping our Savior.
0:45.6	My guess is that if you were to poll 100 evangelical Christians,
0:50.4	that a good majority of them would say that even if they don't say they love hymns,
0:55.4	generally speaking, there are at least a couple Christmas hymns that they just cherish,
1:01.4	that just means so much to them. What do you think it is, Keith, about those classic Christmas hymns that makes them so special for so many of us? Well, I think we have to go just a little
1:05.8	bit deeper to the deep history of Christmas hymns, and that is Christmas itself is a story
1:10.4	that's told in songs. It began with fourns, and that is Christmas itself, is a story that's told in
1:11.1	songs. It began with four songs, and so all the way through Christian history from the earliest
1:16.9	reinterpretations of the Christmas story, the wonder of the incarnation, Christians have reenacted
1:23.6	those songs, and so songs around Christmas are as old as Christmas themselves. In fact,
1:29.4	even if you look at the British history of it where we come from, they were actually known as the
1:33.9	rebel songs. So, for example, when the Bible, before the Bible was available in the English
1:40.1	language, the one time of the year people people were allowed to sing in English, was actually
1:44.6	around the Christmas Eve, where they could sing these telling the story of Christmas, telling
1:47.9	the story of the Bible. And similarly, then when the Puritans began to enact a lot of strict
1:54.6	rules about what you could or couldn't do in church services, dancing, would you believe,
1:59.0	became the only time of you you did that was at these
2:01.3	slightly rebellious groups at Christmas. And so the word Carol is actually a, it's actually a
2:05.1	French dance, which actually comes from those people who were slightly rebelling against the
	...

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