{"id":6855,"date":"2023-12-22T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-23T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6855"},"modified":"2023-12-17T21:01:50","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T04:01:50","slug":"christmas-obedience-shepherds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6855","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Obedience: Shepherds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Inspired by Moses\u2019 \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6844\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Choose Life\u2026Choose Obedience<\/a>\u201d theme, we\u2019re looking at the obedience of the characters of Christmas, beginning with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6846\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Zechariah and Elizabeth<\/a>, followed by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6850\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mary<\/a> and then <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6853\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Joseph<\/a>. Today, the shepherds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We don&#8217;t know a thing about the shepherds except what we read in Luke 2:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, \u201cFear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.\u201d And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, \u201cGlory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!\u201d When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, \u201cLet us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.\u201d And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them&#8230;And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. (Luke 2.8 &#8211; 20, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Such a great story! No one tells it better than Linus in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eff0cqYefYY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eff0cqYefYY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"474\" height=\"420\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drbobewell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-7.png?resize=474%2C420&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6856\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drbobewell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-7.png?w=593&amp;ssl=1 593w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drbobewell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-7.png?resize=300%2C266&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Obedience? You bet. The angel says, &#8220;You will find a baby&#8230;&#8221; Only if they look! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The shepherds said to one another, \u201cLet us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.\u201d And they went with haste&#8230; (Luke 2.15, 16, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then they did something not directly commanded but certainly understood as necessary: they told everyone! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally, they went back to work! They were at work when the angel appeared to them, and they returned to work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Then he said, &#8220;Go into the world. Go everywhere and announce the Message of God&#8217;s good news to one and all. (Mark 16.15, MSG)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inspired by Moses\u2019 \u201cChoose Life\u2026Choose Obedience\u201d theme, we\u2019re looking at the obedience of the characters of Christmas, beginning with&nbsp;Zechariah and Elizabeth, followed by&nbsp;Mary and then Joseph. Today, the shepherds. We don&#8217;t know a thing about the shepherds except what we read in Luke 2: And in the same region there were shepherds out in the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6855\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Christmas Obedience: Shepherds<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-1Mz","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6855"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6858,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6855\/revisions\/6858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}