God in the manger, by John MacArthur, is not a nice book just to read at Christmas. It is a serious study of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ the LORD. The book starts out in chapter one detailing the announcement of Jesus' birth and moves on to show the differences in the two genealogies recorded in Matthew and Luke. MacArthur explains to us that in Matthew, the genealogy goes back through Jesus' earthly father who was Joseph and Luke's genealogy of Jesus is going through Jesus' mother, Mary. Also, it is made very clear that Mary remained a virgin until after Jesus was born, she and Joseph had relations after Jesus' birth. MacArthur shows us from Scripture that Jesus had sisters and brothers (Matt 12:46; 13:55-56; Mark 6:3). Mary did not remain a virgin her entire life. She had other children. Then the issue of Mary being sinless was shown to be in error. The Bible says Mary is a descendant of Adam and was born in sin the same as everyone else (Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12). MacArthur goes on to say among women, Mary was the most blessed (Luke 1:42) that she was graced with the privilege of being able to bear the Son of God. She does not bestow grace, she was the recipient of it just like every Christian. The book continued with discussion of the birth of Christ as a fulfillment of prophecy, he discussed some of the ideas about the identity of the star of Bethlehem, which MacArthur says was probably the glory of God, and finally how Joseph and Mary raised Jesus according to God's law knowing He was the Son of God. I found this to be an excellent and insightful look at the birth of our Savior.