The Carpenter’s Tools - Live From His Land!

Article by Pastor Wallace Phillips
- Ahoskie, NC


As I write to you today I am sitting in the awesome city of Bethlehem! Not too many weeks from now you and I will gather in our churches and see the kids that we love so dear reenact the birth of Christ the Lord!

Straw will be gathered and placed on the platforms of our churches. A modern-day version of a stall will be knocked together with old lumber and we will watch as children portray the birth of Jesus in what we know as the modern-day farmer setting.

This is a far cry from what you see in Bethlehem. As you enter the Church of the Nativity dedicated to the memory of the birth of the Savior, you enter a place that takes you beneath the ground level – it’s cave like, if you will. It was the place where the animals were taken to be housed from the elements and the weather in the evening hours.

The manger is a literal trough hewn from the rocks of this cave. Scripture bears out that the baby Jesus was wrapped in cloths and laid there. I am amazed at just how we are shown the scriptures as we travel to the land of the Bible each time.

A trip to this awesome place shows us that the story of Jesus is so clear, so vivid, but it was not in the context of what we know as a stable. Pilgrims flock from the world to “come see the place where the Lord…..laid.” I am honored to see this awesome land for the sixth time in my life and ministry. Friends from North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and Colorado traveled with Joy and I to walk where he walked.

Brace yourself for the holidays ahead. Look for the manger to show you where Jesus was laid on that starry night in Bethlehem. I‘m certain that you won’t find a rocky one in these parts of the country….in this era of time. Nevertheless, it really doesn’t matter. What matters most is the “Christ the Savior is born!”




Happy Holidays ahead and check us out on the web at http://www.cscministries.com/ or http://www.wallacephillips.org/