As this year is winding down, it is time to start a new year. As we begin a new year, I wanted to pass on some advice. In previous Viewpoints, I have talked about the value of using this time of year to change something in your life. There is nothing magical about using January 1 as a start date, but why not use it to improve yourself?

First, I would recommend you pick just one thing to change. If you try to change too many things at once, you are probably not going to succeed. And I would also recommend that you make it a specific, concrete goal that you write down. The more specific you are, the greater likelihood you will be successful.

Second, aim low. In previous new year Viewpoints, I have quoted from Tristan Taylor who encourages people to “strive for mediocrity.” Don’t pick something that it too big to achieve. Start small. After all, you are where you are right now due to dozens of small changes or compromises you made in the past.

I realize that motivational speakers challenge us to strive for excellence. We should pick a goal that challenges us. But also pick a reasonable goal so you can see and enjoy some level of success. Short-term success can lead to greater success.

Third, expect difficulties. It seems like the moment you start a diet, people around you start inviting you to banquets and all-you-can-eat buffets. The day after you join a fitness club, your life gets busy and you cannot find time to get to the gym. The moment you decide to do a daily quiet time, your boss asks you to come in earlier for work.

Fourth, accept failure. You might find that for every two steps forward you take one step back. Sometimes you even take two steps back. This is where dedication and perseverance come into play.

Finally, plan a reward. This gives you a goal to achieve and a reward for your dedication. Use this new year to improve something in your life.

This Christmas season we probably ate too much candy. Walter Williams in a recent column reminds us why so much candy is now produced in other countries. It is another example of why many American companies decide to leave the United States.

Chicago, he reminds us, used to be America’s candy capital. It isn’t anymore. Brach’s used to employ about 2,300 Americans. Most of their jobs now can be found in Mexico. Ferrara Candy Company also moved much of its production to Mexico.

You might immediately guess that the reason for these moves is the fact that wages in Mexico are lower than in this country. That is part of the reason, but there is more here than just the difference in wages.

Life Savers has been manufactured in America for 90 years. Now they moved to Canada, where wages are similar to American wages. So why did they move? The cost of sugar is lower in Canada than in the U.S. By moving, they saved about $10 million a year in sugar costs.

There are all sorts of government-imposed costs that eventually push American companies overseas. One obvious one is the high corporate income tax. But others are things like sugar restrictions that force CEOs to consider relocating their business.

The sugar lobby has successfully convinced Congress to impose restrictions on foreign sugar. These take the forms of tariffs and quotas. American sugar producers benefit because they can charge higher prices and achieve higher profits. But companies that use sugar (like these candy manufacturers) have to pay higher prices.

Donald Trump wants to prevent American companies from leaving the United States. If he and Congress are to be successful in keeping companies here, they need to look at all the reasons companies leave. Our high corporate income tax and higher wages are just two of the reasons. Tariffs and quotas (on products like sugar) are another reason.

Throughout the years, John Stossel has been trying to find ways to simplify economics and illustrate the benefits of free markets. He has found that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is often invisible to his viewers. Friedrich Hayek’s “spontaneous order” is clearer but still hard to show.

That is why he began to use some of the ideas found in the book, Rinkonomics: A Window on Spontaneous Order. The book inspired him to rent a skating rink in order to illustrate some of these key economic principles.

He says, imagine you have never seen a rink and are trying to get a government regulator to approve this new business. You will flood an area, freeze the water, and then charge people to strap sharp blades on their feet and zip around the ice. There will be few rules. Most regulators would resist your bizarre skating idea. They would want stoplights, barriers, and someone on a megaphone directing skaters.

John Stossel decided to do just that. He rented a rink and began to boss people around: “You, turn left, you slow down.” The skaters hated it. And it didn’t make the skating any safer. Some people responding to him actually lost their balance and fell.

Perhaps you think they needed some experts. Government regulators would say he failed because he is not a skating expert. So he hired an Olympic skater. She did no better with the megaphone.

Actually for skating to work, you only need a few rules, like skate counterclockwise. And you might need an employee to police reckless skaters. The rest comes from spontaneous order. “Skaters make their own decisions. No regulator knows the wishes, skills and immediate intentions of individual skaters better than the skaters themselves.”

The principle here is simple. Let people make their own choices, and spontaneous order will surface. Skaters find their own path. Buyers and sellers make lots of independent decisions in a market economy. Spontaneous order arises. This is the simple lesson from a skating rink.

On more than one occasion, Joseph Pearce has written an essay based on a bumper sticker he has seen. Sitting in traffic he saw one that declared: “What you call the Liberal Elite, we call being well educated.”

The woman in the car in front of him obviously wanted to teach him and us a lesson. She is well educated, and we presumably are poorly educated if we don’t agree with her politics and perspective. After all, we know that well-educated people tend to vote for Democrats. The less educated tend to vote for Republicans. She and many of her liberal friends probably believe they know better how to run your life than you do.

Joseph Pearce writes that her problem is that “her education is not as good as she thinks it is.” She is educated in our secular system. That means she probably learned nothing about theology. She may know next to nothing about God. She may not even believe there is a God, but probably couldn’t defend her atheism or agnosticism anyway.

“If she was educated in our secular system, she will know nothing of philosophy.” If she does know something about philosophy, she probably concluded that there is no philosophy worth taking seriously before René Descartes.” She won’t know anything about the philosophy of the Greeks or of any Christian philosopher.

“If she was educated in our secular system, she will know nothing of history.” If she does know anything, it will be viewed from her own twenty-first century perspective or from the perspective of those who taught it to her.
“If she was educated in our secular system, she will know nothing of great literature.” Once again, if she does know anything about literature, it will be from her own twenty-first century pride and prejudice or from those who taught it to her.

In summary, we should see that to be “well-educated” today means to be ignorant of theology, philosophy, history, and the great books of the world. Joseph Pearce rightly calls this the arrogance of ignorance.

As 2016 is winding to an end, I think it is time for some humility from many of the so-called “experts.” That is something that Stephen Moore writes about in a recent Investor’s Business Daily column.

He reminds us the on election night around 6 PM, a Hillary Clinton political operative went on television to say she believed they had a 95% change of winning. That is a high level of certainty. But a few hours later, “the one in twenty long shot named Donald Trump came in.”

She certainly was not the only person to make such a prediction. Throughout the presidential campaign many confidently predicted that Donald Trump had no chance of becoming president. Even after the election, Paul Krugman, who writes for the New York Times and has a Nobel Prize in economics, predicted that the stock market would not recover after the election of Donald Trump.

Many experts were wrong about the housing bubble. He provides some examples of economic predictions that were wrong. Long-Term Capital Management was a company using a computer model developed by Nobel Prize winners and other mathematical geniuses. It made money year after year until it crashed and went bankrupt.

Environmental predictions by so-called experts also need to be questioned. A 2005 National Geographic story predicted “The End of Cheap Oil.” The shale oil and gas revolution now has given us a planet that is drowning in cheap energy.

Stephen Moore used to work with Julian Simon who often challenged the conventional environmental wisdom of the 1970s. In previous commentaries I have written about the famous bet between him and Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich based on their predictions. Julian Simon won; and Paul Ehrlich lost.

This coming year, let’s hope some of these experts exhibit some humility. If not, then let’s at least be smart enough to ignore their predictions.

On this Christmas week, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect on the coming of the Messiah. The Old Testament contains hundreds of prophecies that give specific detail about the “anointed one” who is the Messiah. The prophets proclaimed that He would come to save the people.

The Bible is unique in many ways, especially when it comes to fulfilled prophecy.
At the time when it was written, 27 percent (1800 verses) of the Bible was prophetic. Large portions of those prophecies have been fulfilled, and that is a powerful argument for the inspiration of the Bible.

What is the probability that these Messianic prophecies could be fulfilled in the life of one person by chance? Peter Stoner, in his book Science Speaks, calculated the probability of just eight Messianic prophecies being fulfilled by chance. These included the prophecy in Micah 5:2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Another was Malachi 3:1 that predicted that a messenger would prepare the way for the Messiah. Four of the prophecies were from Zechariah. They predicted that the Messiah would be betrayed: by a friend, for 30 pieces of silver, and it would be used to buy a potter’s field. Another prophecy said that the Messiah would die by being pierced (crucified).

Multiplying all of these probabilities together, Peter Stoner came up with a number of 10 to the 17th power. In other words, the chance that just eight prophecies could be fulfilled by chance is one in one hundred quadrillion. In order to illustrate this, he says imagine we could fill the state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep. Put a red mark on one and then ask a blindfolded person to travel anywhere in the state. The chance that he would pick up the marked silver dollar on the first try would be one in one hundred quadrillion.

The conclusion is simple. Jesus is indeed the Messiah predicted by the prophets.

During this Christmas week, I have taken the time to discuss the theology of some of the Christmas hymns and carols that we sing. Today I would like to talk about The First Noel. It is an English song dating back to the sixteenth century. Some people believe that the First Noel was French because of the French spelling of Noel, but it actually an English song. The French word Noël does mean “Christmas” and it relevant to the lyrics of the song. The First Noel was first published in 1833 when it appeared in the work, Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern.

The first line of the song suggests that a December date for the birth of Christ: “The first Noel, the angels did say; Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep, On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.” Although many doubt that Jesus was born in December, there are some theologians (such as the author of the Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ) who believes that a December date is possible.

Whatever the case may be about the date of the birth of Jesus, the song continues: “Born is the King of Israel!” It reminds us that a king was born that night. Yet few understood the significance of a birth in Bethlehem.

Even the wise men from the East did not completely understand the significance of His birth, but they were guided to Him by a star. “For all to see there was a star;
Shining in the east, beyond them far; And to the earth it gave great light, And so it continued both day and night.”

The song goes on to say that “three wise men came from country far.” The Bible does not tell us how many wise men there were. We know there were three kinds of gifts
(gold, frankincense, and myrrh).

What the Bible clearly teaches, however, is that Jesus was born and that He is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

It is estimated that Charles Wesley wrote over 6500 hymns. Perhaps his best-known hymn is “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” Over the years it has been edited slightly, but the meaning and theology remains as he wrote it more than two centuries ago.

It begins with a proclamation of the birth of Jesus: “Hark! the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King; Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.”

The hymn reminds us why Christ came to earth. Jesus came into the world to bring peace, but many who sing this song fail to realize that it was to bring peace between us and God. Wesley’s hymn reminds us that His birth was so that God and sinners would be reconciled. We are the sinners in this hymn, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). All we like sheep have gone astray (Isaiah 53:6). We have broken God’s commandments and need to be reconciled with God. This was done when Christ died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3).

This hymn by Charles Wesley goes on to describe who Jesus Christ is. “Christ by highest heaven adored; Christ, the everlasting Lord! Late in time behold Him come, offspring of the Virgin’s womb. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.”

This is the wonder of the Incarnation. Jesus became the “offspring of the Virgin’s womb.” God became man and was “veiled in flesh” even though He was the “incarnate Deity.”

This Christmas week, let us once again reflect upon the Incarnation. How wonderful yet mysterious that God would become man and dwell among us. And that He would be willing to die on a cross for our sins.