 us a child is born unto us a son he came for you he came for me he came for the whole world and that brings us so much hope today hi I'm Amy Shaper and I'm here with Angela Madden Angela Tiz this season I love it just last night we went for my daughter's Christmas program and she was this little angel and I loved at the end she declared and on this day we celebrate our savior it was the sweetest just to hear their little voices but the hope that they bring as a small child and what Jesus did for us in coming well right now there are women all over the world that are shopping they are preparing they are setting a banquet before their families you know and it is a very crazy time of year I personally have 23 people coming over for Christmas oh and Angela I'm responsible I'm in charge I mean God help us all God help the world we need it or are you cooking for everybody I am you cook the whole thing nobody bringing little things here and there but yeah let's go this is what we do this is what your future looks like I think my future is a lot of ordering and catering we've got a cooking show for you then I mean it I mean it but it is it's a busy season and I'm excited that here at Cornerstone that we take the time to really emphasize and focus on the meaning of it all which is Jesus you know in the middle of your busyness if you're finding yourself like Amy preparing for 23 people to come to your house take a moment to breathe in this week his goodness and truly celebrate Jesus and what it means of him coming as a baby to then come and be Emmanuel with us yeah this is the season for peace and joy and hope and love so I'm excited for what we have on this program today me too you know if you like history on today's program you can witness some of that through ancient coins of the Bible Tom will be joined by coin historian Greg McGee and he has some fascinating coins to share about that were actually used more than 2000 years ago and also we have a B. E. Taylor coming on for worship Wednesday singing his song Marys Boy Child and it's coming from the archives this is 2015 material it's going to be great it's going to be an incredible program but right now let's go to Sydney and her story of faith behind Trinity Jewelers the mark tell us how faith is a major component of what you do here at Trinity Jewelers well it comes from the name first off Trinity whenever I was praying about a name for the business I have triplets so you know when you look up Trinity in the dictionary it says group of three things seem to come in threes in my life anyway but again I wanted the Holy Trinity to be represented I wanted to be right up front who we were and then it just it just came to me it was just amazing I'm glad just like also I was like Trinity what other name would you name it you know so that's how we came up with the name and from there we've just tried to start from the very beginning to build and reflect God and all the way to for more than 50 years Trinity Jewelers has been serving the greater Pittsburgh area and beyond by offering custom and fashioned jewelry for both men and women located in a historic schoolhouse building in the North Hills the Christian-owned family business says it loves to celebrate life's closest relationships I had a chance to sit down with the owner Mark Helgrman to hear how this business also operates like a ministry so Mark tell us about Trinity Jewelers and the faith component that is attached to this business yes so you know I didn't become a Christian till I was 28 years old so actually beginning part of my jewelry business I was not a Christian and once I came to faith I wanted to be able to offer the opportunity to other Christians and all to have a place they feel comfortable coming to but I also wanted to be a chance to be a ministry as well so that's one of the reasons I named it Trinity was I wanted to represent my faith I mean I've put God first in this business I mean it I'm no business wizarding I got I give all the credit to God the growth that he's given us I mean we just grow every year since we opened and I feel like it's because you know I put him first in this business and as it's grown I you know and as my majority as a Christian grew too I could see more and more of what Trinity can be and do we love to play Christian music on background music here we have a actually part of the original chalkboard from the one room schoolhouse that we keep that we do a calendar each month on just for the fun of it but we also put scripture on there as well so it's nice because it opens up those opportunities to communicate with people and you know we never want to hide from our faith you know we want people to know who we are you know so it's a blessing was there even like a story like a stands out or a testimony of just you saw God's hand at work with somebody purchasing jewelry it doesn't take much to look at every story I mean I'm trying to think about an individual one that I could really point out but it's the it's the look on their faces it's it's the joy in their hearts that they get out of creating that custom ring that really is special and special for us I mean I'm blessed to be in this business I mean the jewelry business is a wonderful thing because you're dealing with people in the most important moments of their life certainly we have some sad times too you know with other things but all in all you're dealing with that and it brings joy I mean I love coming to work each day and I'm blessed with an amazing staff who reflect God and and we're I think we're very unusual and that we're such a family here you know I mean and not the kind of family it even fights I mean we just everybody gets along so well and you know I think it's because we put God first one thing that here at Trinity Jewelers that you want everyone to know that they can afford the jewelry so you have different price points as part of what you do because I mean I don't want to sound cliche by any means but because we manufacture I mean and because I want to be fair to everybody doing custom isn't isn't like this huge upcharge isn't two three times the cost it's what we do we make jewelry you know so we don't have to charge you know a lot of jewelry stores have to rely on third parties to make that happen and everything and certainly there'll be an upcharge for that but you know we actually create it so it's it's very affordable so should never over scare anybody from that standpoint they want the custom piece of jewelry they can rest assured that it's very affordable and something they can mark how has God grown your faith you know through your business over the years it's in the little things honestly like you know a lot of people said that a big story to say but it's how he's been so faithful I mean even even through recessions like 2008 we continued to grow you know even through COVID he's just always there I mean it's everything just works you know and it and it's never that I see it up front or I'm asking for well I'm obviously always praying for the business but it's always for me in the rear-view mirror I look back and I go wow I see how he works and you don't even know it's happening it's incredible I want people to have joy you know and a world where it seems like a lot of people are hurting and stuff I mean it's in the special moments of life I want people to cap you know certainly in the jewelry business we're capturing those but I want people to feel that every day feel God's presence every day and feel him at work because Satan always wants to take that joy away from you and you know my heart is that I want them to live within God's will for their lives and truly feel the joy that we should have each day. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's this is a coin from Bible times we're going to be talking that right now to Greg McGee ancient coins of the Bible Greg welcome to the program. Hey thanks for having me. So tell me how did you get it I'm fascinated I love history I'm fascinated by these biblical coins we're going to see some in just a minute but tell me how you got into this. Well it's a family thing my father collected my grandfather collected and about 20 years ago I was at a coin show and I had a whole bunch of stuff to sell to a dealer and he said I want any 30 minutes so it gave me 30 minutes to kill and I went to an ancient coin dealer at that time there weren't that many of them the guy barely spoke English and I asked him if he had any coins from the Bible and he he didn't understand me so somebody interpreted for him and said Judea and he showed me a widow's might and at the time it was like 20 or 40 bucks it was really inexpensive but it was crude you couldn't tell much difference from that coin in Iraq. So that kind of got me started just the fact that these coins still exist flash forward about 20 years I'd worked as a stockbroker for the better part of my career but around 44 years of age I loved the job it almost killed me I had a heart attack and I had a quintuple bypass surgery and it just got to be so demanding that the stress wasn't I wasn't able to continue working I tried to come back from the surgery and I had more complications so the company that I was working for at the time told me we don't think you can do this job and stay alive so they gave me a buyout package and paid my health care and it gave me a couple of years to think and God's been calling me since I was a child and this particular time he gave me a vision it sent me back to that crude widow's might. I ended up meeting a couple of guys in Dormont it's called cybercoins.net Brad and Blanchiff run it and I walked in and I asked him if they had any ancient coins and they said they did we struck up a friendship I bought a few and I asked them I said why don't you let me sell all these ancient coins the don't have anything to do with the Bible and buy coins that tell the story of the Bible and that was about two years ago and what you have in your life is a fruit of my labor. Well I love what I'm holding here why don't you tell us I mean this is a very important coin this is a widow's might is that where we want to go first? Absolutely. Let's go there. That story is told two times in the Bible it's the greatest story of sacrificial giving ever told Jesus was at the temple and he saw people thrown gold and silver and he paid them no mind and a widow came and she threw in two small copper coins and he noticed and he said truly she's given more than the others the two small copper coins that she threw in would have bought her bread for the day so she may have gone without eating her heart was so right she gave all that she had and we're still talking about her 2,000 years later that coin that's in your hand is the type of coin that circulated when Jesus walked the earth and the disciples walk the earth. Do you have a picture of this is there something that we do this is a oh let me see if I can go to the slides. Yeah because it's amazing what is on here and you've told me the story that I think is is is incredible that that there was a a a Hebrew ruler and there we have that we have the coin there's the widows might why don't you tell us what's on there and what the story is it's a great story and the more I've become obedient in this vision that God gave you for this ancient coin ministry the more he's opened up my eyes there are so many historical elements to this coin. Alexander Janus was a Hebrew king about 100 years before Christ was born. He thought he was the Messiah so much so that the widows might coin he created because he thought he was a fulfillment is two verses in numbers 24 it says a star will come out of Jacob he put the star okay so we have we have that he put a star on there I think we have well we're gonna get that picture in a second but tell us the story he put the star he put the star in the back of it because he thought he was the star that would come out of Jacob it was clearly a messianic prophecy about the Messiah he also thought that he was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies that the Messiah would be king and high priest that was clearly the only office that the Messiah could fulfill there was always a king King David had a high priest he never claimed to be both Alexander Janus thought he was both he basically a hundred years before Jesus hundred years before Christ was born this coin circulated basically as an advertisement before mass media coins or the information source of the day if you wanted to know who was in power you looked at your pocket change if you wanted to know what God's are worshipped you looked at your pocket change for a hundred years before Christ came this coin had six or seven different messianic messages on it the star that would come out of Jacob obviously is on the back there's paleo Hebrew in the back the front of it has Greek lettering and the Old Testament is Jesus Christ concealed in Hebrew prophecy the New Testament is Jesus Christ revealed in Greek so the back of the coin has Hebrew the front of the coin has Greek this is all on the widow's might we just think of it as a penny yeah the more I searched into it the deeper I found and God used that proud King Alexander Janus to accomplish his purposes for a hundred years that circulated in people's pocket and it told the story of the Messiah to come yeah well let me get I'm gonna get another one out of here I think this is the one that I tell me about about this coin in fact you said I could hold that one absolutely this is a silver shekel attire it was the only coin the Pharisees would accept his payment of the temple tax and it has a couple of implications if that was the only coin they accepted his payment of the temple tax that would have been the coin that they gave to Judas to bribe Judas to betray Christ okay a couple of other things there was a story with Peter they're always trying to get Peter and Christ in trouble using taxes because that would be a death sentence if they said something wrong about taxes the Pharisees came to Peter and they said does your master pay the temple tax and he said of course he did Peter was really good at giving an answer that he thought was right without asking if it was right so according to the Bible he went back and met Jesus in a house and Jesus knew what he did and he said Peter who pays taxes do the King's children pay taxes or do the King's subjects and Peter must have got real interested in his shoes at the time looking down he says how does Christ know that I said the wrong thing and Peter said clearly the King's children don't pay taxes and Christ knowing that he was a son of God he didn't proclaim it and beat his chest he demonstrated that he was a son of God with a miracle he said Peter so we don't cause offense go to the lake throughout the line the first fish you catch will have a four drachma coin in its mouth the temple task was half a drachma he said that coin will pay your temple tax in mind so he demonstrated his divinity with the miracle he told Peter in words he says I'm the son of God I don't pay tax to the temple it's it's amazing to hold a coin that's that old that's the most beautiful example I've ever seen that yeah I'm gonna hand that back to you so that you can put that back in its protective case but when you see these coins and when you I mean from the historical perspective it's tremendous but what does it say to you about the word of God those coins in your hand are physical evidence that the Bible is a historically accurate document so if you take a widow's bite you can Google it and you can find all the history that I told you about Alexander Janius on the internet all by itself there is a non-coin template that I have that we share with collectors to help them organize things and it tells the story of the New Testament from the book of Matthew all the way to acts it has Pontus Pilate's coins it's got the silver shekel of tire the thirty pieces of silver the render unto Caesar coin all of those stories are based in fact in the historical figures behind them left to trail behind in those coins are the physical evidence of their existence you have you have any other pictures or do you have a picture of this particular one yeah that is the render unto Caesar coin which just again it's got Caesar's inscription and his likeness on the front on the back it looks like a false God on there is that was a Caesar's wife it was Olivia and she appeared as a form of a God so again they were always trying to trick Jesus and the disciples into saying something bad about taxes because that could eliminate the problem the Romans would come in and take care of the problem from there Jesus was tactful in the same way that he demonstrated his divinity with Peter by performing the miracle they and Mark asked him master is it lawful to pay the Roman tax and Jesus said show me the coin for the tax the coin that you see there is the emperor who was in power when Christ walked the earth by various Caesar they showed him that coin and he said whose image and inscription are on it and he said Caesar's and that comes the quote that most people will remember render unto Caesar what a Caesar but the most important part of that verse was render unto God what is God's that coin was made in Caesar's image we were made in God's image so there was a powerful story in there that often gets overlooked more than the tax question Jesus said give yourself to God you're made in his image render unto God that's right I'm gonna put this back in here with all these other amazing coins Greg McGee thank you so much for sharing this with us it encourages me and thrills me as someone who studied history to see these but also like you said it verifies the biblical record absolutely yeah thank you so much very welcome if you are in Pittsburgh and you love Christmas be Taylor was a huge part of our tradition here not only in the city of Pittsburgh but also here at cornerstone television a dear friend and one of our favorite men at Christmas time now this song that he's going to sing today is from circa 2015 let's go to be a Taylor now with Mary's boy child a savior is born Emmanuel with us and what I loved about today's program Amy is that when we see trinity jewelers or we see Greg McGee he's not coming to us from a church pool pit he's not coming to us you know in the middle of a synagogue but right where they are right in the marketplace and I believe that's really the call of Emmanuel the God who came to live with us that today in this season in particular that we can show up right where we are in our jobs in our careers on the ball fields as the representative of the God who is with us isn't that good news yes and you know this morning I was reading through my Christmas Advent devotional and the story was about Esther and I was like how intriguing because it's one of my favorite stories of all time combining it with Christmas and he said what Esther had to do was put away her her poverty or her she wasn't good enough to be the Queen and she had to get dressed in royal clothes she had to put on the royal perfumes in order for the King to accept her but our King he laid aside the royalty and the robes and the glory and the honor and he came to earth to relate with us angel Emmanuel God with us so that we in turn could be sons and daughters of the King yes truly and I'm reminded of that scripture just as Greg was talking about render to Caesar what is Caesar render to God what is God and we are his vessel as Amy just said he has garnished us he has put on us his garments his beauty and in that space what is it we can give back to him how can we show up in this season for our loved ones we're all gonna be with those 23 folks on Christmas how can we show up as the light and the royalty of Jesus that is a question of the life of our lifetime we show up in love we show up with peace we show up with joy just like Jesus does in our life and remember that the second part of that scripture for unto us as son is born unto us a child has been given and the government shall be upon his shoulders talking about marketplace and these ancient biblical coins and what we're doing in our every day coming and going we're occupying here until he comes it's our job Angela to bring heaven to earth thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven so when we're at marshals when we're at the stores when we're we're at the giant eagle and you just waited 30 minutes to get checked out and to get help what ought to come out of us right is is that spirit of life in Christ Jesus yes you know I've heard it said before it's strange if we went to an orange tree and we plucked that orange and the pressure came and when that fruit was squeezed it apple juice came out we would all say this is appalling what is this you know but in these seasons of busyness when we get squeezed it ought to look like Jesus coming out so today one of the pieces of encouragement I have for you is are you feeling the pressure and the squeeze of this season or of life and when you look around as you're being squeezed what's coming out is it the fruit of the spirit is it goodness is it kindness is it gentleness is itself control love and joy if not turn your gaze back to Jesus even in that moment when you want to freak out turn your gaze back to Jesus and let the one who is love who is peace who is joy fill your heart so if he is a manual God with us then he is in us he is for us and he will enable us this season to be Christ to a lost and dying hurting world so don't give up hope because you can do it because he's in you yes he is in you he is for you and he wants to replenish you in this season may this Christmas season truly be remarkable and special in new ways that the son of God came into you and is for you even in this moment