Transcription

Chris
So I’ve always wondered what would what would what was Mary thinking when the angel showed up and said, you’re going to be pregnant, but you’re going to be a virgin when when you’re pregnant. And I’m almost wondering, like, wow, how hard would that be to believe?

Jeff
Ooh, I bet she was wondering, how am I going to tell my mom and dad? That’s that’s what we’re talking about? Hey, we’re getting into that today. He’s Chris, and I’m Jeff, and we’re the Bible guys.

Chris
So Jeff, today on our show sheet, it says that we are supposed to do a pet draft list. Yes. Which means we’re supposed to draft pets. Yes. But they said no cats or dogs because they’re too easy.

Jeff
Mine says, but you can’t choose cats or cats, right?

Chris
But it’s supposed to be cats and dogs.

Jeff
Well, it didn’t say that. I’m obeying the rules.

Chris
So you’re going to say dogs? Okay, so we’re supposed to do rock, paper, scissors, scissors. So here we go. Okay. Ready? 123. Shoot. 123. Shoot. 123. Shoot. Ah okay.

Jeff
So we we were the same on the first two. And then he beat me with. Yes. He had rock over scissors.

Chris
That’s right. Okay.

Jeff
So he beat me almost every time. By the way I want you to know that. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. I have a very low win rate on this rock, paper, scissors thing. Wow.

Chris
Uh, okay, so I don’t know why that is.

Jeff
I don’t know either.

Chris
Um, so let’s go ahead and, uh, uh, pick the first one and I’m going to say one of the coolest pets to have. Besides, uh, you know, a cat or dog, it’s it’s impractical. Um, but I think I would like a tiger.

Jeff
A tiger?

Chris
Yes.

Jeff
Why? Why a tiger?

Chris
Uh, just. It’s awesome.

Jeff
Wouldn’t you be terrified of a tiger?

Chris
It depends. If you if it if you trained it since a cub. Right. Uh, then he’d be your friend. Yeah.

Jeff
Um, so doesn’t that count as a cat member?

Chris
Uh, member? Uh, uh, the Lion King. When when, uh, Timon says, what if he was on our side? That’s right.

Jeff
Okay, so. But doesn’t a tiger count as a cat?

Chris
No, no, they were thinking domestic. Then I’m picking.

Jeff
I’m picking a wolf.

Chris
Oh, I was cool. There you.

Jeff
Go. Yeah. Why? Because I’m not allowed to pick dog.

Chris
Okay.

Jeff
All right. Because that’s what you did. You picked a cat anyways.

Chris
Go ahead. All right. My second, uh, choice for a really cool animal would be. I think I would like a llama.

Jeff
A llama? Are you serious?

Chris
I love a llama.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, I was in, uh. I was in Ecuador. Here’s a quick story. I was in Ecuador, and we had a bunch of llamas. We were staying at this, uh, in this hut, and, uh, there was a fence. And on the other side of the fence, there were a bunch of llamas. So one of the guys, uh, my wife was with me. I said, we’re not going to go buy the llamas. One of the guys goes over and I said, in the morning, I said, oh, don’t, don’t go over by those llamas. And he said, oh, no, I want to go pet them. They’re really nice. And they’re coming up to him like he was had food. So then they were sniffing his hands and when they realized they didn’t have any food, they spit right in his face.

Chris
Yep yep yep yeah.

Jeff
That was great. And he smelled like llamas. Spent the rest of the day. Yeah. He was so gross. Okay, so yeah, you can keep the llamas. Uh, I want a monkey. Oh, monkeys. Yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris
So the monkeys are pretty mischievous.

Jeff
They are, but so, so are my kids.

Chris
So that’s true. That’s true. All right. Um, what about, uh. I would love a pet. Snake.

Jeff
Really? You like snakes?

Chris
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I like snakes. If I put a snake around you, could you hold it? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jeff
I’m not afraid of snakes. And I’ve been around snakes a lot. But I got that picture in my office of me with a cobra, remember?

Chris
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jeff
That’s right. Yeah, yeah. So with the snake charmer in Marrakesh. Yeah. But yeah, I don’t like snakes. I’m intrigued by them, but I wouldn’t want to have one. Gotcha. My wife would kill me if I brought one home. Yeah. Uh, let me see what else. So, um, if my wolf doesn’t eat my monkey, then what else do I want?

Chris
Well, it doesn’t mean at the same time. Okay.

Jeff
Yeah, I don’t know, uh, an elephant.

Chris
Oh, that’d be cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’d be hard to take care of.

Jeff
I think they’re super smart. Yes they are, and it.

Chris
Would be a little expensive, probably to have an elephant.

Jeff
Yeah, it would be, it would be, it would be a lot.

Chris
But this isn’t practical land. Okay, how about this? Um, I would love a pet raccoon, a raccoon.

Jeff
I had a friend who had a raccoon. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was crazy.

Chris
I mean, raccoons, when they’re nice seem like the cutest things in the world.

Jeff
Yeah, except they’re not nice, right?

Chris
Well, you get.

Jeff
Yeah, but they’re cute. Yeah. Okay.

Chris
Uh, he’s raising anything from birth. Yes.

Jeff
Uh, so this is, what, my fourth one. So my. Oh, uh, let me see. Um. A pony. I never had a pony.

Chris
Oh, wow. You know what? Now that you said a pony, I’m going to. You just swayed me on my fifth answer. Uh, I would say a legitimate horse to ride.

Jeff
Just because I said pony.

Chris
Well, it made me think of the fact that I love riding horses. I just never do it. Yeah, yeah, like, I love I love riding horses.

Jeff
Okay. Uh. And then is this the fifth one? Man, this is, uh, this is it. This is the hard one. Then if I can only have a fifth pet, not a cat or a dog. Um. I think I would want, you know, those little sugar gliders. What? Have you ever seen those? What are you talking about? They’re like little, little animals. Like this big. They’re furry with big eyes.

Chris
Oh, those really weird ones with the big eyes that cling on to your fingers. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that’s hilarious.

Jeff
And they can kind of fly. They’ll glide.

Chris
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Wow. I didn’t even know they were called sugar gliders.

Jeff
Yeah.

Chris
Are they really called that? Yes. Oh, that. You knew that I knew that. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. Well, that was a fun little thing.

Jeff
You didn’t do your fifth one. What you didn’t do, you were first.

Chris
Yes. Oh, geez.

Jeff
Uh oh. No no, no, you chose. You chose a tiger. That’s right. I was first, so. Okay. All right. Good. Well, we’re done with that one, then. Thank you, Lord. Thank God, thank God we’re done with that one. Okay. Uh, Luke chapter one. It’s very interesting, though, when you can’t pick a cat or dog, what else do you want? Right, right, right. Snakes. Okay. Um, so we’re going to pick up now, and here’s where, uh, Gabriel’s been kind of busy. And so he, he leaves and it says here in Luke chapter one, verse 26, in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. Don’t be afraid, Mary, the angel told her, for you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over Israel forever. His kingdom will never end. Mary asked the angel, how can this happen? I’m a virgin. The angel replied, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby will be born. The baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age. People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God. Mary responded, I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you’ve said about me come true. And then the angel left her.

Chris
So her response was very different than Zechariah’s.

Jeff
Yeah, exactly.

Chris
Yeah. Mainly she didn’t have any reason to not believe that she couldn’t get pregnant. But but at this time, Mary would have been, uh, most people believe a young teenager. Yeah. So, you know, so the notes in my life application study Bible talk about how in the Jewish culture of that day, a girl would be considered a woman when she could conceive a child, usually around age 13 or 14. At this point, she could be promised to a man or engaged a year before marrying. Mary was a poor young female, all characteristics to the people of their day. And uh, anyway, it just goes on and talks about Mary. But but the bottom line is, is, uh, she was a very young woman. And the angel, you know, tells her that she’s going to bear a son. And, uh, that has to be terrifying. Yeah.

Jeff
Um, especially in her culture. So the consequences of, you know, among the Jewish culture, the consequences of a young woman getting pregnant out of wedlock could have been certainly banishment from the family. Right. Tremendous shame. But it could have been a death penalty. The family. It could have been an honor killing. Well, because she was a family, she.

Chris
Was already betrothed. Right? Engaged. Right. So so the the serious crime in that culture was, uh, was the fact that she was engaged, right?

Jeff
Yeah. Right. Now. Now, there was also a consequence for unengaged people, um, outside of marriage. Uh, but the requirement was either the death penalty or they had to get married. Yeah. Which but in this, in this context, she was engaged and Joseph knew he wasn’t the father. Right. And so then, you know, so, you know, sometimes when God comes to us, we now know how the story works. And Mary is venerated around the world, and, you know, the mother of Jesus and all those things. So it’s a beautiful picture to us. And we all have those cute little manger scenes. My wife and I were just in Bethlehem, uh, a few weeks ago, and we bought this beautiful hand-carved nativity set. You know, it’s got the Mary and the Joseph, and it’s so sweet and quaint, but, um, how unbelievably bad news this is to her.

Chris
Oh, yeah.

Jeff
Right. Other than the fact that that this angel says you’re going to have a child who’s going to be the son of God? That’s good news. Everything else about this is unbelievably inconvenient. Incredibly dangerous. It’s all bad news, devastatingly bad news. And, um, I just sometimes I’m really compelled by this. That not everything that God brings to us is what we want to hear. Um. Right. So it was it was a great privilege to her. But this is not how she saw her life going.

Chris
Yeah, well, I mean, this past Christmas, we had a lot of Christmas services at our church. Yeah. And the concept, the message was built around the idea of upside down Christmas and, uh, and it was really cool, but but it was sort of this concept, which is why did God it’s sort of wondering why did God choose to come into the world in the fashion that he did? Yeah. You know, why did he not just come, you know, as a full grown adult with trumpets and royalty and saying, I’m God and you’re not, uh, worship me. Bow to me, whatever it is. Uh, but, you know, if Jesus is going to come to the earth, why did he have to, uh, you know, come under the umbrella of a disgraced woman who was betrothed, who people didn’t believe, you know, write her story. And why did she have to be born in a stable, you know, with with farm animals? Because there was no room for her in the end and, and all these different things. And so Jesus lived an upside down life. That was the idea, right? Like, you know, and came in humility when he didn’t have to. Uh, and then the conclusion of the message was, he came in an upside down way so that we can live an upside down life, because a lot of the, uh, sinful instincts and our natural human instincts that that we want to do, Jesus says the opposite is true. Right? Right. Uh, so just to complete this thought, uh, he says, in order to be first, you’re going to be last. That’s an upside down thought, right? In order to be strong, you must become weak, right? Right. And, you know, if you if you, uh, if you if you lift yourself up, you’re going to be humbled. Right? But if you humble yourself, you’re going to be lifted up. Right? So it’s just this concept, this paradoxical truth. And I think that God sets in motion, uh, this pattern right here by choosing to come in this way. And so, yeah, Mary is going to be disgraced. Uh, in fact, Joseph probably would have left her.

Jeff
He was contemplating it. We’ll read about that in the next. Yeah, in the next.

Chris
In the next chapter. Yeah.

Jeff
Yeah. So. We often are attracted to the idea of having God in our life, the idea of faith for our benefit. But in this situation, God was not necessarily looking for what was most convenient for Mary. God trusted her with the thing that was inconvenient. That was dangerous. God entrusted it. And so now here we are, 2000 years later, and we give her honor. Right. So the greatest things that we can do in our life aren’t the easiest things. The greatest things we can do in our life aren’t the safest things. The greatest things we can do in our life is to submit to what God wants to do and trust him, and that he’ll bring us through. So what would have been dangerous in most circumstances? For some reason, her parents saw fit not to not to punish her for some reason. We see in just a minute Joseph chose not to punish her. God gave favor to her in this, even though by all rights they they could have caused her tremendous shame and problems. Um, you do find her going down and hanging out with Elizabeth. So there’s that whole thing, you know, where they’re. She’s able to avoid some of that. But God works away. And if we would just trust him, even when the difficult thing happens, even when the thing that we don’t want, that’s not the direction I see my life going. Even when those things happen, if we can just trust God in it, that here we are, 2000 years later, honoring this woman because she was willing to go ahead and follow God. And I think she trusted the angel’s statement when he said, for nothing is impossible with God, right coming out of that phrase. That’s when you find Mary going, okay, then I’m the Lord’s servant. And whatever God wants to do, he can do. Yeah.

Chris
Um, you know, it’s also interesting that we don’t want to necessarily breeze past is that they mention King David twice in this announcement. Yeah. And the first one was it actually said, uh, she was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. Right. Just making sure that you knew that Joseph was an ancestor. And then, um, uh, you know, the angel’s announcement is, is that he’s going to, uh, sit on the throne of David, and then he’s going to rule over Israel forever, right? He’s going to sit on the throne of his ancestor David. So why is that important? That’s important for a reason. I know you know why. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hello, listeners. Why?

Jeff
Because Jesus is is the direct descendant of this promise that God had made to David. Jesus is the king of Israel. He’s he’s he’s the a direct descendant of the king of Israel.

Chris
And the promise was given to David that that, uh, the Messiah would come through his line. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so now, what’s really interesting about this is that we have two genealogies in the Gospels that we’re going to get to. Right? And, uh, both genealogies serve different purposes. One goes from David, uh, all the way to Joseph. Right. And then one goes from David to Mary, right.

Jeff
From, I think, Abraham all the way to Mary. Right, right, right.

Chris
Yeah. But it goes through David, right?

Jeff
Yeah. Through David.

Chris
But but either way, though, uh, both genealogies, when you read them, uh, on the surface, you may say, well, why why, you know, all these names, you know, of ancestry. And yet, at the same time, what we realize is that they serve the purpose of saying, not only is Joseph a descendant of David, but Mary is also a descendant of David.

Jeff
That’s right, that’s right.

Chris
And that’s and that’s.

Jeff
Not mentioned here. Now, I don’t know what we’re going to say when we get to those passages, because it’s just a lot of names.

Chris
Oh yeah. My bad. I’m sort of jumping ahead. I’m just so excited.

Jeff
It’s exciting.

Chris
Man. Yeah, well, we’ll find things to say.

Jeff
I’m sure we will. We never have a shortage of words. That’s true. Um, so there is an interesting note here. You know, we always talk about how we like the Life Application Study Bible. Um, verse 34, the note says the birth of Jesus to a virgin is a miracle that many people find hard to believe. These three facts can aid our faith one. Luke, the author of the book of Luke. Luke was a medical doctor and he knew perfectly well how babies are made. It would have been just as hard for him to believe in a virgin birth as it is for us, and yet he reports it as fact, right? So because of everything else that Luke investigated about Jesus, he became convinced that Jesus really is who he said he was. Yeah. So then when you become convinced that Jesus is who he said he was, then Luke was able to embrace the idea that Jesus was virgin born, even though he knew how babies were made. Uh, number two, Luke was a painstaking researcher who based his gospel on eyewitness accounts. Tradition holds that he talked with Mary about the events he recorded in the first two chapters. This is Mary’s story, not a fictional invention. So that’s interesting if you know, because he says he claims I interviewed the people I write about, right? That’s right. And then church tradition has shown for 2000 years that he actually interviewed Mary. Mary died several years after. And then, um, the third one is Christians and Jews who worshiped God as the creator of the universe should have no doubts that God has the power to create a child in the Virgin’s womb. As a matter of fact, John just said, Jesus is the creator, right? And so you know, if you believe that God can create the universe, then the idea that God can create a child in a virgin’s womb is not. Too far fetched, right? Right. So, um, but the bigger issue is why? Why a virgin birth? And, uh. Uh, the note in 35 says, why is the virgin birth important to the Christian faith? Jesus was born without the sin that entered the world through Adam. He was born holy just as Adam was created sinless. In contrast to Adam, who disobeyed God, Jesus obeyed God and was thus able to face sin’s consequences in our place and make us acceptable to God, right? So in the book of Romans, it compares Adam being the first, um uh, man and sin. It says, wherefore, uh, as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men because of all of sin. That’s in Romans. Then the very next phrase says that Jesus is the second Adam. He came in place of Adam. Only he never sinned. And so because of him, he made it possible. Through this one man, Jesus Christ made it possible for all of us to have our sins forgiven. And so that was only possible, um, because. Because he was not born of Adam. Right? He was born of woman, but he was not he did not have an earthly father. Yeah. And so then sin was not passed to him. That’s why.

Chris
Um, so, uh, normally we don’t, uh, bring this kind of subject up, but I think that, uh, because this is the main passage that talks about the Virgin Mary, people often ask me, uh, in my 30 years as a career pastor, and they always say, like, how come, uh, you know, you don’t necessarily treat Mary like some other people do around the world, right?

Jeff
Why don’t we pray to her?

Chris
Yeah. Why don’t we pray to her, uh, or have a prayer that’s, you know, or have a statue and all these kind of things? Sure. And really, there’s a pretty simple answer. And that is, um, uh, you know, traditionally the Catholic Church, uh, was was the, you know, original church around Greek Orthodox and Catholic churches. And, uh, it just really depends on where you believe the authority comes from. And, uh, and nowhere in the Bible does it talk about Mary being elevated other than it says, blessed are you, Mary, above all women. Yeah. Right. Right. So she is definitely given the blessing among blessings, right? Yeah. But in terms of a status of someone to pray to, uh, nowhere in the Bible does it talk about that. And the Catholic Church, uh, you know, sort of has, uh, placed Mary in that spot. And then I think that when, whenever the church broke off, you know, I mean, really it was, to be honest with you, it’s kind of like the discovery of America. You know, we came over here and the birth of the Protestant church was like, hey, we love God. We love, uh, the, you know, the everything that the Bible says. Uh, but this idea that there’s a governing body that says, you know, these are the things that we’re going to speak on behalf of God. Um, and again, it just depends on where you believe the authority comes from. Right? So we believe the authority comes from the Bible. And the simple answer to all of that question is, uh, it’s just nowhere in the Bible.

Jeff
Have you been to the the Vatican Museum in the Vatican?

Chris
No, I stood outside the Vatican because we only had, like, a simple layer.

Jeff
So there’s a segment in the Vatican Museum that highlights when they began to venerate Mary as somebody to pray to. Mm. Uh, so this idea of Mary being elevated in the churches, if you look at the art in the churches, we were in a number of temples or of, of of, uh, cathedrals and churches throughout Sicily and Italy that were built before 1200s. And it’s always Jesus is the big art. And Mary is one of the secondary stories with Mary and Joseph and Jesus. And then in the 13 or 14 hundreds, suddenly Mary became the big art. And Jesus was part of all of Mary’s stories. And, uh, it was it was very clear. And so the Catholic Church acknowledges that there was a shift of the primacy of Mary over the primacy of Jesus. But Mary is not the one who died on the cross to save me from my sins. Mary was not the one that was born, uh, to die. Mary was not the one that came to sacrifice. And Mary was not the one who rose from the dead, defeating death and sin and hell and grave. Nothing with regard to justification or forgiveness of sins or salvation is connected to Mary other than the fact she gave birth to Jesus. And so, um, Jesus is our mediator. Paul says that there’s one mediator between God and man. That’s the man Christ Jesus. And so we don’t need Mary to intercede for us. However, Mary deserves all of the respect of all young woman who was willing to accept any plan God had for her life, even though it was contrary to her plan for her life. And Jesus honored her. Jesus loved her. Um, and I think that we should have the same kind of love and honor for Mary that Jesus did. But you don’t find Jesus praying to Mary. You find Jesus going up the mountain and praying to his father. Matter of fact, Jesus told his mother, didn’t you know I’d be about my father’s business, right? Right. So Jesus put his focus on on God, uh, even while he loved and respected and cared for his mother. I think we should have the same attitude. Yeah.

Chris
And I grew up. I grew up Catholic, by the way. Yeah. And there are many things about the Catholic Church that I absolutely love. And my brother is still a devout Catholic, one of the best Catholics that I know. So this is this is not a bashing session. No, it’s not a shame on you or disrespect at all. I just think that the the doctrine of Mary and Jesus, uh, would be better served. Uh, you know, according to the truth. Yeah. Uh, you know, Jesus.

Jeff
Above Mary below.

Chris
Jesus above, Mary below. That’s right. And, uh, you know, the idea that we could pray to any human, uh, just isn’t found in the Bible, which is why we don’t do that.

Jeff
That’s right. And I only mention the the Vatican thing because they acknowledge it. Right? Right. This isn’t something that we’re claiming. It was a shift in their own theology. Right? Happened more than a thousand years after Jesus.

Chris
Yeah. That’s interesting. Yeah. Well, uh. Okay. So listen, we’re about that time, so hopefully we’ll see you next time on The Bible Guys.