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After you've read David's thoughts, share yours! Send a reply email to David!!
DAVID'S EMAIL BIBLE STUDY:
A.
BACKGROUND...Luke says he carefully investigated the life of Jesus to tell it correctly. His investigation took him to the role played by John the Baptist. Announced by an angel, miraculously born, his purpose is to "prepare the way of the Lord", a further proof that Jesus fulfilled Judaism's hope for a Messiah.
C. SUMMARY: With John the Baptist's birth on the way, the angel turns to Mary, announcing (ANNUNCIATION) that God has chosen her as the human participant in the divine miracle to place God on earth. Mary is "troubled", questioning, and obedient. The angel describes a mystical union between God and Mary that will yield humanity's Savior. She welcomes the opportunity, then visits her cousin, Elizabeth. Both Elizabeth and her unborn John greet and recognize the miracles in store for both families and both children. Mary proclaims her MAGNIFICAT, a joyful song that celebrates her role in God's determination to fulfill the Covenant and bring a blessing to all the forgotten..
1. The VIRGIN BIRTH! You really believe that stuff?? In my experience the #1 argument against Christianity is its reliance on impossible stories: Jesus' virgin birth, walking on water, resurrection after crucifixion. If we stuck to the nice things he said and good things he did our Christianity would be more acceptable. Yet the idea of Jesus born to a virgin remains strong in everything from the Apostle's Creed to classic religious art to popular imagination. The essential truth of Christmas is that Jesus is Emmanuel, which means "God with us". Theologically we call it the incarnation, God becoming flesh. This is accomplished by the mystery of God's presence and Mary's motherhood. I happen to believe the Virgin Birth, but it should not be a stumbling block or litmus test for being a Christian. And by whatever distinction, Mary was an extraordinary person.
2. God's MAGNIFYING GLASS. Mary's wonderful boast is that her "soul magnifies the Lord!" (verse 46-47). The purpose of a magnifying glass is to make larger and clearer. Mary dares to believe that by obediently partnering with God her life will make God larger, clearer, more understandable. Wow! Here's a young, female, teenager, poor, of no account, uneducated, engaged to a carpenter, living in a backwater town in a defeated country - and yet she knows that her life, her witness, her work can result in more people knowing God in a real and personal way. That should be our daily challenge: how can your life, my life, today bring someone closer to God? How can we "magnify the Lord"? Don't shrink from the possibility!
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