For church last Sunday, I went to an evangelical church that I last visited over a year ago. Then, I went to what I call the “Word of Faith” church.
Here are some items. I will be linking to past blog posts and discussions for the first two items.
A. At the “Word of Faith” church, the pastor’s daughter (who is an
associate pastor) was preaching about the story of Mary in Luke 1:26-38
and the Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55.
In Luke 1:26-38, the angel Gabriel tells Mary that she will give
birth to Jesus, the Davidic king and the Son of God, even though she is a
virgin. Mary replied: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me
according to thy word” (KJV).
The pastor’s daughter was saying that Mary was actually signing up
for suffering when she agreed to this, as glorious as it was that she
would give birth to the Son of God. Mary was betrothed to Joseph
(Matthew 1:18). In those days, betrothal was considered the same as
being married. By being pregnant before she had sexual relations with
Joseph, she appeared to others to be an adulteress, even though she was
not. Not only was this placing her own life at risk, since the penalty
for adultery was death by stoning (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), but Jesus
would also receive the stigma of being one who was considered a child
through adultery. (My note: Bruce Chilton in his book Rabbi Jesus speculates that Jesus was considered a mamzer
under the law in Deuteronomy 23:2, and thus lacked full citizenship
rights as a Jew.) The pastor’s daughter said that suspected
adulteresses were tried by the priest, and they were given bitter water
to drink. The water would cause them to suffer and to lose the ability
to have children if they were guilty (Numbers 5:11-21).
The pastor’s daughter said that she knows Christians who are shocked
when they experience disappointment and misfortune in life, especially
after they have been faithful to God. She said that there is no promise
that Christians will be exempt from suffering. What they can do,
though, is confidently stare down their enemies and say, “Be it unto me
according to thy word.” I think she was comparing the sufferings of
Mary with the sufferings that Christians experience.
I will leave that point as it is, without comment or critique, except
to say that this morning’s service was not exactly
prosperity-Gospelish. (As I have said before, it is not always accurate
for me to call that church the “Word of Faith” church.) What went
through my mind was a question that I have had before. Joseph, when he
learned that Mary was pregnant, decided to put her away privately,
without fanfare (Matthew 1:19). I have wondered, though, how that would
have helped Mary to avoid execution. Would not people have still seen
her pregnancy and concluded that she was pregnant as a result of
adultery?
I have also wondered how some of the laws about adultery in the Torah
fit together. Of course, Deuteronomy 22:13-24 prescribes stoning as
the penalty for adultery. Numbers 5:11-21, as far as I can see, says
nothing about the adulteress being executed through stoning. Then there
is Deuteronomy 24, which states that a man can put away a woman if she
is unclean in his eyes, and one interpretation is that the uncleanness
is the wife’s infidelity. But why would divorce be necessary in that
case, if the wife would be stoned for adultery?
I wrestled with some of these questions here.
See also the comments under the post. I am not entirely sure how all
of the laws about adultery in the Torah fit together. That may be a
topic to research. I had an idea, though, about how Mary could have
avoided stoning, had Joseph gone through with his plan to divorce her:
Joseph would put Mary away so that she would no longer be married to
him, and she was early enough along in her pregnancy that people might
think that she became pregnant after she was divorced. Becoming
pregnant when single is not a capital offense (Deuteronomy 22:28-30).
The rumors would still fly around that she was an adulteress and that
Jesus was conceived illegitimately, but there would be no solid proof of
that. Of course, Mary stayed married to Joseph. The rumors still flew
around that she had committed adultery (according, perhaps, to John
8:41), but there was no proof: people could not prove that Joseph was
not Jesus’ biological father.
There is also the question of when the Jewish authorities had the
authority to execute people. It varied during the lifetime of Jesus.
See my post here.
B. In the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), Mary celebrates that God has
elevated the lowly while debasing the rich and the proud, and that God
has been merciful and has remembered God’s promises towards God’s people
Israel.
Did Mary expect her son to do soon the things that many Jews believed
the Messiah would accomplish: defeat Israel’s enemies, inaugurate
justice, etc.? Why else would she be excited? Many scholars have
compared the Magnificat to Hannah’s song of praise in I Samuel 1:1-10.
The thing is, the coming social upheaval that Hannah celebrated actually
came to pass when Samuel was alive, as Samuel was instrumental in
defeating Israel’s oppressors, the Philistines (i.e., I Samuel 7).
Would Mary get excited about something that would take place two
thousand years after her lifetime, and not even then?
I have wrestled with that, and similar questions, on this blog before:
Here,
I talk about how Luke, in contrast with Mark, seems to believe that
Jesus will restore Israel in the far off future; W.D. Davies thinks that
Luke 1-2 is not Lukan but is from an earlier source, one that
presumably expected Jesus to restore Israel soon.
Here and here, I ask if perhaps the concern of the early church for the poor was a fulfillment of the Magnificat.
Here
is a post from a couple years ago. I wonder if the the Magnificat and
Zechariah’s prophecies in Luke 1 could have been conditional on Israel’s
repentance, according to Luke-Acts. See the comments under the post,
and also Steve Hays’ post on Triablogue.
C. A theme in both services that I attended was having hope. Both
preachers had valuable insights on that. The preacher at the first
service said that we need to reaffirm continually our hope in God, for
we are leaky faucets. The pastor’s daughter talked about how her
parents have praised God for years, even when they have experienced
trials, being stabbed in the back, and friends forsaking them. What was
a little unclear to me was what the preachers believed that Christians
should hope for. Do they hope that God will make things right in this
life? That God will make things right in the afterlife? Both?
I’ll leave the comments on in case someone wants to offer insights on
these topics. Please don’t leave embarrassing comments saying that
Mary was an adulteress, though. I won’t publish those comments. Also,
it will take me a while to publish comments: I will get to them
in the evening, Pacific Time.