My Daily Journal:
I was convicted by the obedience that Mary and Joseph demonstrated as parents. There is an interested contrast in Adam and Eve and Joseph and Mary. We see disobedience in the first leading to the fall of man, the first sin wasn’t an accident, it was an intentional act of disobedience of the one rule given in the garden. But time and again we see the man and woman entrusted with the responsibility of raising the infant Son of the Living God with act after act of obedience. Joseph gets direction in a dream and he obeys, even getting up in the middle of the night rousting his wife and child and setting off to a distant and foreign land.
We think about demonstrating strength and leadership as parents of our children. We want to provide for them, educate them, lead them, help them. None of these are bad or wrong, but listen to these inspired words in Matthew about the man and woman God chose for His only Son. He doesn’t talk about any of those things – He talks about obedience.
I was also challenged with the question about Nathanael and his views of Nazareth. (In the process of researching this I found this website about why people looked down on Nazareth) Like him, I am filled with preconceived notions about people. These are prejudices, but not in the way we often use the word. I clearly, however, pay more attention to a well dressed and monetarily successful, highly educated leader than I do to someone on the opposite end of the socio-economic spectrum. God reminds us it is the heart that counts – not what we can see on the outside, but what He puts on the inside, that really matters.
My Answers:
8.
a.
Angel said – he obeyed. Joseph and Mary both demonstrate amazing obedience. A lack of obedience afflicted Adam and Eve (1st parents), but Mary and Joseph model obedience as parents of the holy One.
b.
Herod’s son, Archelaus, was now ruler. Having been warned in a dream he withdrew to Galilee, Nazareth
9.
a.
Differences between Northerners and Southerners. Race, dialect, prejudices, etc. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/08/17/7-differences-between-galilee-and-judea-in-the-time-of-jesus/
b.
God turned everything upside down. All our prejudices and ideas about how “we would do things” – He did the opposite.
c.
Beings of might and power, in human thought, do not sacrifice that, even unto death, for those without any power and might. There is nothing in it for them. But God loved the world. Love is not human ration – it is divine.
The Notes are Good 