What strong faith Joseph the earthly father who brought up Jesus had. When engaged to be married to Mary, he truly had to be strong to believe that Mary had done no wrong, to go ahead and marry her and to believe the angel in his dream.
Little is known of this wonderful person but his actions were crucial to protect, nurture and love the most precious baby in the history of mankind. Mary and Jesus could not have survived easily without this good man.
From Joseph's example we can learn how to conduct ourselves by placing our lives in God's hands.
Hello
@Christina2000,
Yes, Joseph is said to have been a 'just' man (Matthew 1:19): that means someone whose desire it was to obey the law. Yet if he had obeyed the law and exposed Mary, publicly, she would have been stoned to death according to the law (Deuteronomy 22:22). But he had decided instead to,
'put her away,' privately, which would require putting a bill of divorcement into her hand (Deuteronomy 24:1). He was contemplating this step (
and we can only imagine his state of mind ) when the angel of God appeared to him in a dream and told him to
'fear not'. Fear not to take Mary as his wife, for, '
That Which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost'.
Leaning to his own understanding, Joseph contemplated two equally disturbing actions, both having dire consequences for Mary, one leading to her death, and the other to shame and a barren existence. Abram had a similar time of testing in Genesis 12:11-13, again born of fear.
'And it came to pass, when he (
Abram) was come near to enter into Egypt,
that he said unto Sarai his wife,
Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:
Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee,
that they shall say, This is his wife:
and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.
Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister:
that it may be well with me for thy sake;
and my soul shall live because of thee.'
* That action could have lead to the contamination of the 'seed' promised by God in Genesis 3:15: and thwarted God's purposes through Abraham. So we can see Satan's handiwork here in both these moments in time, can't we? For it was Satan's desire to prevent the fulfillment of that promise, and the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. For it was in Isaac, Sarah's child, that Abraham's seed would be called (Romans 9:7), and through whom ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ would be born to Mary.
* How important to us, who have placed our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, these two decision making moments were, yes?
Thank you for this thought process.
In Christ Jesus
Chris
