Tag Archives: Luke 1

Zechariah and Mary – Christmas 2024

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Last Sunday I watched Brother Past, our unobtrusive head usher, welcome Mr. Present, the current chairman of the board, and Future, a new prospective member. Present and Future demanded Past seat them on the front row; it was tense.

Back in school, Ms. Uno told me that in the future; I, Trey, would be parsing words. Everyone actively laughed at me. Well, this present post will get to the root of the words of two important people in Luke 1 – Zachariah and Mary.

The tension, for me, comes the fact that both ask “how” and use an “indicative 1 singular” verb. Well, that is the way most modern translations read. Zechariah (1:18) and Mary (1:34) receive two different responses from Gabriel. Elizabeth got nine months of blissful silence, and Mary received charitoo. In Mark’s translation it would read, “How can I know?” In the Greek both verses share the word – ginōskō. At this point I will encourage factchecking, so use MOUNCE, Strong’s G1097, Luke 1:18 Greek Text Analysis (biblehub.com), and Luke 1:34 Greek Text Analysis (biblehub.com).

I view this as adding to my other Christmas post on Zechariah, and Mary. See Christmas Light | Mark’s Bible Study (ificouldteachthebible.com) for the star.

Zechariah or Zachariah (Not the Old Testament prophet)

This old cohen, who had faithfully served many years had been chosen for a special honor. He was to go into the empty Holy of Holies and burn incense, this was done in the seventh month on the Day of Atonement. (See Leviticus 16 and 23.) Paradigms and definitions, compare the meaning of cohen to priest.

Oh, the hallowed copy of the Ark that Moses had constructed has not been found; the real one was/is in Heaven. Metaphorically, we might say the Chest was about to be placed in Mary, (See The Poles and The Mercy Seat)

I looked but could not find an age requirement for serving as a cohen. Levities had to stop serving at the age of fifty (Numbers 8:25). In 1 Samuel 4:18 Eli was 98 and he had started at 58. How do you think his sons were doing as cohen?

Mary or Mariam

This teenage granddaughter of King David, through Nathan not Solomon, has a special place in history. Tradition and legend have been added to her story. She is found in the Gospels doing things at key points in Jesus’ story. I want to focus on two; her willingness to submit to the Father and her comment to the servant at the wedding, “Do whatever He tells you.” (NIV)

Two Forms of Ginōskō

Zechariah uses gnosomai and Mary uses ginōskō. Zechariah’s word is a future, middle voice form that shows he was concerned about himself and how it would affect him. Mary’s is a present, active voice that wonders how God is making this happen.

Compare and Contrast

Old vs. New. Law vs. Charitoo. Known vs. That Can’t Happen. Elijah vs. Elisha. Father God talked many times about Gentiles being part of His Family, and how the heart played into being a “branch on that vine”. Both were given a task: Zechariah would father a child that would announce that salvation was being provided; Mary would carry the Child that would provide the final offering, so we could be accepted again. Zechariah “knew” the Torah and may have been a Sadducee. Mary had some training, but she “knew” that a virgin of Judah would have a Child, and probably held to the teachings of the Pharisees. A light translation of that is no angels or miracles vs. angels exist and God can do anything He wants.

My parsing may not have been great, after all it is Grammer to me. My BIG takeaway is the new levels that Zechariah and Mary represent in the story of the Father sending His Son to bring His Family together.

Have a Merry Christmas and think about the Little Lamb who was born in Bethlehem.  

A Word to Live by-Salvation

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Logos is a new category of study that is starting with the word salvation.  Since this is a Bible study blog you will need to be ready with your Word, a concordance, or at least a Bible study site like biblegateway.com.    

This post started by doing a search on the term “salvation”, where I went to the New Testament.  First, I noticed that the word salvation is not used in Matthew or Mark. (You may notice that number counts don’t match! Gateway does a verse count while a concordance does a word count. Throw in titles and modern word replacements, counts will vary between websites and concordances.)

You can focus on one verse, book, or writer and have a meaningful study.  I noticed in looking at the uses of salvation in the New Testament an interesting pattern.  In Luke 1: 69, 71, and 77, these verses are part of the prophecy of Zechariah about Jesus and John.  Luke 2:30 and 3:6 are “seeing” salvation.  Luke 19:9 and John 4:22 (only use) is Jesus talking to people about salvation – Zacchaeus, the hated tax collector, and the Samaritan woman at the well. 

Luke starts again in Acts 4:12 with salvation for mankind and his next three mentions (concordance please) have the Gentiles included in receiving salvation.  The Holy Spirit continues the inclusion of Gentiles in Romans 1:16 and 11:11. 

Romans 13:11 starts another facet of material that presents things and ideas associated with salvation.  Paul includes two different verses about salvation being our “helmets” – Ephesians 6:17 and 1 Thessalonians 5:8. Hebrews and Peter (1+2) include many verses about salvation.  The last verse about salvation is Revelations 19:1 where “salvation, glory, and power belong to God”.

Hebrews 2:10 I found interesting because it is about Jesus.  He is the pioneer of our salvation that was made perfect by what He suffered (most of that thought is from the NIV).  “Perfect” in the thinking of the Old Testament would be one who is complete.  That may cause a bump in our modern thoughts about the term perfect.

FYI – biblegateway.com has forty verses with salvation in the New Testament NIV.  I found the ordering of the word salvation in the Logos interesting because it makes a logical presentation on the topic starting in Luke and going to Revelations.

Christmas Characters – Matthew and Luke

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No, I have not lost my mind!  Yes, I do read my Bible.  The reason I wanted to include these two Gospel writers is that they took the time to listen to Mary and record her “ponderings.”  These two men had different audiences so their approach to the story is slightly different – Thank God.  Matthew wrote for a Jewish-Christian audience while Luke was writing for Greeks.   Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:22 that Jews want signs and Greeks want knowledge.  I think Matthew and Luke go against this thought (a little) in their writing of the Christmas story.  Matthew lays a very solid fountain built on the Scripture and tradition while Luke gives sign after sign in his story.

Matthew

Matthew connects immediately to his Jewish readers by introducing Jesus as the son of David.  He does this by using three sets of fourteen names.  The name David, using the numerical values of the letters, adds up to fourteen (nun); a very knowledgeable connection to draw his readers into his story. Using the three sets of fourteen makes this family, and brings his readers to the idea that a new age is ready to begin.  The first set is made up of patriarchs, the second set is the kings of Israel and ends with the fall of Jerusalem, the final set begins with the governor of Jerusalem and then goes to “citizens” who do not show up anywhere else in history.  He also uses four mothers in the genealogy something that was not usually done, actually five since we need to include Mary.  This genealogy is really Joseph’s family tree since it comes through Solomon and not Nathan.

Matthew uses the reader’s knowledge of their history to firmly plant Mary and Jesus as acceptable additions into this sorted family tree. Tamar was a scorned woman who resorted to trickery in order to bear children.  Rahab was an innkeeper/prostitute who hid the spies from Joshua son of Nun and later married into the royal lineage.  Faithful Ruth was a Moabite, she should not have been allowed near the Tent of Meeting because of the Balaam incident.  Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, really stirred the pot because of how David took her as his wife.  So using the groups of fourteen names was a very scholarly approach on Matthew’s part to show the less than spotless lineage from David and so the humanity of Jesus.

Angel and Dreams

Joseph is the center of attention here as he had several dreams, with angels in them, to lead and protect his new family.  These would have connected his readers to the prophets and leaders of old, putting Joseph in a very elite company of people.

Magi and Herod

The Magi or Wise Men had knowledge of the stars and the sign they saw was enough to set them on a very long journey.  (God used the three gifts to supply the little family while they were in Egypt.)  When they got to Herod he had the priest supply a place to look for the King by searching the scrolls.  Matthew shows his knowledge of the Scriptures by quoting Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, and Hosea in his telling of the birth of Jesus.

Luke

Luke starts with the signs and wonders right away.  An angel in the Temple, a mute priest, an older barren woman, now pregnant; that was to just get an “Elijah” to prepare the way of the Lord.  The answered plea of Zechariah and Elizabeth also reflects the nation of Israel as they were seeking redemption from the Romans.  The signs continue as baby John jumps in the womb because Jesus came into the room and Zechariah speaks after he shows his faith.  After Jesus’ birth angels sing to shepherds and people prophesying about Jesus when He is in the Temple fulfilling the Law for His birth.  Luke certainly used the parables of Jesus to satisfy the Greek hunger for knowledge, but he started his story with an impressive list of signs.

I have tried to connect Zachariah’s service with the birth of Jesus in the Post – The Day of Atonement, Passover, and Epiphany.  The results are not what I expected about the birth time of Jesus.  The legend/history is better than I thought.

Suggest reading: Joy to the World by Scott Hahn

Christmas Characters – Mary

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As I read the Christmas story looking at Mary the thing that most impressed me about her was that she served Elizabeth for three months.  However they were related, it was important for Mary to share this time with her friend and relative. (I do wonder if part of the reason for this visit was not to strengthen her faith for what lay ahead of her.)mary-and-elizabeth

The Cost

This trip came at a cost.  It was the first of four times that she would go between Nazareth and the land of Judah in nine months.  It is approximately eighty to ninety miles and she probably did the first two on foot; that would have been about a week’s worth of walking.  The journey took her through many of the historical sites of Israel and through Jerusalem.  Just walking would have been hard enough, even though she was young, but there were also the chemical changes going on inside her.  Another cost was her reputation!  She left Nazareth not showing that she was pregnant and came back with a three-month baby bump, you know tongues were wagging.   Joseph considered divorce.  Being stoned to death was a possibility. Just a little pressure for saying YES to God.

Mary and Gabriel

Mary was greatly troubled.  I don’t really blame her.  Suddenly there is a man in your room and he is happily greeting you saying you are highly favored of the Lord.  “Greatly troubled” is diatarasso it is used once in the New Testament and gives the idea she was very upset. When “greeting” is used elsewhere in Luke it is aspasmos which is just the concept of saying hello.   It seems that the entire conversation may not have been recorded but it would seem likely that Gabriel introduced himself as he did with Zechariah.

I have tried to connect Zachariah’s service with the birth of Jesus in the Post – The Day of Atonement, Passover, and Epiphany.  The results are not what I expected about the birth time of Jesus.  The legend/history is better than I thought.

Mary had heard the Scriptures, she knew like every other virgin of the family of David that she was a candidate to carry the Messiah.  Now it was happening to HER!  Luke 3:31 cropped-jesus-2.jpgputs her in a branch of the family that came through Nathan and the only connection to the “kingly line” was with Zerubbabel and Shealtiel.  The greeting sounded like the one given to Gideon (Judges 6:12), who also had family trouble because he accepted the task he was given.

Pondering

Mary was a reflective person who considered her place in history by what God had given her to do.  In Luke 2: 19 she is “treasuring all of these happenings and pondering them.”  She would have been the only source of these happenings for Luke and Matthew.

Her song of praise in 1:46 showed a lot of thought and awareness of Scripture and the events of her time.  I think the week-long walk may have helped the composing of her song.

http://www.freebibleimages.org/illustrations/

Christmas Characters – Zechariah

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Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, has two scenes in the first chapter of Luke but is still important in the life and mission of Jesus.  The good doctor Luke begins the Christmas story with him.  Not just as the father of John but as a time reference.  He is performing the priestly duties of the division of Abijah during the time of Herod.  We really are not sure when this was but Theophilus could have figured it out.

David in 1 Chronicles 24 assigned the two priestly families months when they would serve at the Tabernacle.  (For a small discussion of the families go to Samuel – Priest.)  These assignments would have held until the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem by the Babylonians.   This concept is applied again by Nehemiah when he was governor (12:17).  Abijah is one of the four names that are in both lists.

There are some loose comparisons between Zechariah and Abraham, but the notable difference is that he did not believe the news about a child being born.  Just for fun I reviewed the writings of the Prophet Zechariah and found a few light comparisons; mostly that the prophet also had angelic visits.  Zechariah’s (father of John) prophesy in Luke 1: 67 – 79 does carry some of the themes in the Book of Zechariah.

The fear Zechariah had while burning the incense (Exodus 30) possibly came from the incense_stickthought that he had done something wrong and was not worthy to be performing that duty. This fear started with the death of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 and Korah’s rebellion in Numbers 16.  I have read in a variety of places that the priest would have a rope tied to his ankle just in case he messed up and was struck down behind the curtain.

His reaction to Gabriel’s heavenly message was just one of unbelief, not a happy surprise; he challenged the reality that it would happen.  There could be many reasons for Gabriel stopping Zechariah from speaking, but stopping the spread of his doubt seems the best.  Also, his total silence for nine months adds to the importance of his real inclusion in this story, the birth of John.  The other three Gospels include John and his mission, but it is interesting that the only non-Jewish writer included the miracles and signs associated with his birth.

I have tried to connect Zachariah’s service with the birth of Jesus in the Post – The Day of Atonement, Passover, and Epiphany.  The results are not what I expected about the birth time of Jesus.  The legend/history is better than I thought.

Nine months of silence and a visit from Mary prepared Zachariah for his final scene in birth-of-johnLuke when he confirmed the angelic message by naming his child John.  He joined the small group of people who are recorded in the pre-Pentecost time as having been filled with the Holy Spirit.  It is worthy to note that his prophesy started with the news of Jesus and then went to his son John.  That part of his utterance carries the words of Gabriel and Malachi 3:1.

Besides fathering John, Zachariah was the link to the priesthood informing them that something great was about to happen!  They choose not to accept!

http://www.freebibleimages.org/illustrations/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incense