While talking to a Catholic friend last week, the doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary came up. I began explaining what I thought was historic, orthodox Christian doctrine on the topic, mentioning several of the references to Jesus' brothers and sisters. (Mt 12:46-50; 13:54-58; Jn 2:12; 7:2-10; Acts 1:14; I Cor 9:5; and Gal 1:18-19 are the main ones, along with their cross references.) But since I didn't have anything conclusive, I decided to do some brief study on it yesterday morning. After reading the above references, I was fairly convinced that Jesus did have natural (half-)brothers and sisters.
And then, I decided to look up the history of the doctrine, and things got interesting. Martin Luther, John Calvin (Harmony of the Evangelists, 215), Ulrich Zwingli, and John Wesley (in "to a Roman Catholic") at least held to the perpetual virginity of Mary. These references do not include the many church fathers who are known or cited as supporting the doctrine. The explanation of the above passages is that these "brothers and sisters" were either close relatives of Jesus or step-brothers from a previous marriage of Joseph. Apparently Protestants have, by and large, ceased to hold this doctrine during the last several centuries due to the uncertain Biblical evidence.
Anyways, I found it very odd that I have never come across this before in my studies. And while the weight of Scripture seems to rest most naturally with Joseph and Mary having children after Jesus' birth, it certainly would not be unthinkable that they did not. Indeed, this is not a particularly important issue of faith as long as we accept all that the Bible says. Nevertheless, it piqued my interest and I thought I'd share it and see if anyone else had come across it before.
This post and others on this blog present a constructive view of the immigration law passed in Arizona, for people of faith.
Some of the boycotts going on regarding Arizona are rather ridiculous, but while Arizona certainly has the right to seek to enforce its borders, I do think that everyone else has the right to expresss their dismay about how it does so... that's what we are doing to N. Korea and Iran...
I was reading this morning in I Timothy 5 about the church's care of widows; as I tried to understand the section better, I read this in John MacArthur's commentary I Timothy.
"Jesus spoke from the cross to only two individuals. He forgave the dying thief, and arranged for the care of His widowed mother. Nothing so clearly reveal the heart of God as that. While bearing the burden of the world's sins, Jesus' mind was concerned with the salvation of one sinner, and the care of one widow." (emphasis mine)
In "The Missional Church," Tim Keller speaks to transformation that is needed within the American Church today. I do not agree with everything said in the article, but much of it is really helpful. The three paragraphs given below are from different contexts in his 3-page article. I would note that my biggest disagreement with this article is that I do not think every aspect of the church should revolve around outreach; however, the point is that we must think of our mission even as we worship, disciple, have community, and serve.
"But the church in the West had not become completely 'missional'--adapting and reformulating absolutely everything it did in worship, discipleship, community, and service--so as to be engaged with the non-Christian society around it. It had not developed a 'missiology of western culture' the way it had done so for other non-believing cultures. ...
In a 'missional' church, the laity needs theological education to 'think Christianly' about everything and work with Christian distinctiveness. They need to know: a) what cultural practices are common grace and to be embraced, b) what practices are antithetical to the gospel and must be rejected, c) what practices can be adapted/revised. ...
In general, a church must be more deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion and social justice than traditional liberal churches and more deeply and practically committed to evangelism and conversion than traditional fundamentalist churches. This kind of church is profoundly 'counter-intuitive' to American observers. It breaks their ability to categorize (and dismiss) it as liberal or conservative. Only this kind of church has any chance in the non-Christian west. ..."
"By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
The blog for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is an excellent way to educate yourself about the issues facing our Latino brothers and sisters. These two most recent posts are very enlightening; I haven't gotten to the rest yet.
More info on the NHCLC is available here at their website.
Toward a more Christ-like way of thinking...
A couple of friends have already blogged about this, but I thought I'd add a few thoughts to the immigration discussion.
John Crosby was a long time columnist for the New York Herald Tribune. In his book With Love and Loathing he describes meeting, "a white-goateed man, tough as wire, had been missionarying through Africa and South America for thirty years." I've posted the complete excerpt about this meeting on the family history blog, but below is what I found to be an interesting description of what jungle work is like.
“The upper Amazon teems with missionaries, all of them marvelously resourceful fellows. Along with bringing the word of God, they must know how to take an Evinrude [brand of outboard engine] apart, heal the sick, teach the children, rescue the flooded, speak two or three languages and half a dozen Indian dialects, and do about a million other things only dimly related to the Gospel."
