What Will Others Think

Matthew 1:18-21 (NKJV)
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. 19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. 20 But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”

Can you imagine the thoughts that went through the mind of Mary and Joseph at the conception of Christ? An angel came to Mary and declared to her that she was chosen to bring forth the Savior of the world. She probably thought, “why me” or “how could I be worthy to bear the Son of God?” Many different thoughts could have gone through her mind. One of the most embarrassing questions she probably asked was, “what will the neighbors think?”

Today’s passage also displays the struggles that Joseph encountered. He and Mary were engaged. Joseph was a just man who had an upright reputation in society. When Mary’s pregnancy was revealed to him, he probably had many different kinds of thoughts. He could have felt rejection, dishonor and he probably wondered why Mary had sought after another man. At this time and in this culture an engaged couple were already considered married, but they could not live together as a married couple until the wedding one year later. They would have needed to get divorced to break their engagement.

Joseph sought to handle things discreetly, so he wanted to put her away secretly. By all reasoning, he could have felt violated and extremely upset. In addition he probably wondered what others would think. He was not guilty of any wrong doing and he did not want to be tagged with the stigma of promiscuity for the rest of his life. The fact that he wanted to divorce her secretly proved the fact that he was not malicious, but he just wanted to get rid of a messy situation.

God knew his thoughts, so it took a special manifestation of God in a dream for Joseph to realize that it was God Himself who had fertilized the seed of Mary. At this point, he exercised great faith in God by not being overtaken by his feelings. He knew that others would talk about him wrongly and tag him incorrectly. But his faith in God was the greatest passion of his life. He correctly exercised Act 5:29b, where it says, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Because of his faith each one of us now has the opportunity to believe in Christ and be delivered from our sins. Can you imagine this, your faith can affect many other people. So, exercise it often and with wisdom.

Thoughts, comments, objections, prayer requests.



Daniel A. Smith