ewq1938

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You left out this part:

And Mary said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." And the angel departed from her. -Luke 1:38


Only because it wasn't relevant. God had already decided what was going to happened. It doesn't matter if she agreed to it or not. Christ was going to be born, of Mary the virgin. It's great she was ok with it after hearing what was going to happen but she had no choice whether she would get pregnant with Christ or not.

This certainly isn't rape but God does make decisions without asking us if it's ok.
 
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LovebirdsFlying

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Only because it wasn't relevant. God had already decided what was going to happened. It doesn't matter if she agreed to it or not. Christ was going to be born, of Mary the virgin. It's great she was ok with it after hearing what was going to happen but she had no choice whether she would get pregnant with Christ or not.

This certainly isn't rape but God does make decisions without asking us if it's ok.
I believe God knew she would be consenting, and that's why He chose her. I doubt He would have chosen someone who would object.
 
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ewq1938

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I believe God knew she would be consenting, and that's why He chose her. I doubt He would have chosen someone who would object.


Perhaps but my responses are just based on the text. No consent was sought. The angel simply told her what was going to happen :)
 
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AlexDTX

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Did she know enough to know how the OT women got treated? Look at Hagar. She was raped, repeatedly, and later mistreated by the wife of the man who raped her.
That is a lot of reading into the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar. Raped? How do you know that? The Bible doesn't say that.
 
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amariselle

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Only because it wasn't relevant.

Of course it was relevant.

God had already decided what was going to happened.

Of course God had decided, and God already knew how Mary would respond. That does not mean that her response (of faith) was irrelevant.

It doesn't matter if she agreed to it or not.

Of course it does. Mary was not a mindless robot or puppet.

Christ was going to be born, of Mary the virgin.

Yes, according to God's perfect plan and foreknowledge.

It's great she was ok with it after hearing what was going to happen but she had no choice whether she would get pregnant with Christ or not.

Of course she did. Human beings were created by God with free will. How many times in Scripture do we see people rebel against God and turn away from Him?

This certainly isn't rape but God does make decisions without asking us if it's ok.

Of course it wasn't rape, and of course God is sovereign and makes decisions without us consenting, no doubt more often then we know. However, when He chooses (according to His foreknowledge) a person to play a specific role in His plan, He does not take away their free will.

Mary's humble and obedient response is recorded in Scripture for a reason, and it is far from irrelevant.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Only because it wasn't relevant. God had already decided what was going to happened. It doesn't matter if she agreed to it or not. Christ was going to be born, of Mary the virgin. It's great she was ok with it after hearing what was going to happen but she had no choice whether she would get pregnant with Christ or not.

This certainly isn't rape but God does make decisions without asking us if it's ok.

@cirrutopia

I think what can get in the way here is a false assumption that Mary couldn't possibly have been 'ready' for something of the magnitude experienced in the Annunciation and the subsequent birth of her son, Jesus, especially without prior notice. However, the overall Jewish context which is implicit in the text of Luke, representing her response to Gabrielle, indicates that she was not only able to carry out her "assignment," but willing to do so as well.

Because of her Jewish upbringing and familiarity with the Law and the Prophets, and Israel's history, Mary was already partially prepared for such an occurrence as the one she encountered. We can surmise this since Luke seems to indicate this by presenting the Magnificat in a way parallel to the prayer of the Old Testament personage, Hannah. Mary was no ignorant peasant girl; she had to have had a priori knowledge from Scripture informing her about God's will and the possibility of miraculous births of special children in Israel.
 
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I get the impression this question is more about left wing liberalism being applied to the bible than anything else. Maybe if it happened today she would have had Jesus aborted..

I don't see anybody implying that.
 
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So tell me, did Mary get a say in being impregnated? Because sometimes that part of the story just reads like get gets told that she'll be getting pregnant now, and, well, sure, she does say later on, "Okay, let it be so," that part of her response seems pretty inconsequential given the fact that she's already been told that it's going to happen regardless.

Believe me, I have a burning desire to want Mary to have agency. She did say, "Let it be according to your word." I want to let her yes be yes! What an empowering story that one would be, and what a deep and meaningful testament to the trust Mary had in God! Being pregnant was even more dangerous then than it is today. To top it off, being unwed and pregnant? And all that traveling. God didn't put her in an easy position, that's for sure. But she trusted God. And goodness knows the good book needs a woman or two with agency!

Her "Let it be according to your word," doesn't feel like consent. It feels like the child who pretends to be asleep when her dad comes into her room at night because she knows there's nothing she can do to stop what he is about to do anyway... and even if she wanted to try, how would she even begin to say "no" when they are on such unequal playing fields; she doesn't have the language yet to describe what he is doing.

How much did Mary know of the OT God? I'm not sure I know a lot about her regarding what education she would have had? Did she know enough to know how the OT women got treated? Look at Hagar. She was raped, repeatedly, and later mistreated by the wife of the man who raped her. She ran away and what did God do? God said, "Go back to the place where you get hurt." Where women do come up in the OT, it's no secret that they are generally either "vessels" or they meet unpleasant ends (or maybe both!) Would Mary have felt like she had any power to say "no" to a God who the OT credits with some pretty... strong... punishments?

So what is there to take away from that passage that just seems to be Mary being taken advantage of/being reduced to a vessel. I get the whole theme of obedience and all but the annunciation bit itself really still eats at me.

God knows our choice. Yet he allows us to say it. Mary was given an opportunity to say it, yet it was a yes before she said it. Do you understand?
 
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Perhaps but my responses are just based on the text. No consent was sought. The angel simply told her what was going to happen :)

Somebody may have said something sometime to somebody, but it didn't make the edit for final print. Not everything got in writing but most the important stuff did.
 
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Perhaps but my responses are just based on the text. No consent was sought. The angel simply told her what was going to happen :)

Based on the text...but ignoring a key part of the text. That’s not basing your ideas on the text, it’s making it say what you think it should
 
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Responses to this thread so far have ducked 2 important facts about Mary:
(I) It is unlikely that she was a well grounded in Scriptures at the time of her impregnation. By Jewish custom, Mary was likely a naïve, innocent, and illiterate young girl, 13-16 years of age, when she gets engaged to Joseph. Jewish girls did not receive an education in Torah like the boys. In fact, one ancient rabbinic tradition treaches that to teach woman Torah is like teaching them obscenity!

(2) The angel never asks for Mary's permission for the divine impregnation (Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:31). Rather, she gladly consents to already accomplished impregnation after learning about its divine purpose (Luke 1:38); and God surely ordained Jesus to have a godly willing mother.
 
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Thir7ySev3n

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I am surprised anyone who has read their Bible from Genesis to Revelations would derive from it that God is a God who cares about your consent. Yes He loves us, and yes He is compassionate towards us, but when He wants His righteous will done, He is not taking no for an answer. For all those saying God seeks our consent, I would have to think they have not read the book of Jonah and seen how Jonah's will was treated when it contravened God's.

"All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand or say to Him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:35)

Again: "Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases." (Psalms 115:3)

"Many are the plans in the mind of a man,but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand. (Proverbs 19:21)

He does not ask consent for your existence, your salvation, your condemnation, your place or time of birth, your strengths or your weaknesses, your gifts or your deficits, or anything else. As much as He loves us, He is God and we are not, and we are regarded exactly as we are. All we are, and all of our value, is derived from God, so that it is utter nonsense and self-defeating to appeal against God by employing aspects of our being that could only be established by Him. In extension, that is to say that if He has not ascribed to us something we simply do not have it; it is an illusion and inflation of ourselves.

I would remind anyone inclined to thinking that God is particularly concerned with your will to again consider the case of Jonah, among many others in the Scriptures. Even better, think of yourself and the fact that Jesus is your Lord and not your co-pilot, and that all who come to Him do so on His terms and under His power and not yours.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)
 
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amariselle

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I am surprised anyone who has read their Bible from Genesis to Revelations would derive from it that God is a God who cares about your consent. Yes He loves us, and yes He is compassionate towards us, but when He wants His righteous will done, He is not taking no for an answer. For all those saying God seeks our consent, I would have to think they have not read the book of Jonah and seen how Jonah's will was treated when it contravened God's.

"All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand or say to Him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:35)

Again: "Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases." (Psalms 115:3)

"Many are the plans in the mind of a man,but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand. (Proverbs 19:21)

He does not ask consent for your existence, your salvation, your condemnation, your place or time of birth, your strengths or your weaknesses, your gifts or your deficits, or anything else. As much as He loves us, He is God and we are not, and we are regarded exactly as we are. All we are, and all of our value, is derived from God, so that it is utter nonsense and self-defeating to appeal against God by employing aspects of our being that could only be established by Him. In extension, that is to say that if He has not ascribed to us something we simply do not have it; it is an illusion and inflation of ourselves.

I would remind anyone inclined to thinking that God is particularly concerned with your will to again consider the case of Jonah, among many others in the Scriptures. Even better, think of yourself and the fact that Jesus is your Lord and not your co-pilot, and that all who come to Him do so on His terms and under His power and not yours.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Why did Jesus say "come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest"? Why issue this wonderful invitation if none of us can actually come to Him at all? Why invite us in this way if He doesn't care if we do come to Him, because He's just some kind of puppet master?

All that you say about God's sovereignty and righteous judgement is absolutely true, however, Scripture is clear that human beings do have free will and are therefore also accountable before God as to how they exercise it.

Anyone who reads the OT can see how profoundly this is true. How often did Israel turn away from God, even after He brought them out of Egypt so mightily and miraculously?

And God, Who knows the end from the beginning, and Whose plans and purposes do come to pass exactly as He wills, Whose ways are perfect and just, somehow, and incomprehensibly, still so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.

He is both the Just and the Justifier of them that believe.

God actually does love us, and He is concerned for us, He desires that none should perish.

And Jesus Christ has shown us the love of God, that we can find rest in our Saviour. Jesus Christ, our Sabbath.

God does desire a personal relationship with us, His children. He is not a distant and impersonal God simply seeking to strike us down at the slightest provocation. Thanks be to Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour Who has reconciled us to the Father!
 
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So tell me, did Mary get a say in being impregnated? Because sometimes that part of the story just reads like get gets told that she'll be getting pregnant now, and, well, sure, she does say later on, "Okay, let it be so," that part of her response seems pretty inconsequential given the fact that she's already been told that it's going to happen regardless.

Believe me, I have a burning desire to want Mary to have agency. She did say, "Let it be according to your word." I want to let her yes be yes! What an empowering story that one would be, and what a deep and meaningful testament to the trust Mary had in God! Being pregnant was even more dangerous then than it is today. To top it off, being unwed and pregnant? And all that traveling. God didn't put her in an easy position, that's for sure. But she trusted God. And goodness knows the good book needs a woman or two with agency!

Her "Let it be according to your word," doesn't feel like consent. It feels like the child who pretends to be asleep when her dad comes into her room at night because she knows there's nothing she can do to stop what he is about to do anyway... and even if she wanted to try, how would she even begin to say "no" when they are on such unequal playing fields; she doesn't have the language yet to describe what he is doing.

How much did Mary know of the OT God? I'm not sure I know a lot about her regarding what education she would have had? Did she know enough to know how the OT women got treated? Look at Hagar. She was raped, repeatedly, and later mistreated by the wife of the man who raped her. She ran away and what did God do? God said, "Go back to the place where you get hurt." Where women do come up in the OT, it's no secret that they are generally either "vessels" or they meet unpleasant ends (or maybe both!) Would Mary have felt like she had any power to say "no" to a God who the OT credits with some pretty... strong... punishments?

So what is there to take away from that passage that just seems to be Mary being taken advantage of/being reduced to a vessel. I get the whole theme of obedience and all but the annunciation bit itself really still eats at me.

Answer -- no.

Might have been a poll question?

M-Bob
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Responses to this thread so far have ducked 2 important facts about Mary:
(I) It is unlikely that she was a well grounded in Scriptures at the time of her impregnation. By Jewish custom, Mary was likely a naïve, innocent, and illiterate young girl, 13-16 years of age, when she gets engaged to Joseph. Jewish girls did not receive an education in Torah like the boys. In fact, one ancient rabbinic tradition treaches that to teach woman Torah is like teaching them obscenity!

(2) The angel never asks for Mary's permission for the divine impregnation (Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:31). Rather, she gladly consents to already accomplished impregnation after learning about its divine purpose (Luke 1:38); and God surely ordained Jesus to have a godly willing mother.

We don't know that Mary was naive, or the extent to which she may have been if she was. While she may not have been able to read or write, this doesn't mean she was also culturally illiterate. She had affiliation with Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias the priest, and we don't know how much advantage Mary may have derived from that relationship in knowing about the things of God, or from the relationship she had with her own mother, being that young Jewish girls usually DID learn from their mothers and other Jewish women. I for one wouldn't think Mary's knowledge about God's Will, or as to what that means, would be 'nil.' In fact, at the end of the Magnificat, we find Mary saying, "...[God] has helped His servant, Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever!" (Luke 1:54-55).

Thus, I don't think the Annunciation would have been completely unintelligible to Mary, even if it was extremely surprising to her, I'm sure. She wouldn't have been cowering in a dark corner in a fetal position when Gabrielle showed up, shouting out, "Oh God, NO! Oh God, NO! Please, NO!"

More likely, she would have been experiencing a state of the numinous that would have placed her on her knees in awe before the Angel, Gabrielle, while she pondered the message being delivered to her. From Luke's writing, we see that Mary was "troubled," but not at the presence of Gabrielle, but from His message (Luke 1:29).

But let's not delude ourselves or make it sound to others that Mary was just some ignorant little girl that God unjustly wrenched out of an otherwise peaceful village life, forcing His Will upon her without a gracious thought of love, care or compassion regarding the humble state in which she was at the time ...

Further Reference
Mary: A First-century Jewish Woman
 
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Reading the Magnificat, it hardly seems the words of a backwards girl who knew nothing.

And if God didn't care about free will, there would never have been a fall in the first place.

Scripture doesn't list every tiny detail. Sometimes you need to understand what God's nature is, or in this case what Mary presents as, rather than trying to determine from what Scripture perhaps doesn't say in order to arrive at an answer that is wholly at odds with the person (or Person) being discussed.
 
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amariselle

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We don't know that Mary was naive, or the extent to which she may have been if she was. While she may not have been able to read or write, this doesn't mean she was also culturally illiterate. She had affiliation with Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias the priest, and we don't know how much advantage Mary may have derived from that relationship in knowing about the things of God, or from the relationship she had with her own mother, being that young Jewish girls usually DID learn from their mothers and other Jewish women. I for one wouldn't think Mary's knowledge about God's Will, or as to what that means, would be 'nil.'

Thus, I don't think the Annunciation would have been completely unintelligible to Mary, even if it was extremely surprising to her, I'm sure. She wouldn't have been cowering in a dark corner in a fetal position when Gabrielle showed up, shouting out, "Oh God, NO! Oh God, NO! Please, NO!" More likely, she would have been experiencing a state of the numinous that would have placed her on her knees in a state of awe before the Angel, Gabrielle, while she pondered the message being delivered to her. But let's not delude ourselves into thinking she was just some dumb little girl that God wrenched out of an otherwise peaceful village life, forcing His Will upon her without a gracious thought of love and care or as to the humble state in which she was at the time ...

Exactly. Nor should we see the angel Gabrielle's announcement to Mary as telling her that God didn't care what she thought or felt about the matter, that it would come to pass whether she liked it or not. (And indeed, Mary was absolutely filled with joy, as is shown in the words she spoke).

We must remember that Mary had already found favour with God. She was a humble and faithful young Jewish woman who most definitely knew the foundations of her faith.

God did not simply use her as just another piece in the divine plan. He has always cared about His people and desired relationship with them.
 
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So there appears to be a lot of the old self , old prejudices, to be dealt with.
Until that happens, it is not likely that pure heart and wholesome understanding is possible, is it ?
Mary was very cognizant of TORAH, and of YAHWEH (more than anyone here today).
Yes, she like all the other believers serving Yahweh serve Yahweh with totally willing joyousness, even unto martyrdom/ death.

This is the truth about all the Apostles and disciples also - when Jesus calls a man, He calls him to die. Most people are not willing even just to give up family in order to enter heaven, let alone to give up their lives,
even though the alternative is much worse than any horror movie.

That's a point. When Jesus said, "Follow me," they dropped their nets and began a new, perilous life...without question. And that was with less evidence than Mary had--Mary at least had an honest-to-goodness angel standing in front of her. The apostles just had a dude from hick-town Nazareth.
 
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