{"id":5829,"date":"2023-04-18T17:26:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-18T23:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=5829"},"modified":"2023-04-11T11:57:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T17:57:29","slug":"joseph-to-do-justly-and-love-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=5829","title":{"rendered":"Joseph: to do justly and love mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you’re reading the Pentateuch<\/a> with us this year, you know that we’re taking a break to read Matthew’s gospel. I was delighted to find something new and exciting about Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, the very first day! I’ve written about Joseph<\/a> before, but this observation is new:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. (Matthew 1.18, 19, LSB)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her\u2026\u201d Some \u201crighteous\u201d men would have wanted to disgrace her with great fanfare. A Pharisee, for example. Or even Judah<\/a> back in Genesis 38:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About three months later Judah was told, \u201cYour daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.\u201d Judah said, \u201cBring her out and have her burned to death!\u201d (Genesis 38.24, NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u201crighteous\u201d Joseph seems to have a different standard. “Righteous” equals kind and merciful, rather than judgmental. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6.8, NKJV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joseph would have done precisely that: love mercy and walk humbly with God. Maybe that\u2019s one reason God didn\u2019t choose a Pharisee or other religious leader to be Jesus\u2019 earthly father. Some of us don\u2019t walk humbly with God. We act like God should be glad to have us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men…'” (Luke 18.9 – 11, NKJV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re reading the Pentateuch with us this year, you know that we’re taking a break to read Matthew’s gospel. I was delighted to find something new and exciting about Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, the very first day! I’ve written about Joseph before, but this observation is new: Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as … Continue reading Joseph: to do justly and love mercy<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-1w1","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5829"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5833,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829\/revisions\/5833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}