Hey there, my friends. Well, Merry Christmas. We are into the Christmas season, looking at the Christmas story as it is told in the scriptures. And we're going through it chronologically. Today we'll be looking at Matthew chapter 1 versus 18 through 21. Before we do, though, I want to thank today's episode sponsor. We have an anonymous listener of the morning mindset who is sponsoring today's episode says she's just happy to support the work of the morning mindset. Well, friends, if you would like to be a sponsor of an episode of the morning mindset, you can can do so in your name, anonymously, like this listener,

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Okay, friends, before we dig into the story of how Joseph, Jesus' adoptive father, came into the Christmas story. We need to pray. I would love for the

Lord to be our teacher today. Our Lord and our God, we are giving ourselves to you today as your

students, as your disciples, asking you to teach us from this familiar story of Christmas.

Show us what we need to understand and what will move us forward in our faith today.

We ask in Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, my friends, if you would get out your Bibles, or if you have a morning mindset journal, take it out.

We're going to be looking at Matthew chapter 1 versus 18 through 21.

And it begins very simply by saying, now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.

So Matthew is about to tell us the facts. And he begins with how Mary and Joseph came together.

It says when his mother Mary had been betrothed to

Joseph before they came together. She was found to be with a child from the Holy Spirit. Okay,

when we need to understand a little bit about Jewish marriage customs in the first century.

You see, Mary and Joseph, when it says they are betrothed,

it means they're engaged. They're engaged to be married. That's our common terminology for what

this situation was. But different from our terminology, an engagement was seen to be as strictly

adhered to as marriage. So they were already considered to be married, but they

could not be together in a sexual way until this time of betrothal was over. And so what we see here

in verse 18 is that Mary is pregnant before they've actually been able to be together, societally speaking.

And verse 18 says, and her husband, Joseph, see, that's why it calls her, calls him her husband,

is because the engagement was seen as the same kind of commitment.

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