The main purpose of the affirmation credibly in church history of Mary's being the mother of God

was motivated by the church's desire to say something more about Jesus than they were about Mary,

to make clear their assertion and confession of the deity of this one who was born of Mary.

To bring up Mary,

to bring up Mary among Protestants can easily stir up suspicion, questions and controversy.

In reaction to the errors of the Roman Catholic Church,

we often prefer not to speak of Mary at all, that is, unless it's Christmas.

I'm Nathan W Bingham and you're listening to renewing your mind.

Perhaps more often than any other time of year during Christmas the advent season

we hear sermons and maybe even sing songs that mention Mary but outside of Christmas

she's generally avoided.

So what is the controversy with Mary?

And do we lose anything if we ignore a study of Mary?

Today's message is from a series with R.C. Sproll, simply titled Mary.

And you can learn how to request complete access to it, along with four other complete series

and a new Advent Devotional when you visit renewing your mind

dot org. Well here's Dr Sproll to introduce us to the topic of Mary.

When I was a boy, I used to work in a shoe shine shop with a very dear friend whose name was Ned Barbaraich,

and all the boys referred to Ned as Uncle Ned because he had such a wonderful influence on looking out for us in our youth.

And Ned belonged to the local Roman Catholic Church and every evening

when I was shining shoes in his shop he would have the radio on next to my shoe shine stand and devoutly and

religiously it was Ned's custom to listen to the broadcast of the Rosary.

...