Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Patrick Miller. What kind of parent do you want to be? What kind of

parents are you? Of course everybody listening to this may not become a

biological or adoptive parent of a child, but that doesn't mean that we can't be parents.

The Bible calls our church, our family, and it calls all of us to raise spiritual children

as well as physical children.

These days, it's kind of rare to see older men and women

raising spiritual children in the faith,

but it does happen and it's beautiful when it does.

So again, whether it's biological or adopted or spiritual, what kind of parent do you want to be?

Luke's Gospel gives us a subtle portrait of Joseph and Mary and the kinds of parents that they were,

it doesn't spell out exactly what they were like, but instead

gives us little breadcrums that suggest and nudge us into the right direction. I just gotta say this.

Mary and Joseph, they weren't perfect people, which means they weren't perfect parents. And yet, I get the sense that Jesus

chose the right family and that in many ways their life, Mary and Joseph, they're parenting,

it's given to us as a model of the kinds of parents that we should be as well.

In Luke 2, we read about what Joseph and Mary did right after Jesus' birth.

Luke 222.

When the time came for the purification right, Jesus' birth, Luke 2.22.

When the time came for the purification rights required by the law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took

him to Jerusalem and presented him to the Lord.

As it is written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the

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