10:00 am Worship
We welcome you to worship this Sunday!
This Sunday, Pr. Kristin-Luana is the presider, and Pr. Olaf is the preacher.
Here is this week’s Sermon News:
Image Credit: Peterson, Kathleen. Mary and Baby Jesus, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56570. Original source: Kathleen Peterson, https://www.kathleenpetersonart.com.
Matthew 1:18-25: The Virgin Birth – True or False?
Imagine Josef’s surprise when he finds out that his fiancée Mary is pregnant. “From the Holy Spirit,” as she says, but isn’t that what they always say in situations like that? Sounds a bit far-fetched for modern ears, and indeed the virgin birth is one of those claims of Christianity that make the unchurched run from the gospel with warp speed.
One of the central beliefs of our secular world is that truth lies in facts only, as in “did it happen or not?” A few years back, Dr. James Tabor came up with an explanation for the virgin birth that was widely publicized, because it made so much sense to the modern mind. It ticked all the right boxes: corruption, conspiracy, greed, the Holy Trinity of the yellow press. Tabor’s theory of the virgin birth starts in Sidon when a young man named Pantera decides to join the Roman Auxiliaries as an archer. It is possible that Pantera, when he was deployed to Alexandria, met a girl on the way. Soldiers and girls, you know what happened. If you don’t, you can read the ancient Roman writer Celsus, who writes that Jesus is the son of Pantera and Mary. That was picked up by the Talmud, and later by Dr. Tabor. This is a story that people want to believe because it makes sense to modern ears. It solves the problem of the virgin birth in a very elegant way. We have an explanation that fits perfectly into a materialist worldview. It confirms that the church with its weird claims is out to get gullible people. But what if the virgin birth is not a true or false question?
Come and find out this Sunday, 10 AM, at Our Savior Lutheran Church, 745 Front St S, Issaquah, WA, and on YouTube!
– Pr. Olaf
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If you regularly worship with us here on YouTube on Sundays, please let Cynthia know at office@oslcissaquah.org or 425-392-4169.
