Week 34 Matthew
Joseph shows up on page one of the NT so technically I’d considered him a NT guy. But he appears just one page after Malachi so he’s a kind of borderline-OT guy, a just barely legitimate NT guy.
My tendency is to batch die-hard OT guys under the Legalistic, Hard-liner, Paternalistic, Rules-is-Rules Guys heading. I know it’s a crazy stereotype, a dumb default but I still end up sliding Joseph closer to the chilly, impersonal, judicial side of the spectrum.
So this story is a bit of a surprise. Joseph’s engaged to Mary but before they marry she admits she’s pregnant. Joseph’s reaction? Don’t know for sure. I figure he might have been shocked, upset, baffled, dismayed, angry; felt betrayed, jealous, blind-sided. Can’t say what-all. But his fiancée had had sexual intercourse with another guy.
Matthew tells us this much: because Joseph…was a righteous man and did not want to expose (Mary) to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
There’s something going on with Joseph. Mary hurt him but he doesn’t want to disgrace her publicly, loudly, explicitly, humiliatingly in return.
A basic principle of life is that if someone hurts me I want to hurt him back. It’s a foundational rule of homo sapienity. But Joseph breaks from the pack.
An example of NT-style righteousness shows up on page one: don’t take revenge on your fiancée.
Note: quote from Matthew 1:19 (NIV)