#070 "Our Advent Journey" (Mary's Song Intro)

In this Advent kickoff, host Kate invites listeners into the revolutionary beauty of Mary’s Song in Luke 1:46–55. What begins as a teenage girl’s praise becomes a bold, Scripture-saturated declaration that God scatters the proud and lifts the lowly.

Kate helps listeners uncover both the power of Mary’s words and the trustworthiness of Luke’s account—exploring the evidence for Lucan authorship, the gospel’s purpose, and its unique focus on God’s mercy to the humble. Along the way, she reviews Abidible's simple and lasting study methods to help you memorize, annotate, and reflect on the context of a Bible passage.

Listeners will walk away confident in the reason to study Scripture, equipped to study it for themselves with God's help, and encouraged to let praise rise even under pressure. This episode is an invitation to anchor your Advent in the Word and join Mary in magnifying the Lord. Grab your "Mary's Song" study and join Kate on this Advent journey.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting Up The Magnificat Series
• 2:38 A Prayer For Faithful Study
• 5:37 How To Use The Study Workbook
• 8:58 Reading Mary’s Song Aloud
• 12:32 Why Annotation Matters
• 16:30 Mary’s Courage, Culture, And Cost
• 20:27 Questions To Carry Into Study
• 21:58 Community Support And Giving
• 22:48 Who Wrote Luke And Why It Matters
• 27:35 Evidence For Lucan Authorship
• 33:12 Dating The Gospels And Order
• 38:20 Oral Tradition And Early Audience
• 42:08 Purpose And Portraits Of The Gospels
• 46:16 Literary Shape Of The Magnificat
• 50:04 The 3‑2‑1 Context Method
• 54:30 Encouragement To Keep Showing Up

Transcript

Kate: 0:00

Hey guys, this is Kate from Abidible.com, and you're listening to the Abidible Podcast. I'm just a regular wife and mom who's had my life transformed by learning to study the Bible on my own. If I can, you can. On this show, I help you know and love God more by abiding in Him through His Word yourself. We are in the book of Luke, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Luke, the third of the Gospels, as laid out in our modern Bibles, and we are about to study the words of a song, the exact words that were sung by the mother of our Lord over 2,000 years ago when she realized who God was about to place in her womb. This series is going to be holy and transformative for us. It has to matter because I've never faced more personal attacks preparing for a series or trying to get the first episode complete for you guys. I'd list them off, but you'd laugh and think I'm making them up. This has been a battle, which I know means it's going to be so worth it. We are going to have the privilege of studying about Mary, the mother of Jesus. And as we do, we will become intimately familiar with this unwed yet betrothed teenager from Nazareth right around the time that time itself changed from BC before Christ to AD, the year of our Lord. We'll begin to understand how this peasant girl of humblest circumstances was able to hear the news that carried with it a potential death sentence, to be a virgin with child, and instead of curse God, praise him and trust him, saying, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word. It is my prayer that Mary's song, also known as the Magnificat from the Latin, magnificat anima mea dominum, my soul magnifies the Lord, will become our song as well, come what may, let it be so. May our spirits learn to rejoice in God our Savior no matter our circumstances, because he who is mighty has done great things, and holy is his name. As with every new series we begin here on the Abidible Podcast, we have a bunch of questions and a lot of exciting work to do together. I had fun with our Ask Us Anything series that Jason and I just did with you guys, which is not complete. We still have one episode coming, but I am ready to be back studying the word together. Let's pray, and then I'm going to give you an overview of what to expect in this episode, and then we'll read the full passage together, and after that, we'll jump right in. Sound good? Let's pray. Father God, our promise-keeping, prophecy-fulfilling, miracle-working God, we praise you for your word. It tells the story of your faithful loving kindness toward us. You have loved us with an everlasting love, and you have faithfully and kindly kept all of your promises to us, including the oldest promise of all, to rescue us from Satan, sin, and death. This has been your unified plan for all of history, a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ. You alone are God. There is none like you who accomplishes all your purposes. And when the fullness of time had come, at the very moment appropriate to your plan and all that you had promised, you sent forth your son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, for to us, yet first to Mary, a child is born. To us, but first to Mary, a son is given. As we begin the study of Mary's song and head into the Christmas season, as we pull apart and analyze the words of praise that poured out of your young, sweet servant girl, Mudi Yom, would you open our eyes and hearts to see you as she saw you? Will you reveal more of your heart and your character and your faithfulness to us as you did to her two millennia ago? Will you show us how to praise and magnify you with our whole soul and spirit just as Mary did, no matter what circumstances we are facing? Will you teach us to willingly surrender our lives to you based on our firm confidence in your worthiness because of who you are and all that you've done? You sent your Son for us. We commit this series to you. We dedicate ourselves to you in this season of study, to knowing and loving you more, and we ask, Holy Spirit, that you would illuminate the words here in Scripture in supernatural ways so that we might draw closer to you this Advent and Christmas season. God, make the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing and acceptable to you. Let remain what you want to remain and let fall away what needs to fall away. You are our rock and our redeemer. We love you, and our souls magnify you, rejoicing in God our Savior, for you who are mighty, have done great things, and holy is your name. In Jesus, the precious Son of Mary's name, we pray. Amen. Alright, well, what are we going to be doing together today? First, let me encourage you to pause and get the study if you haven't already, so that you can do it alongside me over the next 10 weeks leading up to and probably one week beyond Christmas. The digital copy is just $10 and can be downloaded instantly, so you can start right now, or the hard copy is $20, and we print and bind it for you with free shipping in about 11 to 12 business days. Either option is available to you at the link in the show's description. As always, if possible, I encourage you to do the work on your own before listening to our podcast episodes so that you're learning to study for yourself. Ideally, what I do here on the podcast is meant to follow your work, supplementing it or complementing what you've already done on your own. Why? Because we believe that you are able to abide in the Bible yourself. What we will be covering in today's episode is our saturate section at the beginning of the workbook, pretty much everything through page 14. Now, if you're brand new to the Abidible Podcast and want to simply listen along and perhaps try studying like this on your own next time, you are most certainly welcome to do that as well. Or you can listen to the episodes first to get some guidance and then go do the corresponding work on your own. This is Liberty Hall, really. We hold the format with an open hand. Just know that we are deeply passionate about coming alongside you in your study of God's word, but not usurping the work itself by always doing it for you. Abiding in God's Word is about knowing and loving Him more, and you are absolutely able to study it yourself. We get that it can take time and support to get there, and that's why we have our How to Study the Bible course and these studies and the Abidible Podcast. While we want you to study independently, we also never want you to feel that you are alone in the process because you're not. And you may already know this, but if not, I want you to know. I am doing this study right along with you. I'm coming with the same questions, blind spots, confusion, anticipation, and excitement that you are. I'm not a professionally trained theologian or Bible teacher. I'm just a regular Jesus-loving lady who has learned that my very life is found in this book, and clinging to it with all my heart is what I want and need to do for the rest of my days. So this is how I study, and you are so welcome to be here and study right along with me, okay? In this episode, we will be going over two steps: the saturate step and a few of the excavate steps here at Abidible, which, if you have a copy of Mary's song, you've probably already noticed is a little bit different. We'll get to that in a moment. The purpose of the saturation step is to put God's word everywhere. This biblical concept comes from Deuteronomy 6, and so we walk you through how to letter the verse on note cards so that you can hide God's word in your heart through memorization. We do this by taking the first letter of each word in the verse because it really works. For example, and Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, becomes A M S M S M T L. We also encourage you to letter the verse throughout your home, and we do memory work all throughout the study. All of the instructions take you step by step through this in the workbook. Then we begin the process of excavation by doing some of our own foundational work. We dig into annotation, slowing down and marking up the passage to look for patterns and to highlight commands or note repetition. And we also do some background info research about the book, its author, its intended audience, and its purpose and theming. I've also added a brand new step for the first time ever to Mary's song. This new step is called the 321 method and is meant to quickly help you gather more context for our passage. Just like you wouldn't pick up a book and turn to page 149 to start reading and then be shocked by the fact that you're totally confused about what's happening, we also don't want to just randomly jump into a Bible passage without more context. The steps that we teach take time and work, but don't underestimate their value. We are actively and intentionally preparing the soil of our hearts. What else would we rather be doing? This work has eternal value and reward. We are studying the living Word of God and we get to do it together. I'm so fired up, you guys. One final thing before we do this preparation work together right now, I want you guys to know that your support really does help us continue the work that we are doing here. It actually covers our costs so that we can do what we're called to do. Help people know and love God more by abiding in his word themselves. If you can't donate or support us right now, that's okay. Your prayers and your shares, spreading the word about what we're doing, are a tremendous blessing. But if this ministry has helped you in any way and you feel led and are able to partner with the Ministry of Abidible and the Abidible Podcast, you can check out the link in the show description. We're so grateful for our partners and members and donors. All right, are you ready to begin? We've already prayed, I've given you an overview of this episode, and I've talked to you about the prep work of lettering your verses. Now, let's slow down by reading Luke 1, verses 46 to 45 together, and then we'll talk about annotation. From there, we'll move on to background information and context. We're gonna super geek out now. Bible nerds unite. And then that'll be it for this episode. So here's our passage. And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever. See what I mean about jumping in? It's beautiful, that's for sure. It's filled with meaningful words and praise, with a record of things God has done and why he's worthy of that praise. We know Mary is the mother of Jesus, and these are her words. But who recorded them? And when? And why? And what is happening before and after she sings this song? What do some of these things mean, and what is their connection to Mary and what is about to happen to her? These aren't necessarily the things most moms would say about God when they find out they're going to have a baby. He's scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts and brought down the mighty from their thrones. He's exalted those of humble estate and filled the hungry with good things, yet sent the rich away empty? What does it all mean? This is what annotation begins to help us with and what background and context will clue us in about. First, annotation. We have the passage in front of us in our workbooks, double spaced with wide margins. This time, you may have noticed, I put the annotation key right next to annotation in the workbook for your convenience, and the crowd goes wild. You guys have been asking for this. I will try and do this moving forward in all our new studies and will perhaps try to add it to old ones too when I can. And remember, if you have your own method of annotating a passage, have at it. Anyway, we mark up the passage here in this annotation step so we can find things we'd miss if we just skimmed over it and read it quickly. I began by marking the places where God the Father or any of his pronouns are mentioned. Because Mary is singing to the Father, I considered all of the references in this passage to be about the Father. For example, magnifies the Lord, he who is mighty, holy is his name, his mercy is for those who fear him, etc. Though you could use a red cross for the son, where she says, God my savior, because we know that's true, and is a title often used for Jesus, her own son would also be her savior. It's mind-blowing, really. So I did a purple triangle and a red cross on Savior. In terms of commands to underline, I just marked fear him from generation to generation. Though you could also make a case for other things Mary said that could be commands, like the ideas of magnify the Lord and rejoice in God. There weren't any geographical locations to underline in green. In this passage, Israel is referring to the people, not the land. How about repeated words or phrases? Did you find any to highlight? Mary mentions generations and offspring multiple times. She talks about God doing great things and good things. The word humble appears twice, once in reference to herself as God's humble servant, and a second time about God exalting those of humble estate. She calls herself God's humble servant and also refers to Israel as God's servant. God's might is mentioned as it relates to the great things he's done and also alluded to by mentioning the strength of his arm. I'd say the most notable repeated phrase, however, is he has. He has done great things, he has shown, he has scattered, he has brought, he has filled, he has sent, and he has helped. Through this repetition, we see that Mary is clearly basing her praise on specific things God has done in the past as the foundation for why she is praising him for what he is doing now, even though it's going to be hard. She's reminding herself and us why knowing who God is and what he's done always matters in our present circumstances. This will be very important in our study. We see God's love demonstrated in this passage through not only the things he's done, but also in the traits that are listed by Mary. We see her describing God as savior, all-seeing, mighty, doer of good and great things, as holy, faithful to generations, strong, just, merciful, as her helper, and as the one who remembers and keeps his promises. If there is any sin or consequences of sin addressed in this passage, it would be in the references made to those who are opposed to God in their pride, those who are mighty in their own strength, and those who trust in their riches instead of God. We see the consequences of those sins. The proud are scattered, the mighty are brought down from their thrones, and the rich are sent away empty. This highlights another theme that we see in this passage: the presence of opposites, the humble versus the proud and mighty, the hungry versus the rich, bringing low those high and exalted on thrones, filling the hungry and leaving the rich empty, and so on. This is noteworthy because, as we're going to see in Mary's story, the God she worships is a God who always does the unexpected and who flips things upside down in his kingdom. Can we just pause for a second here? I feel compelled to stop and remind us that though we don't know how old Mary was exactly, most Christian historians believe she was 14 or 15 or 16. At this time in Israel and in many other ancient or historical civilizations, young motherhood was culturally normal, with teenage girls marrying and starting families earlier. So though it's hard for us to think about a 15-year-old girl that we know right now in this kind of circumstance, we have to be careful to not put our modern-day biases and worldview on this story. And what I'm pausing for and contemplating with profound admiration is Mary's faith and her family's legacy of faith. She probably couldn't read. She was raised in a low-income family in an area of Israel that was often written off as irrelevant, Nazareth in Galilee. And she was a girl. Females didn't have the same access to education, and not just females, but most people in more rural, impoverished areas like Nazareth didn't know how to read or write. Why am I bringing that up? Well, just look at what she's singing. How does she know about all the things that God had done historically for her people? How does she just rattle them off so eloquently in her song? She's talking about who God is and what he's done. Remember, in the midst of world-changing, yes, but also personally, potentially catastrophic news. She is a betrothed virgin who was going to have a baby in a culture where adultery was forbidden, which is what this would be considered. Her betrothal to Joseph was as binding as marriage, and so this would be adultery, an offense potentially punishable by death. These words of praise are coming from a girl who clearly has a rock solid foundation and a true personal relationship with God, her Savior. Her response: this song and these words are evidence of her profoundly personal and real relationship with God that must have been forged over years through the things that her family and community had taught her about him. Mary's song is not written in an isolated bubble, though for the moment she only has Elizabeth and Zechariah. I don't think you or I can wrap our minds around how special these words truly are. Hopefully, by the end of this series, we'll come close. To close out this annotation section, I just want to make sure that you're making room to ask your questions. Here are some examples of the kind of questions you might ask. What has happened right before this that Mary is responding to? What does she specifically mean by her humble estate? Why is Jesus' birth announcement causing her to talk about the rich and the mighty and the proud, as well as the humble and the hungry and the poor? What specific generational promise does Mary believe God is fulfilling? What does it mean for a soul to magnify the Lord? Ask as many questions as you can think of in this section, knowing that no question is off limits or too silly, and that now isn't the time to answer the questions, just to consider them. As we study, all of your questions should be answered. And that's it for annotation. We'll be right back after this message. If you are a woman who loves the Abidible Podcast and would enjoy being part of our membership community for just $10 a month, check out the link in this episode's description. You can access transcripts of all our teaching podcast episodes, access community discussions, Bible and study-related QA, mini behind-the-scene audio messages from me, early access to product launches, free giveaways and resources, and access to our full membership library, all in an easy-to-use app. Our Abbidable Plus community is a place where I bless and serve you and get to know you more. I hope you'll check out the link today. And now back to the show. We are moving on to page six in our Mary's song workbook background info. Here's where we're going to answer some important questions to give us a foundation for the passage we are studying together. We'll start with who wrote it. We want to know this, right? We know that Mary sang the song, but who wrote the book? We want to know who has the knowledge and the evidence and the authority to tell us these were the words that Mary actually sang. So let's put in the work. Here's what you'll find when you do some research. Luke is not named as the author of the book of Luke, nor is he named to the other New Testament book that is ascribed to him. Do you know which one that is? If you said Acts, you're correct. The author of the Gospel of Luke opens by stating that he is writing to Theophilus to give him an orderly account regarding what Theophilus has been taught about Jesus. The book of Acts opens with the author stating, In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach. Clearly, Acts is volume two, and the gospel we're referring to, Luke, is volume one. These books were written by the same author to the same person. We don't have real clarity about who Theophilus was. You can read about different fun theories online, but we have clarity about who the author was. It was Luke. But how do we know that Luke was the author? Great question. Do you know that it's okay to ask questions like this? It is. It's good, not bad. It builds your faith and it's fun researching and finding the answers. So, just because we don't read love Luke at the end of either of these books, it doesn't mean we can't be confident that he's the author. Lucan authorship, there's a new word for you, is supported, as the ESB study Bible says, by both external evidence, meaning church tradition, and internal evidence. Early church tradition for Luke as the author begins in the mid to late second century AD, so close to about 100 years from when the events written about occurred. This is actually a really reliable span of time when it comes to the legitimacy of historical texts. This early church tradition unanimously supported Luke as the author of this gospel and the book of Acts. Specifically, we have written discussions of Luke as the author of Acts from Irenaeus, the bishop of lions in Gaul, modern-day France, in the late 2nd century A.D. Irenaeus was taught by Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, who was a disciple of the Apostle John. So, John, the best friend of Jesus, known as the beloved disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and to whom Jesus entrusted the care of his mother Mary, that John trained Polycarp, who trained Irenaeus. That's a very reliable chain of custody. And Irenaeus attributes the Gospel of Luke in the book of Acts to Luke, the physician and co-worker of Paul. If that tradition of Lucan authorship had been incorrect, of course John would have noted that to Polycarp, who would have passed that on to Irenaeus. But instead, put on your detective cap here, Irenaeus notes that the internal evidence for Lucan authorship is the occurrence of the first person narrative we throughout the later chapters of Acts, starting at 1610. This use of we indicates that the author of Acts was a companion of Paul and present with him on these occasions. These we passages in Acts are the key to the authorship of both Acts and the Gospel of Luke. The author of Acts was therefore most likely one of Paul's companions, listed in his letters that were written during this time. We learn that Luke is listed as a traveling companion of Paul in Colossians 4.14, 2 Timothy 4.11, and Philemon 24. The author of Acts can't be someone referred to in the third person in these lists of companions. Just like if I was writing about my family's trip to Disneyland, I wouldn't say we had the best time. My mom and dad and Jason and Liam and Kate loved Disney. I wouldn't name myself in the third person. And Luke didn't either. In addition, the other clues that help us confidently say that Luke is the author include the well-known fact that the author of Luke was from the second generation of the early church, meaning he wasn't an eyewitness of Jesus' ministry. In the introduction to Luke and Acts, the author tells Theophilus that he is compiling a narrative, an orderly account of all that Jesus did and taught, and then what happened with the early church. He reveals that he has closely followed this story for, quote, some time past, and that he received the information from eyewitness accounts and those who were ministers or guardians of the word. The Greek here indicates that the author is passing on what was handed down to him by those who from the beginning were self-seeing eyewitnesses, aka those who saw it all with their own eyes. This term eyewitness in the Greek is autoptes, which can also be a medical term for, any guesses, autopsy, or a detailed examination, which is cool because the other thing we know about Luke from Colossians 4.14 is that he was a physician and a Gentile from Antioch, which, if you did our Jars of Clay series with us, was an important location in the Apostle Paul's life. Quick aside, imagine being the Apostle Paul's traveling companion and personal physician, considering all of the physical beatings and ailments he endured. Can you imagine what Luke saw? Ultimately, we trust that as the ESV notes say, because Luke traveled with Paul, this gospel was received as having apostolic endorsement and authority from Paul, and was a trustworthy record of the gospel that Paul preached. Other early supporters of Lucan authorship, just to drive this point home, were Origen, Eusebius, Justin Martyr, Hegesippius, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian. Within the first several hundred years of these events taking place, it was unanimously agreed that Luke was the author of the Gospel of Luke. I'll close with this quote from church historian Eusebius, a contemporary of Constantine, who said, Luke, who was by race an Antiochan and a physician by profession, was long a companion of Paul and had careful conversation with the other apostles, and in two books left us examples of the medicine for souls which he had gained from them. Luke was written by Luke. Now, onward to our next question. When was Luke written? This is another fun rabbit hole. And because I asked for your permission to go full nerd, and many of you gave it to me on social media, we're going to ride the elevator all the way down to the basement. I do have a reason for taking this time, by the way. I really, really want us to. Have confidence that the words we're reading in Mary's song were in fact Mary's. Luke is one of the four Gospels, as I said: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Have you ever been curious to know the order in which the Gospels were written? I hope so, or at least I hope I'm piquing your curiosity because that's what we're going to talk about now. I wanted to know, were the Gospels written in the same order that we have them in our Bibles? But then I thought, first, we should talk about what even is a gospel. Well, the word gospel literally means good news. The Bible project says this good news refers to the announcement that Jesus has brought the reign of God to our world through his life, death, and resurrection from the dead. Again, the Bible Project says they are not, the Gospels, merely historical chronicles, but are also narrative announcements that make the significant claim that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel and the true Lord of the world. The Gospel stories claim to both recount history and aim to persuade the reader to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and become his disciple. We have four Gospels from four different authors who paint a complementary and well-rounded picture of the life and teachings of Jesus. So, what order were they written in? While we can't be 100% certain, here's one strong possibility in terms of order. Matthew was written first, then Luke, some people think Mark, then Mark, and finally John. How is this the prevailing view? Here's a quick gotquestions.org summary from Dr. David Allen Black's book, Why Four Gospels. Keep in mind that many reliable historical records and events put the crucifixion of Jesus on Friday, April 3rd, A.D. 33. Keep that date in mind as we date the Gospels, give or take a few years, depending on the source. After Christ was resurrected from the dead and the church was born, the believers realized the need for a written record of the account of Christ's life. Matthew was selected for the task of producing that account, and, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he penned his work before the Jerusalem believers were scattered from the persecution of Herod Agrippa I, which occurred in A.D. 42. This is potentially around 11 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. Paul began his evangelistic work and found the need for a gospel account that spoke more to the Gentiles. Matthew's gospel was written for a Jewish audience. Paul worked with Luke to produce his gospel, which was completed sometime between A.D. 58 and 60 or 62. So that's about 25 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. During Paul's detention in Rome, sometime around 60 to 62 A.D., he asked Peter to personally authorize Luke's gospel, which he did. While in Rome, Peter delivered a number of testimonies about Christ's life to an illustrious Roman audience. Those messages were recorded by John Mark, Peter's secretary. After Peter was martyred, Mark's work was published as a gospel sometime around A.D. 66 or 67, which is about 33 to 34 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. And then finally, John's Gospel was written and published while John lived in Ephesus. The most accepted time for this writing was A.D. 85 to 90, which was about 52 to 57 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. The completion of the Gospel of John rounded out the eyewitness accounts of Jesus' life. Support for Black's timeline is found in the writings of the early church fathers. Referring to the Gospel of Matthew, Origen, who lived around A.D. 185 to 254, writes: The first written was that according to the one-time tax collector, but later apostle of Jesus Christ, Matthew, who published it for the believers from Judaism. Clement of Alexandria, AD 150 to 215, quoted by Eusebius, supports Origen and provides some details for Luke. Quote, Clement has set down a tradition of the earliest elders about the order of the Gospels, and it has this form. He used to say that the earliest written gospels were those containing the genealogies. So that's Matthew and Luke. Clement also speaks of Mark when he writes, Peter was publicly preaching the gospel at Rome in the presence of some of Caesar's knights and uttering many testimonies about Christ, and on their asking him to let them have a record of the things that had been said, wrote the gospel that is called the Gospel of Mark from the things said by Peter. On the subject of the authorship and timing of the Gospel of John, there is little to no opposition to John's authorship and its being last in order. Irenaeus writes, John the disciple of the Lord, who leaned back on his breast, published the Gospel while he was a resident at Ephesus in Asia. So again, while it is impossible to be certain about the order in which the Gospels were written, the prevailing viewpoint seems to be that the order was Matthew, then Luke, then Mark, and then John. This book that we are about to study, Luke, was therefore most likely written around A.D. 58 to 62, which was within about 25 years of Jesus' death and resurrection. 25 years. Let's talk about this timeline and how it applies to our next question: to whom was it written? In order to understand timeline and audience, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of the early church, and we have to understand the power of oral tradition and eyewitness testimony, and also the mandate of the Great Commission to be Jesus' witnesses in Jerusalem and in Samaria and to the ends of the earth. By the way, that includes us, you guys, which I will never not be moved by. First of all, and keep this in mind as we think about how the words of Mary's song were preserved, oral tradition in the ancient world was not a game of telephone, but a communal process where stories and sayings were repeated and memorized. Think about it. Initially, how did Jesus' followers share the good news? Through word of mouth. At the time, and in that immediate region, eyewitness accounts were seen as powerful and sufficient. Again, especially in the local community of Jerusalem where people had direct knowledge of Jesus' ministry. Also, initially, believers thought Jesus' return was imminent, so they didn't see the need for a written record when oral tradition and eyewitness accounts seemed sufficient. But as time passed, believers and eyewitnesses began to die. And as the faith spread beyond Jerusalem to a wider, more educated audience who did not know the eyewitnesses, there became a clear need for written accounts to educate new believers accurately. So that's exactly what they did. Again, with the first account, Matthew, likely written within 10 to 12 years of Jesus' ascension. The Gospels are so cool, you guys. Our next question: for what purpose was it written? We can think about the Gospels in general and then Luke in particular. Think about how each Gospel writer focuses on certain aspects of Jesus and his ministry, his kingly fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in Matthew, his ministry to Gentiles in Luke, his suffering and servant role in Mark, his divine identity in John. This variation doesn't mean conflict, but a broadening of the portrait. And because they were written in different historical phases of the church, each gospel addresses the circumstances and needs of a particular community. Thus, the fourfold witness reflects the breadth of the early Christian movement. The similarities among the gospels testify to a shared core truth about Jesus, not conflict. And the differences enrich our understanding rather than confuse it. The diversity of perspective is part of the divine design rather than a flaw. And having multiple gospels also echoes the biblical principle of multiple witnesses that we see in Deuteronomy 17.6 and 2 Corinthians 13.1. This just strengthens the reliability of the testimony about Jesus. And finally, the four gospels fit together to show how the gospel message moves yet further and further outwards, from Jewish roots to the Gentile world, from early church beginnings to a universal mission. This beautifully helps believers see themselves in the story. The gospel is for all kinds of people in all contexts. So, somewhere around AD 60, Paul and Luke saw the need for an orderly account of the life and teaching of Jesus for a primarily Gentile audience and set out to do exactly that. These combined historical, cultural, and social settings of oral tradition, eyewitness account, and the need to get everything written down would have ensured that the words of Mary's song of praise were first circulated and then remembered and finally recorded accurately among the early followers of Jesus. What song could be more important than perhaps the first lullaby ever sung to the Son of God while in the humble womb of God's chosen servant and the subject of our study together, Mary? Our final question has to do with the literary style of our passage. Usually we look at the literary style of the book, but in this case, we're going to hone in specifically on the literary style of the song itself. Because the book of Luke is so stylistically diverse, in fact, no gospel encompasses such a complete range of subgenres as Luke. The Magnificat, or Mary's song, bears a striking resemblance to other hymns in the Old Testament, most notably the song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2, verses 1 through 10. Think about what that means. It likely indicates that Mary, as we talked about, as a devout Jewish young woman, would have been steeped in the scriptures. So of course her song would have echoed familiar, memorized scriptural language. This poetic, patterned nature in the original language, which is sadly lost on us in translation, would have also made it easier to preserve through oral tradition. And somehow, this young teenage girl knew that these words would need to be forever preserved. Don't you want to have scripture pour out of you like that? With Mary's song in mind, let's do it. Let's go to 1 Samuel 2 and read portions of Hannah's prayer. This is so cool. And Hannah prayed and said, My heart exalts in the Lord, my horn is exalted in the Lord, I rejoice in your salvation. There is none holy like the Lord, for there is none besides you. There is no rock like our God. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength. The Lord makes poor and makes rich, he brings low and he exalts, he raises up the poor from the dust, he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world. He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness, for not by might shall a man prevail. Mary surely learned that prayer, don't you think? The song of Hannah's heart, and out of her foundation in the oral tradition of God's word, Mary sang her own song. I am so moved by this idea that I am going to be creating a PDF printable insert in our Abidible Plus members community to add to your Mary's song study. This will be a page for you to put at the end of your book and write your own song to the Lord. I think by the time we wrap up this study after Christmas, you will be overflowing with praise and truth. Imagine sitting down to write a song like this, following in the footsteps of some pretty incredible women in the Bible. Now, a little more generally speaking, let's talk about some of the really cool literary features of this song. This is a psalm of thanksgiving, because Mary begins with praise for God and then elaborates on why she is thankful. This is a very common structure in Psalms of Thanksgiving. It's also considered ancient Hebrew poetry, similar in form and content to the Psalms. It is filled with references to the Old Testament and therefore powerfully reveals how what is happening to Mary fits into God's larger plan. We also see parallelism and contrast, especially in the second half, to describe how God reverses fortunes. We talked about this a little bit during our annotation section. For example, it contrasts the proud, the mighty, and the rich with the lowly, the humble, and the hungry. The song is also deeply theological, focusing on God's mercy, strength, and faithfulness, as well as his role in overthrowing worldly power structures. More on that to come. And finally, this song is used by the book's author, Luke, to foreshadow the radical and revolutionary nature of Jesus' ministry of reversal for the world. So cool. And that's it for our background research page. This sheds so much light on the passage we're about to study, doesn't it? But I think we can take just a little more time together to do one final powerful step. And that is our new 321 context method. This is simply a way for us to quickly get a picture of the surrounding context for our passage. This is how we avoid just dropping in blindly to a small section of scripture. By locating the heading for different sections in Luke 1 and 2, and then briefly answering some basic questions, we can get a feel for what's happening immediately before and after Mary sings this song. Each section has a few questions to answer as you make some observations about the passage. But for the purpose of wrapping up our nerdfest episode into Mary's song, I'm only going to share the heading and the sense of that section with you. The sense is the part where we summarize what's happening in about 25 words or less. So here's what we've got Dedication to Theophilus. Here, Luke writes an orderly account so Theophilus may have certainty about the gospel. The next section is Birth of John the Baptist foretold. The miraculous conception of John is a work God does through his righteous but old servants, Zechariah and Elizabeth. John will prepare the way for the Lord. Next is the birth of Jesus foretold. Here, a virgin named Mary is told that she will carry and deliver Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah. She faithfully accepts the Lord's plan for her. Next, Mary visits Elizabeth, and we see confirmation that God will do exactly what he has said he would do for Mary and ultimately for all people. He beautifully uses Elizabeth and John to comfort and affirm his plan for Mary. It's either during or immediately after this visit that Mary sings her song. Then we have the birth of John the Baptist, where God performed such a miracle through John's birth to Elizabeth and Zechariah that everyone around took note and was talking about it. Next comes Zechariah's prophecy, in which we are told that John will be the prophet of the Most High, the promised Messiah who will save and deliver his people and bring light to those who sit in darkness. And finally, we have the birth of Christ. Mary gives birth to Jesus in Bethlehem as promised. This is Luke 2, and the rest of the second chapter is about Jesus' birth and his childhood. If you're really curious, you can keep going. In Luke 3, John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus, and we have Jesus' genealogy through Mary's side of the family. We're going to get more into Jesus' amazing genealogy in future episodes. I can't wait for that. And then in Luke 4, Jesus has been baptized, faces the temptation in the wilderness, and begins his ministry. So that's the 3-2-1 method. It just gives us our bearings. I think it's a valuable practice, and I hope you will too. As we move to wrap up this intro episode to Mary's song, I just want to offer a simple word of encouragement to keep showing up. The Holy Spirit is your guide as you study the living word of God. Lean on him, invite him into your study time. In John 14, 26, Jesus made a promise to you. He said, But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Friend, don't try and work through this study in your own strength. Don't do it to check a box or to earn anything from God. Don't do it as penance or to make yourself look or feel holy. Do it in his power, by his might, out of a desire simply to know and love him more. That's it. When you don't feel like it, pick it up anyway. When you have less time than you'd like, use whatever time you do have. When you miss a day, pick it back up the next day. When you don't understand, press in, lean in and fight. The word of God is your very life and abiding in it helps you to remember who He is and all that He's done. And just like we see with Mary, having that foundation is what enables us to say, Your will be done. May it be to me as you have said. Check out the link to learn more about partnering with us by buying us a coffee one time, by joining our Avidable Plus membership community of women for $10 a month, or by becoming a monthly supporter. If you made it this far and are wondering about our missing fifth and final episode in the Ask Us Anything series that Jason and I did, sit tight and keep looking for it. This last episode is on church hurt and the role of the church in finding a church, et cetera, et cetera. I promise we'll do it. I'm not sure when, but we'll get it to you. My health has thrown a wrench in the plans this fall. Not only has my post-surgery journey been trickier than expected, but I also was sick for two weekends in a row, and our dog threw out his neck again, and a bunch of other crazy personal things have been going on. So it's out of sight for the moment. So we could get moving on Mary's song, but it is certainly not out of mind. Now, for those of you following along in the workbook for Mary's song, go ahead and begin working on our first verses in this series, Luke 1, 46 to 47, on pages 18 to 21 in your study workbook. I combined them in the workbook because they are both so short. Ideally, you would have this section done before you listen to the next episode, number 71. In this episode, we will learn what it means to have a soul that magnifies the Lord and a spirit that rejoices in God, our Savior. The verses next week say exactly that from Luke 1, 46 to 47. And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. I want us to be a people who magnify God and who rejoice in our Savior no matter what we're facing, don't you? I still don't know how to do that. To have my knee-jerk reaction consistently be surrender and praise. But I do desire that. God, please help me. Help us. I can't wait to learn more with you about this next week. Since I prayed for us at the beginning of the episode, I'll go ahead and wrap things up right here for now. But remember, as always, you are able to abide in the Bible. We'll see you next time. Until then, let's abide