To give to His people the knowledge of salvation By the forgiveness of their sins (Luke 1:77).

The knowledge of salvation consisting in the forgiveness of sins! This is what Christ Jesus accomplished for us. This is what John the Baptist was raised up to announce. This is the centerpiece of our existence. This is the foundation and cornerstone of the superstructure of our lives. Apart from this reality, everything in our lives would crumble in meaningless futility.

Over the past three years, I spent from thirty minutes to an hour every day following the largest technology company in the world. I invested 820 hours (equivalent to 20 weeks working a full-time job) and made a relatively large sum. Pretty cool, right? What's perhaps more telling is that I could have made the same amount simply by parking my money in the S&P 500 Index. I would have saved myself from all the stress I experienced through the roller-coaster ride of the stock. I would have paid less in taxes.

But none of these things is what is most important. Most significantly, I would have gained time! I would have had 820 more hours to focus on the mainstay of my life, namely, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I am reminded of Jesus' words: "Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions" (Luke 12:15). Jesus taught us to be "rich toward God" (Luke 12:21) rather than worldly rich.

This is how I have applied this to my life at the present time. I have set our present standard of living as a kind of economic ceiling for our financial ambition. We can live with less but will not pursue more. Whatever accumulation we have going forward is to enable us to maintain our standard of living while we gain greater time and freedom to pursue the things of God.

Friends, unless you have some particular calling from God, I do not encourage anyone to take a vow of poverty, nor do I encourage lofty extravagance. But I encourage everyone to prayerfully consider a reasonable ceiling for your financial ambitions. By God's grace, we may achieve our self-sustaining ceiling in a few years. Then we can have greater freedom and time to more vigorously pursue and give toward the priorities of God.

If you do not have such a plan in place, then by all means give to your church's missions efforts. They have a plan. Otherwise, there will be no end to your ambition or the satisfaction of your "needs". Either you will order your life and finances, or you ought to have another, like a good church, do it for you.

Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. It is about being rich toward God. It is wise to position yourself so that you can give the greatest attention, time and energy to serving the priorities of God.

Now, this is not to suggest that you can only serve God once all of your financial goals are achieved. Not at all! Everything we do now should be sanctified. Our work should be sanctified, so that it is more than simply a vehicle for income but also an avenue for ministry. The education of our kids should not be secular but sacred, so that every aspect of their learning draws them to a deeper awareness and appreciation for the majesty of God and a greater preparation to effectively serve Him.

Consequently, when we are financially unburdened, we can give even more liberally. We can serve even more freely, less constrained by the limitations of the present world order. It is not so much that we will serve God after we have achieved our goals, but we serve Him now and, at the same time, prepare in such a way that we can serve Him even more and better at some later time.

Friends, I'm speaking of application; everyone can apply God's Word differently to their lives. I simply share with you one way to do it.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Zechariah’s prophecy defines John’s preparatory work in terms of salvation and the forgiveness of sins (Luke 1:76–79). That focus matters because the surrounding song also speaks of deliverance, covenant promises, and service without fear. Forgiveness is not a marginal religious benefit added to an otherwise self-sufficient life. It addresses the estrangement that human prosperity cannot repair and opens the way to serve God in holiness and righteousness. The original reflection draws a searching connection: if this is the center of our hope, it should affect the distribution of our finite attention.

The investment anecdote illustrates the difference between a financial return and the full cost of obtaining it. The author looks back not only at the amount earned but at the hours, stress, and mental preoccupation involved. His comparison is historical and personal; it should not be turned into investment advice for another household. Its spiritual force survives that limitation. We can spend considerable effort optimizing one part of life while failing to ask what that effort displaces. Money gained does not automatically compensate for relationships neglected, service postponed, or a habit of anxiety strengthened.

A voluntary ceiling on consumption is one possible response. Such a boundary can interrupt the tendency to redefine every increase as a new necessity. Yet the ceiling itself is not a biblical measure of maturity. Different families face different costs, responsibilities, disabilities, and uncertainties. A person supporting dependents may need greater provision than another, while someone with substantial assets can still use a supposedly modest lifestyle to avoid generosity. The question is not whether everyone adopts the author’s plan but whether financial decisions are being brought under the claims of love, responsibility, contentment, and trust.

The reflection wisely refuses to postpone service until a future state of financial freedom. Work can already be a setting for honesty, competence, care for colleagues, and witness. Education can prepare children for faithful participation in God’s world without reducing every subject to an instrument of immediate religious productivity. Rest and family attention also belong within stewardship. A life ordered toward God is not necessarily one in which every available hour is converted into a formal church activity; it is one in which ordinary responsibilities are received and fulfilled before him.

The suggestion to support an existing mission can provide a practical beginning, but it does not remove the need for discernment. A church’s possession of a plan does not establish that the plan is wise, transparent, or suited to every donor’s circumstances. Giving should be informed and willing rather than a surrender of judgment. Luke’s account directs us finally toward the mercy of God that brings light and peace, not toward a technique for achieving financial independence. We can begin now by identifying one ambition that has become unlimited, one responsibility that deserves renewed attention, and one concrete use of time or resources that expresses gratitude for the forgiveness we have received.

A brother recently asked me a great question:

I was reading Luke tonight and was wondering about Luke 1:15 which mentions that John will have the Holy Spirit from birth.

Do you think that it implies that he was saved from birth – and thus not born from sin? Once we receive the Holy Spirit we are born no longer of flesh but of spirit correct? And thus John could not be born out of sin – there would have been no physical birth per se (no birth from flesh). Jesus says that “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6).

Thus John would be the only one not born condemned since Adam…

AI-Expanded Reflection

The question brings together two passages that use the language of birth for different purposes. Luke 1:15 announces that John will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. John 3:6 distinguishes what comes from flesh and what comes from the Spirit. The difficulty arises when these statements are combined as though reception of the Spirit eliminates ordinary human birth. Luke’s narrative itself rules out that conclusion: Elizabeth conceives, carries the child, and gives birth to him. The extraordinary work of the Spirit occurs within John’s real human life rather than replacing that life.

Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus helps explain the distinction. Nicodemus initially treats the language of being born again as a question about entering a mother’s womb a second time (John 3:4). Jesus directs him toward a birth whose source is the Spirit. The Greek expression translated “again” can also convey “from above,” and the conversation draws attention to the need for an origin and life that human descent cannot produce. Spiritual birth does not mean that the first birth never occurred. It means that ancestry, natural capacity, or physical existence alone cannot give the life of God’s kingdom.

Nor does “flesh” always mean that the material body is evil. Biblical words take their sense from context. In John 3, the contrast concerns the limits of human generation and the life given by the Spirit. Elsewhere the same broad vocabulary can emphasize human frailty or morally disordered desire. Treating all these uses as a single technical definition creates confusion. Jesus himself truly became flesh (John 1:14), and Christian hope includes the resurrection of the body. Receiving the Spirit does not make a person less embodied or less human.

The question about John’s salvation therefore needs to be separated from the question about his physical origin. Luke emphasizes divine initiative, prophetic preparation, and John’s role in preparing the way for the Lord. It does not give a detailed account of the exact moment or mechanism of every aspect of his salvation. Christians may reason about the implications of his prenatal experience, but those inferences should remain distinguishable from what the passage explicitly says. Being uniquely appointed to a task does not make John another sinless redeemer alongside Jesus.

This is a constructive model for theological questions more generally. When two texts seem to produce an impossible conclusion, we should check whether a shared word is functioning in the same way in both places. We should also allow the surrounding narrative to constrain our deductions. John’s ordinary birth and extraordinary calling are not competitors. Together they display God’s freedom to act graciously within human life from its earliest stages. The question can thus lead beyond an apparent contradiction toward a deeper appreciation of grace: the Spirit does not erase our creaturely existence but gives the life and calling that we could never generate for ourselves.

It seems that Zechariah had been praying for a child and he might have stopped praying for it due to his old age. The angel, however, appeared to him during his priestly duty and told him that his wife would be with child. As I was reading it, it dawned on me that God may answer our prayer when it is least expected. I've been encouraged that I should not despair in any way when I pray for a certain matter according to his will because he may answer my prayer when I expect its answer least or even completely forget about it. He is trustworthy and faithful!

AI-Expanded Reflection

Stephen’s reflection captures the surprise of a promise arriving when ordinary expectations have narrowed. Luke introduces Zechariah and Elizabeth as righteous before God and then immediately tells us that they have no child and are advanced in years (Luke 1:6–7). That sequence is important. Their childlessness is not presented as evidence that they have been secretly faithless or insufficiently devoted. The narrative refuses a simplistic connection between obedience and the immediate receipt of desired circumstances. Their lives already matter to God before the announced pregnancy changes their situation.

Gabriel says that Zechariah’s prayer has been heard (1:13). The text does not tell us when that particular prayer was offered or whether Zechariah had stopped asking for a child. Stephen appropriately frames that possibility as conjecture. We should preserve the distinction because the encouragement does not depend on reconstructing an unreported prayer history. God’s faithfulness is not exhausted by the moment when the petitioner ceases to see a likely path to fulfillment. At the same time, this extraordinary promise should not become a prediction that every long-delayed request will eventually receive the same kind of answer.

John’s birth is also more than the resolution of private sorrow. Gabriel describes a prophetic calling: the child will turn many toward the Lord and prepare a people for him (1:16–17). The language draws on the expectation of Elijah’s preparatory work in Malachi 4:5–6. A family’s joy is taken up into the history of salvation. This larger purpose explains why the episode cannot simply be converted into a method for obtaining any desired outcome through persistence. Its center is God’s initiative in preparing the way for Jesus.

There is nevertheless a genuine lesson for ordinary prayer. Stephen includes the qualification “according to his will,” which is essential. First John 5:14 grounds confidence in God’s hearing within that relationship to his will. Such confidence encourages persistence while leaving room for correction of our desires, acceptance of a different answer, and continuing trust when no explanation comes. Prayer is neither resignation to impersonal fate nor leverage over a reluctant giver. It is sustained dependence upon a Father whose wisdom is not identical with our assessment of timing.

The pastoral application should therefore be tender toward people living with infertility, bereavement, chronic illness, or other enduring losses. They should not hear this story as an accusation that they have failed to pray well enough. We can pray specifically, make use of available help, and support one another without announcing promises God has not made. Remembering an old prayer may renew hope; it need not create a deadline. Zechariah and Elizabeth teach us to receive surprising mercy with gratitude, but their prior years also teach us to honor faithful lives whose worth cannot be measured by whether a particular longing has yet been fulfilled.

It seems like Zacharias just burst out in praise to God as soon as he can speak! I admire that. I reflect that, never having been denied my voice, I cannot fully know what would burst out of my mouth at the moment I could first speak. I pray that God is in my heart in a way so as to start every day speaking His praises.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Jeremy notices something easy to hurry past: when Zechariah can speak again, his first recorded use of that recovered capacity is to bless God (Luke 1:64). The narrative connects the moment with his agreement that the child is to be named John. Family expectations had pointed toward another name, but Zechariah confirms the word previously given through the angel. His renewed speech thus belongs within a movement from questioning the promise to publicly acknowledging it. Praise is not merely relief that an uncomfortable season has ended; it recognizes the faithfulness of the One who spoke.

Luke then gives that praise a remarkably broad horizon. Zechariah has waited for a child, but his song begins with God’s visitation and redemption of Israel (1:68–75). He speaks of David’s house, the prophets, the covenant, and the oath to Abraham before addressing his own son’s future. A private answer to prayer is received as part of God’s larger work. This prevents gratitude from shrinking into the claim that God is good only because one family has received what it wanted. The blessing becomes an occasion to remember who God has been across generations.

The child will prepare the Lord’s ways and communicate the knowledge of salvation in the forgiveness of sins (1:76–77). That description also corrects a possible misunderstanding of the song’s language about deliverance from enemies. Whatever political hopes hearers might associate with deliverance, Luke directs attention to mercy, forgiveness, holiness, and the way of peace. The recovered voice does more than celebrate an extraordinary birth; it names the spiritual purpose toward which that birth points. Worship tells the truth about God’s gifts rather than allowing the excitement of receiving them to obscure their meaning.

Jeremy’s desire to begin each day with praise is a fitting response, provided it remains an invitation rather than a test of whether every first thought is sufficiently religious. Some mornings begin with grief, exhaustion, an urgent responsibility, or anxious confusion. Biblical prayer has room for these experiences. A deliberate practice might be as simple as recalling one promise, giving thanks for one ordinary mercy, or offering the day’s first task to God. Over time, such habits train attention without pretending that devotion can be measured by an automatic verbal performance.

The observation also invites gratitude for capacities we normally take for granted: speech, hearing, memory, movement, and the ability to encourage another person. Yet people who cannot speak are not thereby excluded from praise or spiritually deficient. Zechariah’s silence has a particular narrative role; it is not a general explanation of disability. God receives trust expressed in thought, gesture, patient endurance, and the help of a community. For those of us who do have a voice, the question is searching: how will we use this ordinary gift to bless God, tell the truth, and strengthen the people we encounter today?

And Mary said: “My soul exalts the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has had regard for the humble state of His bondslave; For behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed” (Luke 1:46–48).

I don't think at this point Mary realized what kind of life her Son would live and how He would die. Her celebratory song is certainly appropriate; however, it would not be so obvious when she witnesses the Jewish leaders turn against Jesus and when she sees the crowd clamoring for Pilate to crucify Him. A more fitting expression of what was to come for Mary is spoken by Simeon:

And a sword will pierce your own soul too (Luke 2:35).

The Book of Hebrews says,

Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered (Hebrews 5:8).

The magnificence of the birth of Christ was not simply that God had regard for Mary, a poor and faithful young woman, to use her as a vessel to bring the Messiah into the world. It was that the Messiah Himself would be born into poverty, learn perfect obedience through suffering, and be exalted through death on a cross for the sins of the world. Even though passages like Isaiah 53 made this clear hundreds of years before Christ, there was hardly a one to anticipate the nature of His first coming. It was fully unexpected.

Friends, I sense that just as there was something of the unexpected in the coming of Christ, and even as Paul's well-ordered life was turned this way and that by the leading of God's Spirit, we ought not to expect to easily discern the pattern of our own lives. Let us expect the unexpected, recognizing that God often works in this way.

When we find our lives disorderly or our experience confusing and hard, let us remember the consolation that God gave to Paul: "My grace is sufficient for you" (2 Corinthians 12:9). And let us be comforted in knowing that our experience puts us in good company with those who had an even harder and more challenging experience. "And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith" (Hebrews 12:1–2). We know our glorious end, namely, eternal salvation in the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In Him we will exult!

AI-Expanded Reflection

Mary’s song is larger than an expression of personal good fortune. Its language recalls Israel’s Scriptures, especially Hannah’s praise in 1 Samuel 2, and moves from God’s regard for a humble servant to his action for the hungry, the lowly, and his covenant people. The blessing given to Mary belongs to the fulfillment of God’s promises (Luke 1:46–55). Her joy is therefore well founded even though she cannot yet foresee the road ahead. Faith does not require complete knowledge of the future before it can give thanks for what God has already made known.

Simeon’s prophecy adds a painful dimension without canceling that joy. Jesus will expose hearts and provoke opposition, and Mary herself will suffer (Luke 2:34–35). Luke does not present this as the discovery that God’s promise was misleading. Rather, the promised salvation will enter a world that resists it. Mary’s story helps distinguish blessing from ease: being entrusted with a place in God’s work may bring profound gladness and profound sorrow within the same life. Neither experience, taken alone, is a reliable measure of God’s faithfulness.

Hebrews 5:8 requires particular care. The Son’s learning obedience does not mean that Jesus previously lacked moral goodness or had to abandon sinful habits. Hebrews has already affirmed his sinlessness (4:15). The point concerns the real, costly experience of obedience within his human life. He does not merely describe fidelity from a position untouched by suffering; he carries it through suffering. The surrounding language of being made perfect concerns his completed fitness for the saving work of the high priest, not repair of a defective character (5:9–10).

That distinction also limits how we apply his experience to ourselves. Christ’s suffering accomplishes redemption in a unique way. Our pain does not atone for anyone’s sins, and we should not presume that every injury was necessary for our spiritual growth. Scripture permits lament, appeals for deliverance, practical protection, and care for the afflicted. What the passage gives is confidence that our Savior understands costly obedience and can sustain us within circumstances we do not understand. It does not require us to call wrongdoing good or to remain needlessly exposed to it.

Paul’s assurance of sufficient grace belongs to 2 Corinthians 12:9, where a repeated request for relief receives an answer different from the one he sought. That setting makes the promise concrete: divine strength can sustain faithful life when a particular weakness remains. Hebrews 12 then directs endurance toward Jesus, whose path through shame leads to joy and vindication. We need not invent a detailed explanation of every confusing event to follow him. We can give thanks like Mary, lament honestly when the sword pierces, seek help, and continue in the next act of obedience. Christian hope rests on the character and saving work of Christ, not on our ability to turn every chapter of life into an immediately satisfying story.

Luke opens by noting that many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things fulfilled among them, just as they were handed down by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word — and that, having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, he too decided to write an orderly account for Theophilus, so that he might know the certainty of the things he had been taught (a paraphrase of Luke 1:1–4).

Luke indicates there were many who undertook to write about Jesus. Of these, four came to be recognized as authoritative — early, perhaps within the first century and certainly by the second, among the church fathers, and later formally included in the canon.

What Luke does not say, and would not have known, is that spurious and pseudonymous accounts would be written in later centuries — the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Peter. These were rejected early by the church. In recent decades they have attracted renewed public interest through both academic and popular treatments, and a good deal of confusion has followed about what they are and when they were written.

What we know, as the early church did, is that the four Gospels we have trace to eyewitness testimony and carried apostolic authority.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The dating point is the strongest part of the argument and is worth stating precisely. The canonical Gospels are generally dated to the first century, within living memory of the events. The texts named here are later: most scholars place the Gospel of Thomas in the second century, and the Gospel of Judas, Mary, and Peter later still. That gap is the substantive reason the church distinguished them, and it does not depend on characterizing anyone's motives.

On the scholars: it is worth being accurate about what academic historians of early Christianity actually argue. Their work generally concerns what these texts reveal about the diversity of early Christian movements and how the canon came to be formed — historical questions on which serious Christian scholars also publish, and often disagree, without either side promoting the Gnostic texts as Scripture. Popular fiction that treats these documents as suppressed truth is a separate matter and is not a scholarly claim at all. Conflating novelists with historians, and attributing bad faith to named living people, does not strengthen a case that stands on dates and provenance.

Luke's own prologue is the best answer here anyway. It is the only Gospel that opens by describing its method — eyewitnesses, careful investigation, orderly account, stated purpose. That is a claim a reader can evaluate, which is presumably why Luke made it.

Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, sings a prophetic song about the coming of Christ. He praises the Lord, the God of Israel, for coming to His people and redeeming them, raising up a horn of salvation in the house of David as He had promised through the prophets long ago — salvation from enemies, mercy shown to the ancestors, remembrance of His holy covenant and the oath sworn to Abraham, so that His people might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all their days. He tells his own child that he will be called a prophet of the Most High, going before the Lord to prepare His way and to give His people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins — because of God's tender mercy, by which the rising sun will come from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace (a paraphrase of Luke 1:68–79).

Several things struck me. Zechariah tells the message of grace beautifully. He writes that because of God's tender mercy, He will give us the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins — which was the sacrifice of Jesus. He foretells Jesus as the rising sun who will shine on those living in darkness, which was a key message of Christ: that the truth of the gospel is a light uncovering all darkness. He continues that this light will guide our feet, which would be the ministry and teaching of Christ.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Worth adding the detail Luke supplies about the circumstances of this song. Zechariah had been mute for nine months, struck silent for doubting the angel's announcement, and these are the first words recorded after his speech returns. The man who could not speak because he did not believe opens his mouth with one of the most confident declarations of God's covenant faithfulness in the New Testament.

Luke also arranges the song so that its two halves mirror each other. The first looks backward — the oath to Abraham, the promise through the prophets, mercy shown to the ancestors. The second looks forward, to the child in front of him and the one still to come. The hinge between them is the word "remember," which in Hebrew usage means to act on a commitment rather than to recall a fact. Zechariah is not observing that God has a good memory. He is saying that God has begun to move.

Friends, we read in Luke 1:37, "For with God nothing will be impossible." Does this sound familiar? We found a similar expression in Mark 10:27, "With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible." Again, in Matthew 19:26, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." In these latter instances, Jesus was responding to the disciples’ question, "If it is hard for the rich, who we considered blessed of God, to be saved, then who can be saved?" Jesus' response reveals that salvation is impossible for people to achieve; however, God could do it.

In Luke 1:34 Mary asked Gabriel how it could be that she could bear a child since she was a virgin. The angel Gabriel responded that such is humanly impossible, but God could and would do it. The angel adds further that Elizabeth would have a child in her old age. Again, God would do the impossible.

What do we learn? God is not subject to the laws of nature. Why? He created them. He is above such laws.

In light of God's doing the impossible, how do Mary and Zechariah respond?

When Zecharias was given the news of his son, he did not immediately believe. He said, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years" (Luke 1:18). He wanted proof. And Gabriel made him mute as proof and because he did not believe (Luke 1:20).

On the other hand, Mary believed Gabriel's announcement but desired an explanation: "How can this be, since I do not know a man?" (Luke 1:34). The angel gave her a remarkable explanation. And we are told Mary responded in faith: "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). Mary's faith is confirmed by Elizabeth, who says of her later, "Blessed is she who believed" (Luke 1:45).

Friends, may I suggest to you that these two instances of unfaith and faith in the promises of God are given for us to understand something. Whether people disbelieve or believe, God's purposes will not be thwarted. Would Zecharias' unbelief have caused God to suddenly reverse course and punt the idea of a forerunner for the Messiah? What would be the significance of the Old Testament prophecies if they were contingent on the response of the people? One could always say, "They did not respond as God wanted, and that is why none of the prophecies were fulfilled." No, my friends, God's purposes will be accomplished whether you or I like it or not:

For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Isaiah 55:10–11).

So Jesus says in Matthew 5:18, "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled." Here Jesus refers to the law as the OT refers to the law, as representative of the entire OT revelation by God to that point. Jesus does not mention any conditions here, but that everything, even every "jot" and "tittle," which are the smallest letter and marker in the Hebrew language, will be fulfilled.

Why this long excursus on God's unthwartable plan? It is because some people still retain an exalted view of themselves, thinking that "free will" is the one thing that God cannot violate. Hollywood certainly teaches this. In the Jim Carrey movie, "Bruce Almighty," Morgan Freeman, who plays God, explains that even God cannot override human free will. Also, in the most watched opinion news program, "The O'Reilly Factor," Bill O'Reilly, a Roman Catholic by affiliation, strongly asserts that God does not violate human free will.

Friends, many theologians have confused the "free" in free gift with the "free" in free will. The first speaks of God's unilateral action in salvation. The second refers to the autonomy of man. With this false correlation, the argument is made that God's free gift is contingent on man's free will. In other words, God can only save those that freely believe. Please note that this is different from saying, "God saves those who believe," which is what the Bible says. The additional words "can only" and "freely" change the meaning of the promise. Now, it is no more free, because it is contingent on faith. And God is no longer sovereign, because He is subject to human "free will."

Some argue that if we don't support the idea of "free will" in salvation, we would negate the biblical teaching on human responsibility. But is this right? It is not that the Bible is against free will per se. In fact, all indications in the Scriptures suggest that human beings use their free will contrary to God's purposes (Romans 3:9–18). That means that human beings left to their free will would not freely chose God, but do just the opposite, that is, reject God. Therefore, while there is "free will," just as their is human responsibility for sin, free will has no part in salvation, because salvation is completely a work of God (Philippians 1:6; Ephesians 2:4–5).

If salvation even in part depended upon people's faith, salvation would be secure for no one, for just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, even if God accomplished 99.9% of the salvation process, our .1% faith would be enough weakness to condemn us. Remember, Jesus told the disciples that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed (i.e. the smallest seed in a garden), they could move mountains. Obviously, they did not even have this much faith. And would you or I boast of a greater faith than those that walked and talked with Jesus for three years? No, my friends, the faith that saves us, was given to us by God as part of the free gift of salvation (Ephesians 2:8–9). And we are secure, not because of our great faith but because of the faithfulness of our God to keep His promises to us.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Luke carefully distinguishes two questions that initially sound similar. Zechariah asks how he can know the announcement is true, and Gabriel identifies his response as unbelief. Mary asks how the promised conception will occur, receives an explanation, and entrusts herself to the Lord's word. The distinction cannot be reduced to a rule that one grammatical form of question is permitted and another forbidden. The narrative's own assessment of their responses is decisive.

God's purpose continues through both scenes. John is born despite his father's initial unbelief, and Zechariah's eventual restored speech becomes praise. Mary participates through trusting obedience, not by providing the power that makes the promise possible. The contrast therefore supports the author's emphasis on divine initiative without making the human response inconsequential. Faith receives and participates; unbelief brings real correction. Read Luke 1:18–20 and 1:34–45.

The comment develops these scenes into a strong Reformed account of grace and faith. That theological position is preserved, but the discussion benefits from distinguishing faith's instrumentality from merit. Christians who say salvation is received through faith do not necessarily mean that faith earns a percentage of salvation or supplies a defect in Christ's work. Likewise, disagreement about how God enables faith is not always a claim that human beings can save themselves autonomously.

Ephesians 2:8–9 presents salvation by grace through faith as God's gift rather than grounds for boasting. The grammatical relationship of “this” to faith alone is debated; it can refer to the whole preceding reality of gracious salvation through faith. A complete account of faith's origin therefore needs the broader scriptural argument, not only that pronoun.

The pastoral confidence remains substantial. Weak faith does not need to become an impressive achievement before God's promise can be trusted. Its strength lies in the trustworthy one to whom it turns. Honest questions can consequently be brought before God with Mary's openness: seeking understanding while remaining ready to receive what he says.

Someone asked about Luke 1:17, where a loose modern translation renders part of John the Baptist's mission as making "parents more thoughtful of their children." Why would that be part of preparing the way for Jesus?

My response: that translation takes too much interpretive liberty. A more literal rendering reads: John will turn many of Israel's children back to the Lord, going before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, "to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children," and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord (a paraphrase of Luke 1:16–17, citing Malachi 4:6). The text doesn't actually say parents will become more thoughtful toward their children — nothing elsewhere in Scripture supports that reading either. What Jesus does teach is the value of childlike faith: whoever doesn't receive the kingdom of God like a little child won't enter it (a paraphrase of Luke 18:17). I think "turning the hearts of the fathers to the children" actually means John was pointing people toward a childlike faith in Jesus the Messiah — reinforced by the parallel phrase Luke adds about turning the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous. This connects to the passage where Jesus contrasts the unbelieving cities with the wisdom given to children, thanking the Father for hiding these things from the wise and learned while revealing them to little children, since that was what pleased Him (a paraphrase of Luke 10:21). So John's real purpose was pointing toward salvation through a return to childlike trust in God, not improving parent-child relationships. How would anyone who reads this as being about family dynamics explain Jesus's own statement that He came not to bring peace to households but conflict (a paraphrase of Matthew 10:34–36)? Since John was Jesus's forerunner, sharing His underlying purpose makes far more sense. Additionally, "fathers" in Scripture often refers not to immediate parents but to the great patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — so "children turning to the fathers" may describe a return to the faith the patriarchs embodied, consistent with Luke's framing about Israel returning to the Lord. As John elsewhere writes, whoever believes in the Son isn't condemned, but whoever doesn't believe already stands condemned (a paraphrase of John 3:18). Many casual readings of a text like this skip past the immediate context, the original prophecy in Malachi, and the way the passage fits with Christ's larger message to a people who kept trying to establish their own righteousness rather than embracing God's (see Romans 10:2–4).

AI-Expanded Reflection

The translation question underneath this comment — how much interpretive smoothing is appropriate before a translation starts substituting the translator's own reading for the original text's actual ambiguity — applies well beyond this one example. A more paraphrase-oriented translation can make a passage more immediately readable, but it resolves interpretive questions on the reader's behalf that a more literal rendering leaves open to work through directly. That's precisely the gap this comment points to: the more literal wording preserves an ambiguity in "turning fathers to children" that turns out to be theologically significant once traced back to its source in Malachi, while the smoother paraphrase quietly forecloses that connection before the reader ever notices it.