Yesterday, I was listening to Chuck Swindoll on the radio(like I do every morning on the way to taking my son to school, my poor son) and he was talking about Joseph. I found the question Mr. Swindoll raised very interesting. It was, "If Joseph was such a Godly man, why did an angel have to appear to him to convince him that the baby Mary was carrying was from God?" The conversation went on to show me that Joseph was just a normal man. When his fiance left suddenly for 3 months and didn't tell him where she was going or why, he was concerned. The scuttlebutt in the small town was that Mary was expecting and Joseph must have heard about it. He must have been a little mad at her. Then when she came back and told him that she was going to have a baby, Joseph planned to have her sent away quietly. Probably cuz he was mad and disappointed in her. So God sent an angel to him to convince him to take Mary as his wife anyway and that the baby was from God.
I think that speaks volumes about the nature of Joseph...he was a normal guy who was OBEDIENT (sp) to God. It must have taken alot of guts to do what he did and marry her anyway in spite of all the talk of the towns people. And then to not have touched her intimatly the whole 6 months that followed must have caused some tension in their early marriage. But Joseph hung in there and BELIEVED God. He is a great role model for young men today. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />