A Subtext in the Story | Sunday, February 23, 2025

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, "Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!" ... "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end."

A familiar Christmas passage hides a subtext our culture has forgotten — the high value the Bible places on women, motherhood, and the miracle of birth.

A December Passage in February

This is a moderately familiar passage of Scripture, ranking up near the top with Psalm 23, 1 Corinthians 13, and John 3:16. At least, it was familiar a generation or two ago. Today it is increasingly unlikely that, if you quoted something from what we just read — a passage referred to as the annunciation — many people would know where it comes from. Names like Gabriel, Mary, Galilee, and Nazareth are familiar in some respects, but a lot of people don't really know this text.

The phrase "blessed are you among women" is something you might remember from December and Christmas, especially if you watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, which aired every year for 56 years. But more and more people are less and less familiar with the Scriptures. As a Bible guy, I think that's unfortunate. Yet it also highlights something fascinating.

A Miraculous Rise from Obscurity

This story we've begun considering in Luke begins in relative obscurity — with unknown people in backwater towns. I believe this is one of the miracles of Christianity that helps authenticate its truth. How do we know the story of the Gospel is true? There are many answers apologists give, but one of them is the miraculous rise of Christianity itself.

These things started in obscurity, with people who would have lived and died completely unknown had it not been for the work and plan of God. Yet we know their names. In fact, names like Gabriel, Elizabeth, and Mary are some of the most commonly used names in Western culture for the last several hundred years. That points to something of a miracle.

Last week we met Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth — an old couple, a barren woman, and a miracle God performed. We're told they come from "the hill country of Judah." We're not even told the name of the town. It's like saying "out in East San Diego County" without naming the place. God chooses to begin the story with this obscure old couple who would have lived and died in obscurity.

Then the passage shifts. The same angelic messenger who came to Zacharias in the temple is now dispatched to Galilee, to Nazareth — a place so unknown that before the four Gospels it is never mentioned in the Old Testament. One of Jesus' early followers, hearing the name, says, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" It's like asking, "Can anything good come out of Escondido?" — and I was born and raised here, so I'm not picking on it.

God's Ways Are Higher

If you and I had been on the heavenly planning commission, we would not have chosen Mary and Elizabeth in the hill country of Judah or Nazareth of Galilee. Yet God chooses to use these places. It reminds me of Isaiah 55, where God reminds us that His ways are above our ways and His thoughts above our thoughts. Frequently God works in ways I would never have planned or scripted.

Think about it. If the story of the Gospel is true — and as a Christian pastor I believe it is — the God who created all things and presides over creation begins with two women: an old barren woman and an unmarried minor. That may not seem strange to us in 2025, but we must read it through its cultural and historical context. In the first-century ancient Near East — as in many Middle Eastern countries today — the testimony of a woman was not even valued. Yet God chooses in His providence to begin the story with two women and the miraculous conception and birth of two very important individuals.

The Bible Highly Values What Is Most Valuable

Here's point one: the Bible highly values what is most valuable. If you're a Christian, you probably won't disagree. If you're not, go with me for a minute. In saying this, we should acknowledge that the value system of our American culture in 2025 is distinctly different from the biblical value system. That was not always the case, but today American culture and biblical Christianity have markedly different value systems.

This matters because it has long been observed — going back to Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates — that what an individual or culture values dictates its priorities, its behavior, and ultimately its path. Values are the basis for ethics; ethics is what you ought to do, determined by what you think is important.

A simple illustration: among many people under twenty in Western culture, celebrity — specifically social-media celebrity, the "influencer" — is highly valued. The most recognized of these is Jimmy Donaldson, "Mr. Beast," who has nearly a billion followers; his content is seen by as many as one-eighth of the world's population. Because of this value system, since 2019 the number-one professional ambition of young people is to be a YouTuber. That wasn't even a thing fifteen years ago. Value systems dictate behavior.

The Bible Calls Us to Reorder Our Values

Point two: the Bible also calls us to reassess and reorder our values and priorities. If you became a Christian as an adult, you know this experientially. Before that, you had a value system inherited from family, culture, and upbringing, and it shaped your behavior. When you became a Christian, the Bible called you to reassess and reorder your values. If your life is distinctly different now, it proves this true.

It does this in incremental nudges. On day one it doesn't demand your life be fundamentally different in 48 hours. But after five or twenty-five years, your life is fundamentally different. Many of you can say, "That's descriptive of me."

Consider another example: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." We hold that to be self-evident — but it wasn't self-evident for most of human history, and it still isn't in many places. How did it become enshrined in our national documents? And how many of you believe, as the Thirteenth Amendment says, that slavery is wrong? Throughout most of human history slavery was not considered wrong. How did that change? It happened incrementally over centuries through the influence of Scripture — the incremental nudges of the Bible.

The Basic Story Beneath the Surface

By now you might wonder what this has to do with Luke, Mary, and Elizabeth. More than you might think. My methodology is sometimes challenging — I ask you to think about what's below the text. The basic story of Luke 1 is simple: an angel told a priest, Zacharias, that he and his barren, elderly wife would have a son named John, who would prepare the way for the Messiah. Then the same angel told a young, unmarried girl that by the Holy Spirit she would conceive the very One Israel had been seeking — who would save His people from their sins and reign over a kingdom forever.

This is the dilemma: she's a young betrothed girl in first-century Judea, and she's found to be pregnant. That would be bad in 2025; it's really bad in 4 BC. Yet Mary will miraculously give birth to a Son who is God incarnate. The text even says, "With God nothing will be impossible." Mary's family sends her away to the hill country of Judah to stay with her relative Elizabeth, who is now six months pregnant.

When Mary arrives, the baby in Elizabeth's womb leaps, and Elizabeth makes a great pronouncement over Mary's child. Mary responds with what is called the Magnificat:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; for behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed... He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.

The story is familiar enough that it's easy to fly through it quickly. But there's a subtext underneath the text that may be really important.

The Subtext: A High Value on Women and Motherhood

The Greatest Story Ever Told begins with two women — an old barren woman and a young unmarried minor — rejoicing together in their miraculous conceptions. Point three: **the subtext of Luke 1 places a high value on women, conception, childbearing, and motherhood.**

Let me ask: in 2025 America, are these things highly valued? No. Is that a problem? I think it is. Most of the opening chapter of Luke focuses on these two joyfully pregnant women, which is astounding for the time and place in which it was written. I don't think it's an accident. God intentionally inspired Luke to record it this way, and at the very least it's worth acknowledging that the Bible places something in a position of esteem that our culture has been moving away from for a very long time.

A rightly ordered value system produces a rightly ordered individual and culture; the inverse is also true. Even people who are not churchgoers or conservatives will acknowledge that our culture feels disordered. Individuals and cultures function best — morally, ethically, virtuously — when they have a rightly ordered value system.

Why This Matters Nationally

The first reason this matters is national. The text of Scripture is increasingly unfamiliar; more people know less about the Bible and its value system. This means we no longer recognize as valuable what the Bible highly values, and so we no longer prioritize or pursue those things. Instead we pursue all kinds of things according to a personalized, subjective value system.

In the 1850s, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote his parable of the madman, declaring, "God is dead, and we have killed him." Nietzsche surmised that when God is removed for a culture, everyone must dictate their own values. Since then, Western culture has been running this experiment — living off the residual effects of the Christian value system while postmodern philosophers tell us we can no longer trust the Bible's overarching "metanarrative" and must dictate our own values.

How's that working? We are increasingly living in a culture that is emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically unwell. Everybody sees it. Is it possible those unhealthy outcomes are the expected results of what we value, prioritize, and pursue?

Disordered Values, Displaced Cultures

Point four: disordered values influence misplaced priorities, resulting in displaced cultures. I don't know anyone who doesn't think we live in a displaced culture, whether they go to church or not. The temptation, when something is wrong, is to deconstruct and tear everything down to rebuild from scratch. This is dangerous, because whether a person wears a red tie or a blue tie, on the right or the left, in the U.S., the UK, or Germany, there's a "tear it all down" mindset — and nobody is asking, "Rebuild it with what value system?"

A better approach than tearing it all down is a re-evaluation — note the word value — of our value system and priorities. Why is the Bible so important? The obvious answer: we are all dead in sin and heading toward judgment, and the Bible reveals God and His plan of redemption. That is the Gospel. But there is added significance in the subtext: the Bible helps us reassess and reorder our values and priorities, leading to better human flourishing.

I'll argue with anyone who says Western culture has not led to better outcomes — less poverty, more prosperity, more freedom for minorities, liberty to the captives. Show me another culture that's done that, and where did it come from? It came through incremental nudges over centuries from the value system God gave us in the Scriptures. As 2 Timothy 3:16–17 says, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, so that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. God gave us His Word as the owner's manual for the equipment He manufactured.

The Local Issue: An Elephant in the Room

Now to a local issue — I didn't tell my staff I was going to talk about this. It's recently become a local issue, though it's been a discussion in the church for over a decade, a yearly topic at the Southern Baptist Convention, a long conversation among Calvary Chapel churches, and the number-one question on GotQuestions.org for fifteen years: What does the Bible say about women pastors?

This question has sparked controversy at a large local church that recently changed its position. At the outset, the lead pastor and many of their pastors are friends of mine. I respect them, and I can have friends I don't entirely agree with — and so should you. I don't even agree with some things I said ten years ago. Some of you have changed your opinions, but you don't have it on video; I have about 700 of those. So I have nothing negative to say about my friends at that church. In fact, two nights ago I texted their lead pastor to ask if we could use their sanctuary for a memorial service, and he said it would be an honor. That's what friends do.

A Better Question

Without going into the systematic theology — my friend Mike Winger, a Calvary Chapel pastor and apologist, spent an entire year answering this question on YouTube, his last video eleven hours long — I'll say I hold a traditional complementarian view. The major challenge is that I think there's a more important question.

When you ask, "Does the Bible provide a justification for women occupying the role of pastor?" — that's a culturally inspired question people should wrestle with. But a better question is: Does the Bible place the office of pastor as a high value for women? The clear answer is no. The Bible has a different value system for women.

Disordered values have influenced misplaced priorities, resulting in a displaced culture and church. Modern theologians, influenced by a wrongly ordered cultural value system, are trying to find biblical justifications for things that are not biblically justified and that are not ultimately the most valuable for people or culture — biblical justifications for same-sex marriage, for when life begins and when abortion is acceptable, for the role of women, for sex and gender, even for Christians using marijuana or hallucinogens. All of these are inspired by a certain value system, and the Bible calls us to reassess and reorder.

From the Beginning: Male and Female

From page one, the Bible promotes a different value system:

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion..." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion..."

God created man and woman distinctly different — you can't be fruitful and multiply by yourself, although our culture is trying. From the beginning God gave them complementary positions and roles to help one another in His work. Men have work to do largely in the field, and women have a distinct, distinguished call from God: miraculous conception and birth. It's miraculous, and the Bible highly values it. We see it in Luke 1.

Please don't misunderstand — I am not saying women cannot or ought not do anything other than have children. My wife had four children with me, and I was happy to be next to her, not delivering the babies. While carrying and raising them she earned her LVN, then her RN, then her BSN, then became a licensed family nurse practitioner, and now makes a lot more money than I do. I think she's an incredibly good example of a godly woman. So I'm not saying women just occupy the home. But the Bible does not value the pastorate for women, and I believe there are theological reasons for that.

A Frankenstein Endeavor

Jesus reiterates this in Matthew 19:

Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh"?... Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.

Women occupy a divinely ordered role that men cannot, will not, and mostly don't want to occupy, and it is disordered when a man wants to occupy it. I'll put it this way: it is a Frankenstein endeavor to add the pastorate to femininity in the same way it is to add childbearing to masculinity. It is not as God intended.

Here's something else controversial: if you exalt career to the exclusion of a divine call, it is unlikely you'll be satisfied with the outcome. Young girls have been told for generations that a degree and a career will make them most satisfied. Yet often by about thirty-six they are unmarried, childless, and depressed, not knowing what to do. Look around — it might be disordered.

Reevaluating My Worldview

Point five: the text and subtext of Scripture require that I reevaluate my worldview — that I humbly say my culture and my worldview might be wrong. But who gets to be the authority? As a Christian, I say it isn't me. God is the authority, and where people have followed Jesus as Lord, it has led to the best in human flourishing.

So we pivot awkwardly to communion. What we are about to do in partaking of the bread and the cup has much to do with the fact that Mary said yes — and we're thankful she did, because Christ came into the world through her so that you and I might be saved from our sins. There is a world right outside these doors that desperately needs to hear that.

Let me say this quickly: our church and others have recently grown at the expense of another church over a doctrinal issue, and a doctrinal issue is one of the few good reasons to leave a church. But over the last fifty years, nearly all church growth has been transfer growth from some other church — which means we're not reaching people. That weighs on me, because so many need to hear about the body and blood of our Savior.

On the night He was betrayed, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me." Let's partake together. In the same manner, after supper He took the cup and said, "This is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." Let's partake together.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank You. Thank You for coming and demonstrating Your love for us, that while we were still sinners You died for us. Thank You for opening the way to salvation and forgiveness. Thank You, Lord, for saving and making us whole. I pray that You'd continue to transform us by the renewing of our minds, and help us to be lights to a culture in such desperate darkness and need. God, do a work, we pray. We praise and thank You in Jesus' name. Amen.