Marginalia #2: Thoughts scribbled in the margin of my Bible

by Shafer Parker

Mat. 1:19-20 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

What I scribbled: “Joseph was a man who ‘considered’ things. This is huge. God make me a man who considers things.”

I sometimes think Joseph might have been the only man in the world who would “consider” things when faced with his situation. His wife-to-be was pregnant and he knew he was not the father. Most men would have said, “What’s to consider?” and then rejected Mary in whatever way would hurt her most.

But Joseph was not most men. He was the man God selected to be surrogate father to His only begotten Son. So it’s worth noting that when faced with the worst possible crisis in any man’s life, he thought twice, and then decided to behave in the most gracious way possible.

When I scribbled in the margin a prayer that God would help me “consider things,” I was thinking of how often I react to situations with pure emotion, often with anger or a dangerous level of self-righteousness. I want God to help me consider how to react like a Christian, assuming the best, not the worst, thinking of how to help others, not hinder them, how to accord them honour, not take the lead in disrespecting them and tearing them down.