Show Notes

Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today’s painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works.

Amity: Today we will look at the new speaker of the house and his opinions in Not Necessarily the Good News and Lemuel will look into the woman who started it all in Pillars of Wisdom. Necessarily the Good News 

Amity: Current speaker of the House , Republican Mike Johnson expressed his point of view this way: 

“I am a bible believing christian. Someone asked me today, in the media, they said, ‘It’s curious, people are curious. What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf, and read it. That’s my worldview.’”

This is problematic for many reasons. There are many biblical translations, accepted by many parts of the church.  Speaker Johnson is a Protestant, and beyond that a Baptist. There are 57 Baptists currently serving in the House of Representatives, the second largest Christian denomination represented, the largest being the Catholic Church, with 122 members.

When a speaker says that the Bible is his opinion, what does it mean, and why is it important to us?

SUMMATION: In the end I would say this: When Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king, Jesus responded: “My kingdom is not of this world … “ The separation of Church and state is a construct instituted by Jesus Christ. Maybe Speaker Johnson’s bible doesn't include this verse. Amity:  And now, in honor of the season, we try to understand a little more about the woman central to the Christian Church. 

Pillars of Wisdom: Amity: “At the center of this mystery, in the midst of this wonderment of faith, stands Mary. As the loving mother of the redeemer, she was the first to experience it. ‘To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator." -Pope John Paul the Second, Redemptoris Mater

Lemuel:  She is designated with the title Theokotos in the Eastern Christian Church: the God - bearer. The Immaculate Conception in the Roman Church where she is also referred to as the Queen of Heaven, Our Lady, and Star of the Sea.

There are few more important persons in the Christian world than Mary. For a person who changed the world we don’t know very much about her. She was betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter, perhaps a good deal older than her and may have even been a widower with other children from his first marriage. We know that she had a maternal aunt, Elizabeth, a devout, much older woman who also brought a miraculous child into the world. 

Mary received a visitation; she was informed that she, among all the women of the world, was chosen to bring God into the world, if she chose to receive it. With her consent, she brings this child into the world. The rest of that story becomes her son’s story; his mission, and sacrifice, but she remains in the background. She urges him to spare a newly married couple the embarrassment of running out of wine at their wedding feast.  She was present at the crucifixion; Jesus tells her that John, the youngest disciple, was to act as her son. 

The years after this, she drops away from focus. She begins reappearing in illustrations in catacombs at the beginning of the second century. She is given some of the titles mentioned earlier. Some of the titles were borrowed from earlier Goddesses, and some of the depictions as well. A woman with a baby, a woman weeping for her murdered son. 

There are no canonical stories about her after she is a part of the miraculous gathering on the day of Pentecost, but that story implies that she was a leader in the early church. Her death is never described, but her Assumption, (her body being taken intact into heaven) is a doctrine in much of the high church. 

Ancient peoples come to us as ciphers, and most of the biblical people we meet are shadowy figures with unexplained motives. We don’t understand Judas Iscariot, and can only guess why he did what he did. A person like Joseph the Carpenter comes across as decent and kind, but he is painted in quick, efficient strokes with no color or detail. 

SUMMATION: Mary is, in the faith, the most important person who ever lived. She is a distant example of perfection in some branches of the Church. The best way to find her is to see a young woman bearing a child, mourning that grown child’s death, then carrying him on in her heart for the rest of her life. 

Amity: That brings us to the end of this week’s episode. If you like it, please subscribe and leave us a review - and share it with a friend.

Lemuel: We have an internet home: withoutworkspodcast.com. Our show notes and links to stories we talk about can be found there. 

Amity: All of our social links are on the website so if you want to reach out go there for all that information. 

I’ve been Amity and he’s been Lemuel, and we urge you to go out and do something good.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ [email protected] Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Sources https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-johnson-earn-his-views-by-reading-the-bible-2023-10 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/us/politics/mike-johnson-interview-hannity-takeaways.html https://orthodoxbridge.com/2012/05/20/why-evangelicals-need-mary/ https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-mike-johnson-says-separation-church-state-misnomer-rcna125181