- This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 20 years, 8 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
On a side note: I highly recommend the tape, ‘One Church’ by The Bible Christian Society (http://www.biblechristiansociety.com). It draws extensively from the Bible and makes so much sense (though expect to stop the tape often to look up passages!).I’ve have been looking into the Catholic position on birth control and NFP (natural family planning) on and off this summer.
While I was at work the other day I found myself reading over Luke 1:31 “Behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.”
And then it just hit me. Mary was to [i:1ct1a9gb]conceive[/i:1ct1a9gb] a son. At that [i:1ct1a9gb]moment of conception[/i:1ct1a9gb] this was Jesus. It wasn’t an ’embryo’, or even a fertilized egg. It wasn’t even an ‘it’! It was Jesus!
Taking it out of context a bit, what if Mary had decided to take the-day-after-pill? Isn’t that a direct parallel with today?I went to a pro-life debate last fall, in which the speaker believed that birth control that [i:1ct1a9gb]prevented[/i:1ct1a9gb] conception was alright, just not birth control that [i:1ct1a9gb]aborted[/i:1ct1a9gb]. That seemed to make perfect sense to me, but I wanted to find out why the Church had such a strong stand against birth control (besides NFP) altogether. Now I am not a doctor so I have to draw upon doctor’s words. In the free tape “The Secret to Happy Families” by the Mary Foundation (http://www.catholicity.com) Dr. Robert McDonald informs us that often prevention can fail and then an [i:1ct1a9gb]abort[/i:1ct1a9gb]ifacient kicks in (hence perhaps one of the Church’s reasons for not supporting unnatural birth control). Why don’t doctors tell us about NFP then? They aren’t taught it themselves I’m told.
Hey Brenda! Thanks for the recommendation!
Right now I am going to play devil’s advocate. You say that Luke 1:31 says:
[quote:293crqzi]Behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.[/quote:293crqzi]
and then you draw the conclusion that Mary was to conceive a son.
There are 2 ways you can look at the wording of that passage and I will use brackets to break up the passage.
The first way is the way you described and that would be:
[b:293crqzi]”Behold {you will conceive in your womb and bear} a son, and you shall name him Jesus.”[/b:293crqzi]
This way is grouping “conceive” and “bear” into one single process and thus a son will be conceived and then born. This is all fine and dandy, but there is another way to look at this passage.
[b:293crqzi]”Behold you will {conceive in your womb} and {bear a son}, and you shall name him Jesus.”[/b:293crqzi]
Now, this second way is saying that Mary will conceive (plain and simple, that’s it – just conceive something) and then bear a son from that conception, however it does not show that what she will conceive is a son. It could be that she is conceiving an embryo or whatever people want to call it these days.
Of course, judging by the syntax of this sentence I would say that the first way makes the most sense, but I just want to make you aware of a counter argument someone may use.
I don’t really have time to look it up in the Greek right now, but I will get back to you on that.
” title=”Very Happy” /> -Jon
Thanks Jon for the heads up! I’m interested to hear what the Greek says.
” title=”Very Happy” /> -Jon
” title=”Cool” />- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.