Who is Jesus' Mother and Brethren

In this part of the sermon: Martin reconstructs the setting of the incident, noting that Jesus was in a house, surrounded by a tightly packed, circular crowd, making it difficult for his family to reach him…

Martin uses the analogy of the church auditorium with all chairs removed and people packed in concentric circles around a soda box to help the audience visualize the crowded, intimate setting where Jesus was teaching.

And in this tightly packed circular configuration, the Lord Jesus was in the midst speaking to the people. Now Luke 8 and verse 19, the parallel passage in Luke's gospel, tells us that his mother and brother, and brothers, could not come at him for the crowd. Now in order to help you picture precisely what the situation was, for it's vital in feeling the weight of the passage, try to imagine that last night, the deacons came in the wee hours of the morning, unannounced and for some strange reason, took all of these chairs, stacked them up, took them out and put them downstairs, or maybe put th...

8:27 - 9:43 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section details the arrival of Jesus' mother and brothers, clarifying their identity as blood relatives and refuting alternative interpretations. Martin describes their…

Martin references the woman in Luke's Gospel who loudly blessed Jesus' mother, contrasting her lack of sensitivity with Mary's more discreet approach, and calling her a 'prototype of loud women in the charismatic movement'.

I, Mary, your mother, am here. Apparently, they had more sense of a general sensitivity to the sanctity of what Jesus was doing, namely, teaching and preaching the needy to engage in that kind of blurting out. Now, some did not. You remember in the Gospel of Luke, it says a certain woman cried out of the crowd, Blessed is the womb!

16:53 - 17:12 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section details the arrival of Jesus' mother and brothers, clarifying their identity as blood relatives and refuting alternative interpretations. Martin describes their…

Martin uses the analogy of a whispered message rippling through a crowd, expanding and becoming a general word, to explain how the message about Jesus' family reached him from the outer circle.

for the text tells us here that it was the multitude who conveyed the message to Jesus behold your mother and your brothers without seek for you, verse 32 and they, that is the multitude sitting about him they say behold your brethren and your mother are seeking for you however in Matthew's gospel we read something that adds a little different slant we read in Matthew 12 and verse 47 and one said unto him behold your mother and your brethren stand without seeking to speak to you but he answered and said unto him that told him who is my mother and who are my brethren well did the crowd tell him...

17:43 - 19:12 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin breaks down Jesus' response into three parts: a rhetorical question ('Who is my mother and my brothers?'), a deliberate action (looking around at the crowd and stretching…

Martin uses the example of a wise preacher seizing an unavoidable distraction (like a thunderclap) as an opportunity to teach truth, explaining why Jesus responded to the interruption about his family as he did.

it becomes, as it becomes, as it becomes, as it becomes, as it becomes, as it becomes, as it becomes, as it becomes, as it becomes. And so he told them, again, what was Jesus saying? The people were a common area of mental concern. And then at the point that the individual rises up and says, your mother and your brothers are seeking you, now it becomes a matter of universal concern. What did Jesus do? Well, he didn't say, wait a minute, I'm only at point two in my sermon. I've got three points. This is distracting. Forget the question. Let me finish my sermon, then we'll move on to those issue...

25:41 - 26:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Embrace the Gospel of direct access to Christ without the need for intermediaries like saints or Mary.

Martin quotes Professor Murray, stating that the doctrine of perpetual virginity would 'turn that noble woman into a witch,' to strongly refute the Roman Catholic teaching.

My dear Roman Catholic friend, listen to me. Listen to me. There's not a shred of evidence for the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary. It would turn that noble woman into a witch, as Professor Murray said.

43:42 - 43:56 Read in full sermon