Divine Necessity & Our Necessity

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Text: Luke 2:40-52
Full Sermon Draft

The first words of Jesus recorded in Luke contain what the ESV translates as “must”. It is a little word, that signals big things – the divine necessity. This is why Jesus came, to take care of the things of his Father. The extra file here looks at all the uses of this word in the Gospel according to Luke.
Must in Luke

I think what you can see is exactly what the things of the Father are. You can also start to see what the things we “ought” to do are. And you can see the conflict as at one point the Synagogue tries to put an ought on Jesus rejecting his. The switch from must to ought in translation is revealing. Jesus must and can, while we ought to but can’t. Good think the one covers the other.

The last note really is one the attitude of the heart, captured by Mary, that allows for the reception of wisdom that we can’t receive by natural means from simple piety to learned study.