The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Magnify” it comes from the Greek Word “megalyno” which means “to magnify, to make great.”
Two impossible pregnancies, announced within months of each other, set the whole story in motion. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is Luke 1.
Luke opens by explaining he has carefully investigated everything from the beginning to write “an orderly account” for a man named Theophilus. The angel Gabriel appears to Zacharias, a priest serving in the temple, announcing that his aged, barren wife Elisabeth will bear a son, John, who will go before the Lord “in the spirit and power of Elias.” Because Zacharias doubts, he is struck mute until the child is born.
Six months later, Gabriel appears to a young virgin named Mary in Nazareth, announcing that she will conceive by the Holy Ghost and bear a son named Jesus, who will be called “the Son of the Highest” and will reign forever. Mary responds with remarkable trust, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” Mary hurries to visit her relative Elisabeth, whose baby leaps in her womb at Mary’s greeting, and Mary responds with a song of praise. “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” using the Greek word “megalyno,” meaning to make great or exalt, celebrating how God has looked upon her lowly state and will scatter the proud while lifting up the humble.
When Elisabeth gives birth, the neighbors expect the baby to be named after his father, but Elisabeth insists on the name John, and when Zacharias confirms it in writing, his speech is immediately restored. Filled with the Holy Ghost, Zacharias prophesies over his son, declaring that John will “go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways,” giving people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, “through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us.”
Two women, one too old and one too young by ordinary standards, both become part of God’s plan through pregnancies no one expected. Mary’s simple, trusting response, let it be to me according to your word, remains one of the clearest pictures of faith in the entire Bible, especially given how little she understood of what was actually coming.
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