A wife and mother with no religious background senses God has been putting her in situations to do his work and is drawing her to herself. When her friend wants to talk to her about God and salvation and eternal life, she’s ready to listen.
But God Pursued Her, Part 2 consists of the following chapters:
Chapter 4 – Answers
At the appointed time, Jazmyn, Victor, and Valeria arrived at Hope’s family’s home. Hope, who knew both Jazmyn and Victor well, handled the introductions. “Jazmyn, Dad, you remember each other, I’m sure. Victor, this is my father, Bruce Rogers. Dad, this is Jazmyn’s husband, Victor Alvarez, and their daughter Valeria.” Victor and Bruce shook hands and said hello. Hope then said, “I’ll take Valeria, since she knows me. Come on, Valeria, let’s go play!” said Hope as Victor handed his daughter off to her.
Bruce then invited Jazmyn and Victor to join him in his study. When they were settled, he said, “Hope tells me that she shared the gospel with you, Jazmyn, and that you had some questions that she couldn’t answer.”
“She told you what those were, didn’t she?” Jazmyn asked.
“Yes, but why don’t you ask them again, for everyone’s benefit?” Bruce suggested.
“Okay,” said Jazmyn. “Obviously, Christians are supposed to obey God. But Hope said that the Bible says wives should be submissive to their husbands. I was glad to learn that, because I already am submissive to Victor. So my question is, what if Victor and God want me to do different things? If I disobey Victor, I’m not being submissive, so either way I’m disobeying God. What am I supposed to do?”
Bruce said, “I looked up the passage you’re referring to, Ephesians 5, verses 22 to 33. I’ll just read the relevant parts.
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church… As the church submits to Christ, wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives… Each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
“Let me read that first part again. ‘Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.’ In other words, submit to your husband just like you submit to God. They’re given equal weight. I know that doesn’t help, but I thought you needed to know that.
“If you and Victor were both saved and trying to follow Christ, you shouldn’t have the kind of conflict you’re suggesting. If, say, you were saved and he wasn’t, well, the Bible discusses this situation in 1 Corinthians 7, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t clearly say how to handle it. It does say that a believing spouse should not seek to leave or divorce an unbelieving spouse; by staying with them, you might be the one who leads them to Christ. It also says in this same passage that God has called us to live in peace.
“These statements lead me to conclude that you should usually defer to your husband’s wishes if they conflict with God’s. You wouldn’t want to do anything to cause your unbelieving husband to resent God, or resent you for having a relationship with God, if you can avoid it. God will understand. He was the one who inspired the apostle Paul to write that a wife should submit to her husband ‘as to the Lord.’
“But, there could come a time when God lays on your heart that you are to obey him rather than your husband in a certain matter. You’ll know it if it ever happens; it would be a pretty extreme situation.
“There are numerous places in the Bible where we’re told to obey those in authority over us, including some others in that same passage in Ephesians 5. Children, obey your parents. Slaves, obey your masters, even when they aren’t looking. Submit to government officials, which God has put in authority over you. Et cetera.
“But every once in a while, there are situations where believers feel compelled by God to disobey those in authority. For example, in Acts chapter 4, the apostles are ordered by the authorities to stop preaching about Jesus. But Peter and John said to them in verses 19 and 20, ‘Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.’ It was implied that God compelling them to preach about Jesus carried more weight than his command to submit to the authorities.
“There are other examples as well, including two in the book of Daniel that are routinely taught to children.”
“Daniel and the lion’s den,” Victor said, recalling one of them from his childhood.
“That’s one of them, yes,” said Bruce. “The king decreed that his subjects were to pray only to him. Anyone caught praying to anyone else would be fed to the lions. Daniel was very devout and prayed to God three times a day, even after the decree was issued. He was found out and thrown into a den of lions. But God kept the lions from touching him, and they found Daniel still in one piece the next morning. The king then ordered Daniel to be released.
“So the best advice I can give you is, ordinarily you should obey your husband if he contradicts God, but there might come a time when God tells you otherwise, and then you must obey God.”
Jazmyn replied, “Thank you, Mr. Rogers, that’s very helpful.”
“Please, call me Bruce,” he told her.
“Before we leave Ephesians 5, I want to say something to Victor,” Bruce said. “Pay close attention to what that passage says to husbands. I’ll read those parts again. ‘Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives… Each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself…’.
“I don’t know you, Victor, and I haven’t heard anything about you that concerns me, but I do know that many men who insist that their wives submit to them are physically and emotionally abusive to them. They order their wives around and treat them like slaves and demand that their wives respect them without doing anything to earn respect. These men freely quote the parts of Ephesians 5 that apply to wives, and ignore the parts that apply to themselves.
“Ephesians 5 makes it clear that a husband should love his wife sacrificially, putting her needs and wants at least as high as his own, if not higher, even giving his own life to save his wife’s if necessary. A wife will readily submit to and respect a man like that without him even having to tell her to. If you want Jazmyn to be submissive to you, be the husband in Ephesians 5 and she’ll gladly do so.”
“No worries there,” said Jazmyn. “Victor fits the Ephesians 5 description to a ‘T’. He’s never once been abusive or even harsh to me. He takes care of me in all kinds of ways, and I know he loves me deeply. I chose to willingly submit to him; he never demanded it or even asked me to. That’s because I know he always looks out for my best interests and I completely trust him. I’ve never regretted it for a minute. The funny thing is, I had no idea the Bible said this is how a marriage should be. I don’t think he did, either.”
“You’re right; I didn’t,” agreed Victor.
“Well, I must admit, I’ve never heard of a couple figuring out on their own how to have a biblical marriage. I’m pleasantly surprised that you have, and I’m glad it’s working so well for you,” Bruce said. “That just goes to show that God’s plans are always best. Now, what’s your next question, Jazmyn?” he asked.
“Victor and I are very much into some kinky stuff in the bedroom,” Jazmyn said matter-of-factly. “God has a reputation of being kind of a prude, so I’m wondering if we’re sinning by doing this. In other words, would we have to give it up if one or both of us got saved?”
“Well, ‘kinky stuff’ is rather vague, so I can’t give you an answer without knowing more,” Bruce said in response. “I appreciate your not being explicit, though. So let me just ask some questions, if I may. Does this kinky stuff involve anyone else, or is it just between the two of you?”
“Just the two of us,” replied Jazmyn.
“Anything involving the occult or witchcraft or demons or anything like that?”
“No.”
“Do you take photos or videos of what you’re doing?”
“No.”
“Is everything completely consensual and done in love?”
“Yes.”
“Then, I’d think you’re probably okay,” Bruce said. He continued, “However, I can guarantee that there are plenty of people who claim to be moral authorities – pastors, priests, Bible scholars, etc. – who would tell you differently. That’s why it’s best to see for yourself what the Bible has to say. Unfortunately, it’s not going to provide a direct answer to a question like this, but there are principles we can extract and apply to your situation.
“The Old Testament has probably thousands of laws, rules, and regulations that the Israelites were expected to follow. Wait. Do you know the difference between the Old and New Testaments?”
“Yes,” said Victor.
“No,” admitted Jazmyn.
Bruce explained for her benefit. “The Old Testament is the first two thirds or so of the Bible, and it covers the time from the creation of the Earth to about 400 years before Jesus was born. Most of it is about God’s relationship with the Israelites, or Jews. The Jews were God’s chosen people. In fact, Jews today use the Old Testament as their Bible. Christians use both.
“The remainder of the Bible is the New Testament. It covers the time from Jesus’ birth to about one hundred years after that. In the New Testament, most Jews rejected Jesus, and so God had those who did believe spread the word about Jesus to the Gentiles. Gentiles are people who aren’t Jewish; in other words, all of us.
“Anyway, the Old Testament has all these laws that God gave to the Jews, probably many hundreds of them. They were very detailed, and I’m sure it was very difficult to keep track of them all, let alone try to obey them. But in the New Testament, God made it clear that you could become a Christian without first becoming a Jew, and that most of those Jewish laws were no longer applicable.
“The ones that are still applicable are mostly the Ten Commandments. You should read up on what those were. But Jesus even boiled those ten down to just two commandments. He explains those in a couple of places in the New Testament. Let me read one of them to you.
“This is from the book of Matthew, chapter 22, verses 36 to 40. Speaking first is an expert in Jewish law asking Jesus a question. ‘”Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”’
“Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love other people as much as you love yourself,” Bruce paraphrased. “So, a good rule of thumb is that a sin would be something that is not loving toward God or not loving to other people. The Ten Commandments get into some specific ways that God wants us to demonstrate love toward himself and others, and there are some additional commands in the New Testament that do apply to us, but if you just follow those two principles you’ll be doing pretty good.
“So, I would think what you and Victor do in the bedroom between yourselves, if it’s consensual and done in love, is probably not an issue in God’s eyes. God is not nearly as much of a prude as people make him out to be. It’s actually misguided Christians putting words into God’s mouth who are the prudes. Lots of them will try to tell you what you can and can’t do in the bedroom. You’ll have to decide for yourselves whether they really speak for God or not. They’ll all claim to, but I’ll say most probably don’t.
“Jesus had to deal with this same kind of problem all the time. The Jewish religious leaders of his day were constantly condemning him because he didn’t follow their rules, but their rules weren’t God’s rules. For example, one of the Ten Commandments is, ‘Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.’ ‘Sabbath’ was the Jewish day of worship, Saturday in their case. Sunday for us. ‘Holy’ means set apart and dedicated to God. It goes on to say that the Sabbath is a day to refrain from working.
“Well, the Jews had all sorts of meticulous, arbitrary, man-made rules about what constituted ‘work’ and was prohibited on the Sabbath. Now Jesus comes along, and he made a point of miraculously healing people on the Sabbath. The Jewish leaders claimed that he couldn’t possibly be from God, because healing was work, and therefore he was violating God’s commandment. They completely ignored the fact that he was performing miracles and giving credit to God. But God never said that healing was work or that it was prohibited on the Sabbath.
“When they accused him of this, he had various responses that provide some insight into what God had in mind for the Sabbath. In three of the Gospels… The Gospels are the first four books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. ‘Gospel’ literally means ‘good news’. The Gospels are biographies of Jesus’ time on Earth.
Anyway, in three of the Gospels, in Matthew 12, Mark 2, and Luke 6, Jesus defends his disciples who were hungry and picked grain from a field on the Sabbath. They were accused of ‘harvesting’, which was considered work. In Matthew 12, Jesus points out that priests work on the Sabbath, but are innocent in God’s eyes, and he also says, referring to healing, ‘it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.’ In Mark 2, he says, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’ In other words, God established the Sabbath for our benefit, not to be a burden for us. We are to respect the commandment, but we’re not slaves to it.
“My point is that we need to look to Scripture for guidance about how to live, and not to man-made interpretations of Scripture. And we need to look at Scripture in its entirety, not verses taken out of context. If you only read the Ten Commandments, you might have a pretty narrow view about what was allowed on the Sabbath, but if you also read the New Testament verses in the Bible that address the subject, you see the big picture.
“When the Bible doesn’t explicitly give us answers to our questions, like what is acceptable behavior between a man and his wife in the privacy of their bedroom, we need to look for the principles that might apply, rather than making up our own rules or allowing others to make up rules for us. Does that help you with your question, Jazmyn?” Bruce asked.
“Well, yes, thanks. It sounds like you really need to know the Bible in order to know how to be a Christian, though.”
“That’s quite a profound statement there,” Bruce replied. “Truer words were never spoken. And I’m sure that has a lot to do with why so many people who call themselves Christians act in such an un-Christlike manner. Either they haven’t bothered to crack open the Bible or they’ve chosen to willfully ignore it. I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the former.”
“So how can a new Christian who doesn’t know the Bible know what to do?” she asked.
“Well, first, start reading it,” Bruce replied. “I would strongly recommend using a modern translation rather than the King James Version; you won’t get tripped up on all of the strange Old English words and it’ll be much easier to understand. But Hope gave you a Bible, so that’ll be perfect. I’d start out mostly sticking to the New Testament, but you’d also benefit from reading the creation story in the beginning of Genesis as well as the Ten Commandments.
“Second, pray to God to guide you. The Holy Spirit lives in the hearts of believers, and acts as sort of a conscious. Third, seek the counsel of mature believers to help you, just like what you’re doing right now. Understand, though, when I say mature, I don’t mean old, or even necessarily someone who’s gone to church their whole lives. I mean someone who’s really studied the Bible for many years and who clearly lives an exemplary Christian life.
“Studying the Bible is a lifelong undertaking. The Bible’s been described as living thing, meaning that it’s not static. You can read the same passage at different times and get entirely different insights from it, even though the words don’t change. I’ve read the entire Bible cover to cover many times, and I never cease to be amazed that I’m constantly learning new things from it.
“Next question?” Bruce asked. Jazmyn shrugged and shook her head. She didn’t have any more questions at the moment, and her head was swimming with all of the information she’d been given.
But Victor spoke up. “I have a question,” he said.
“Shoot,” said Bruce, inviting him to ask it.
Chapter 5 – Differences
“I was raised Catholic,” Victor said.
“I assumed that,” Bruce said in response.
Victor continued, “There, we’re given the impression that we shouldn’t communicate with God directly; we’re encouraged to go through intermediaries, like praying to saints or confessing to and receiving absolution from a priest. No one tells us to read the Bible for ourselves, we’re expected to just let the priest select a passage and explain it to us.
“You’re completely different. You’re not a priest or clergyman, but you seem to know the Bible forward and backward, and you’re encouraging us to do the same and draw our own conclusions. You’re saying we can pray directly to God, and expect him to guide us.”
“Yes,” said Bruce, agreeing with everything Victor said.
“I’m not even sure what my question is,” admitted Victor. “I suppose it’s, Is this a Protestant thing, or something unique to your church, or something unique to you?”
Bruce replied, “It’s pretty common among Protestants. It’s known as the doctrine of the ‘priesthood of the believer’, meaning that all believers have direct access to God with Christ as the only intermediary. But you have to understand, there are hundreds of different Protestant denominations, and also churches like mine that are independent of any denomination. No two are alike, so there’s no one standard ‘all Protestants believe or do X’ statement. But there’s certainly no reason a Catholic can’t read the Bible for themselves or pray directly to God, too.
“If you depend on your church or your priest to be your only source of information about God, you run the risk that they’re wrong – they’ve misinterpreted something, or are taking something out of context, or are leaving out something important, or are intentionally deceiving you. That’s why it’s wise to fact-check them. This is supported by Scripture.
“In Acts chapter 17, the Apostle Paul went to the Jewish synagogue in a place called Berea and preached about Christ, which was radical and new at the time. It says in verse 11 that the Bereans ‘received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.’ It was implied that it was. But the point is, that they didn’t just take Paul’s word for it – they verified what he was telling them.
“On the other hand, if you only rely on what you personally read and experience, you run the risk that you’re wrong – that you misinterpreted something or took it out of context, or maybe you don’t understand the culture in which that passage was written, or the nuances of the original language, or any number of other problems. Therefore, you can’t reach your own conclusions in a vacuum; you have to also consider the conclusions of other trusted sources. Does that help?”
Victor said, “Yes, thank you. So what other differences are there between Catholic and Protestant theology, and who’s right?”
“Oh, boy, that’s a minefield,” said Bruce. “I wouldn’t be a Protestant if I didn’t think they were mostly right, but I’m not going to trash the church you grew up in. We’re all serving the same God and doing the Lord’s work. There are many differences, some of them significant, many of them minor. Often, they boil down to different interpretations of an unclear passage of scripture. But the most significant difference, because it’s the underlying reason for many of the other differences, is how a verse is interpreted where Jesus uses wordplay. I think it’s in Matthew 16. Let me find it. Ah, here it is.
“Matthew chapter 16, starting in verse 15. Now, you’re familiar with St. Peter, or San Pedro, right? He was one of the Twelve Disciples.” Victor nodded his head. “His real name was Simon; ’Peter’ was just a nickname that meant ‘rock’ in the original language. Kind of like the actor Dwayne Johnson is also known as The Rock. So Jesus asks Peter who he thinks he, Jesus, is. Peter replies, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ In verse 18, Jesus then replies, ‘I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.’
“What did Jesus mean by ‘this rock’? Catholics say that he meant Peter himself, and that he was establishing Peter as the head of the church, the first pope. Protestants say that Jesus meant that Peter’s confession, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ was the rock on which the church was built. Who’s right? There’s no way to know for certain.
“Believing that Jesus himself appointed Peter as pope, Catholics developed the belief that doctrinal statements made by the pope were direct revelations from God and carried the same weight as Scripture. Many Catholic beliefs and practices today are based on things various popes have proclaimed but which aren’t found in Scripture. Protestants generally believe in the authority of the Bible alone, but as I’ve already shown you, often the meaning of biblical passages is unclear and disputed. That’s why there are so many Protestant denominations.
“What are some of the specific differences; do you know?” Victor asked.
“Like I said, there are many,” Bruce replied. “Off the top of my head…
“Catholics believe that baptism is required for salvation. Many Protestants believe that it isn’t, but rather that it’s an act of obedience that follows salvation.
“Catholics believe that salvation can be lost, and so believers must be vigilant about confessing sins and performing good works. Many Protestants believe that salvation can’t be lost if it was genuine in the first place, but that genuine salvation will motivate the believer to turn from their sins and do good works.
“Catholics emphasize charity; Protestants emphasize evangelism, but Jesus commanded us to do both.
“Catholics believe that the Virgin Mary had to be sinless in order to be worthy to carry Jesus in her womb, while Protestants believe that only Jesus was without sin.
“Catholics believe that Jesus was being literal when he called the bread and wine of the Last Supper his body and blood. Some Protestants also believe that; most, however, believe that Jesus was speaking figuratively and that the bread and wine are only symbols of his body and blood.
“I could go on for hours. However, Catholics and Protestants are in agreement on most of the important things. Romans 14:1 says that we must accept fellow believers ‘without passing judgement on disputable matters.’ In other words, on minor issues, we can agree to disagree and still get along.
“If you’re looking for me to tell you whether you should return to the Catholic Church or become Protestant, I’m not going to do that. That’s between you and God. I’m far more interested in seeing you – both of you – receive salvation by putting your trust in Jesus to take away your sin once and for all and becoming his followers.” Then Bruce asked, “Do either of you want to do that now?”
Victor and Jazmyn exchanged a glance. Both understood the other’s expression to mean ‘no’. Victor spoke for both of them. “You’ve given us a lot to think about, Bruce,” he said. “I think we need to go home and digest all this and talk about it between ourselves. But thank you very much for your time. You’ve been a big help in clearing some things up.”
“Yes, thank you so much, Bruce,” agreed Jazmyn.
Jazmyn went to find Valeria and Hope. When Jazmyn told her daughter they were leaving, she began to cry and protest. Valeria was having a ball playing with the second legless role model in her life. Hope asked Jazmyn how it went, and Jazmyn simply replied that it went well and that she’d learned a lot. Her brain was pretty fried from information overload, and she just wanted to get out of there. She promised Valeria that they’d see Hope again soon to calm her down, and they found Victor and departed.
On the ride home, Victor and Jazmyn again exchanged a glance, this time a knowing one from having gotten through an intense experience together. “I need a strong drink and a cold compress after that,” Jazmyn said to her husband. “I think I got more Bible teaching just now than the entire rest of my life put together, and that includes my sessions with Hope. My little brain can’t hold any more!”
“It was pretty overwhelming, wasn’t it?” Victor asked rhetorically. “I think that man has forgotten more about the Bible than any priest I’ve met has known in the first place. I want to talk more with you about what he told us, but not today.”
“Good,” Jazmyn said. “Good on both accounts – good that you want to talk more, and good that it won’t be today.”
Chapter 6 – Seeking
The following evening after Valeria went to bed, and Victor and Jazmyn both had a glass of wine in front of them, Victor asked, “So what are your thoughts about our conversation with Bruce yesterday? I mean, besides it being a lot of information to process.”
Jazmyn took a sip of wine before answering. “Well, I liked his answers to my two questions. I was surprised by them, actually. I thought he’d say just the opposite.”
“Yeah,” Victor replied. “I wasn’t sure what he was going to do with the obey-your-husband-or-God question, but I would have thought God would get precedence. I was completely surprised by the kinky-stuff answer. A priest would probably have turned beet red and said anything besides vanilla sex is a sin, and that you shouldn’t even enjoy that very much – that sex is only for conceiving children.
“I would like to think the obey question will never be relevant for us. I don’t think it would be smart of me to tell you that you can’t do what God says to do,” Victor said with kind of a perplexed expression.
Jazmyn replied, “I appreciate that, Victor. You have to understand, though, when that question first came up, I was talking one-on-one with Hope and really didn’t know how you might react if I started wanting to do something like attend her church.”
“Do you want to attend her church?” Victor asked.
“It’s crossed my mind,” Jazmyn replied. “I think at some point maybe it would be a good idea to check it out. But if you felt we should only go to a Catholic church, I could certainly understand. I realize that’s a big part of your culture.”
“Well, how many times have I gone since you’ve known me, not counting when I’m back home?” Victor asked.
“None that I know of,” Jazmyn answered.
“Right. That ought to tell you something. Yeah, it’s part of my culture, and it’s comfortable just because it’s familiar, but I don’t really get anything out of it. That’s a big part of why I pushed back when my mother wanted us to have Valeria baptized. I knew I’d be committing to a lot more than that.”
“So what are you saying?” asked Jazmyn, not really seeing his point.
“I’m not sure, really,” Victor admitted. “I suppose I’m not opposed to the idea of visiting the Rogers’ church sometime. I get the impression it’s quite different than what I’m used to, but maybe that’s a good thing.”
The next time Jazmyn had a weekday off work, when Valeria was down for her nap, she pulled out the Bible that Hope had given her and started looking through it. Jazmyn couldn’t recall ever holding an open Bible before. She looked at the table of contents and saw how it was split into the Old and New Testaments, and that each was divided into multiple “books”.
She recognized some of the names of the books from both Hope and Bruce quoting from them. Hope had quoted a lot from Romans, and Bruce had done so from Matthew. She recalled that Bruce had said that the first four books of the New Testament were biographies of Jesus’ life, and saw that the first one of those was Matthew. She decided that that was as good a place to start as any.
Most of Matthew chapter 1 consists of a long list of names, many of them foreign-sounding and difficult, tracing Jesus’ genealogy from someone named Abraham. Jazmyn wasn’t sure whether this was important information, but if there was some significance to it, it was lost on her. She hoped the rest of the book wasn’t this dry and seemingly irrelevant.
She skipped past the genealogy and picked up toward the end of chapter 1 and continuing into chapter 2. This was a vastly easier read. It described the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ conception and birth. It was the Christmas story, explained in more detail than the general understanding she had, but she noticed there were parts of the story that seemed to be missing. For example, the Matthew passage described the Magi, which she assumed were the Three Wise Men, but made no mention of the shepherds.
Jazmyn was moved to tears when she read that King Herod ordered the slaughter of all baby boys in Bethlehem two years old and under in an attempt to kill Jesus, who had already been evacuated to Egypt by his parents. As a mother of a young child herself, she could feel the despair that the mothers of those innocent boys must have experienced. She had no idea that that tragedy had happened; it was never mentioned in any account of the Christmas story she had seen or read.
After finishing chapter 2, she decided to see what the other three biographies had to say about Jesus’ birth. She recalled that Bruce had said you have to read multiple passages on a given topic to get the big picture. There was nothing in either Mark or John, but Luke chapters 1 and 2 provided a much more comprehensive narrative, with some of the information the same as in Matthew, but with a lot more that Matthew had omitted. On the other hand, Matthew had details that Luke omitted.
Luke 1 also wove the story of John the Baptist’s conception and birth into that of Jesus. Jazmyn remembered learning some time previously that John the Baptist and Jesus were cousins, so it was interesting to learn about him as well, and confirm that they were indeed related.
That evening at dinner, she shared her experience with Victor. “I started reading the Bible today,” she told him.
“Oh? What did you read, and what was your impression?” he asked.
“I started reading Matthew and got through the first two chapters. It mostly talked about Jesus’ conception and birth, and it was interesting since I was kind of familiar with this from people talking about it at Christmas. Then I decided to see if this topic was covered in any of the other biographies of Jesus.”
Victor interrupted. “You mean the Gospels,” he said helpfully.
“Yeah. I couldn’t think of the word,” she admitted.
“Anyway, I found it was also covered in the first two chapters of Luke, along with the account of John the Baptist’s conception and birth. This was even more interesting, seeing how Luke brought up details that Matthew didn’t and vice-versa, and learning about John the Baptist and seeing how he was related to Jesus. Anyway, it was interesting and I enjoyed it. I really thought the Bible would be dry and boring.”
“Hmmm…” was all that Victor could come up with by way of a response. Jazmyn thought that odd but didn’t pursue the matter.
The next chance Jazmyn got, which was a few days later, she picked up where she left off, and read Matthew chapter 3. She was pleased to discover this was also about John the Baptist, now an adult. But she had more difficulty understanding this chapter. It had some strange words in it which she didn’t understand, but more significantly, she didn’t understand the why of what was going on. John the Baptist was doing what he was known for, baptizing people. But what did baptism signify, anyway, and why did Jesus come to be baptized by John? Even John himself thought this odd and he told Jesus so.
Jazmyn texted Hope and told her she was reading Matthew chapter 3 and was trying to understand what was going on. She asked Hope if she could shed some light on it for her. Hope replied that she’d first need to get up to speed on it herself, but then she’d be happy to explain it to her. Hope suggested that Jazmyn go ahead and also read chapter 4, and she’d be prepared to discuss both with her. They arranged to meet a couple of days later. That was the beginning of Jazmyn and Hope meeting regularly to study the Bible together.
Jazmyn began periodically attending the non-denominational Protestant church with Hope and her family. She also occasionally attended the local Catholic church. She wasn’t ready to decide between the two; trying to keep her options open in case Victor expressed an opinion in the matter. Personally, she preferred the informality and clarity of Hope’s church. Victor didn’t seem to object to her attending either church, but neither did he express any interest in attending either church himself.
But as much as she was learning, Jazmyn didn’t feel the need to really believe in the sense that Hope had said was necessary. She now understood the need intellectually, but she didn’t feel it, and Victor wasn’t doing anything to encourage her, so it was easy to put off.
Meanwhile, it was during this time that Jazmyn became pregnant with what would turn out to be twin boys.