{"id":9170,"date":"2023-12-22T03:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T03:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9170"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:44","slug":"the-first-to-hear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9170","title":{"rendered":"THE FIRST TO HEAR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Gospel of Luke opens with three visitations from angels &#8211; first to Zechariah, the second to Mary, and the third to the shepherds.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These visitations have at least three things in common with each other:<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">1. The human reaction is fear.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0 \u00a0 -Zechariah was &#8220;startled and gripped with fear&#8221;. (1:12)<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0 \u00a0 -Mary was &#8220;greatly troubled&#8221;. (1:29)<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0 \u00a0 -The shepherds &#8220;were terrified&#8221;. (2:9)<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2. The angel leads with &#8220;Do not be afraid&#8221;.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">3. The gist of the angel&#8217;s message each time is: &#8220;You have found favor with God.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is Luke&#8217;s record of the first individuals to hear of God&#8217;s plan to bring redemption to the world and they all hear the same message:<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;You don&#8217;t have to be afraid. God is not against you. You have favor in His sight.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Favor!<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Can you feel it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Gospel of Luke opens with three visitations from angels &#8211; first to Zechariah, the second to Mary, and the third to the shepherds. These visitations have at least three things in common with each other: 1. The human reaction is fear.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 -Zechariah was &#8220;startled and gripped with fear&#8221;. (1:12) \u00a0 \u00a0 -Mary [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9171,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170\/revisions\/9171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}