Joseph is engaged to a woman with an emerging ‘baby bump’ – what on earth could he do? Once people noticed, he would be considered by his people as ungodly either for sleeping with Mary before their marriage or for choosing to marry an adulteress. By all of that day’s standards of what a proper and God-fearing person should do, Joseph had to divorce Mary. But when an angel appears, Joseph’s understanding of righteousness gets an Extreme Renovation.
God’s will begins with commands and rules – but it doesn’t stop there. His will, fulfilled in Christ (Matthew 5:17-18), is observed when we go beyond, and fully trust the One who (as the angel said to Joseph, “came to “save his people from their sins.”