And why don't pastors teach on this topic? Am I weird for wanting information?
Personally, I take a different approach to this verse and sometimes receive flack for doing so. The word "
monogenes" transliterally means single-source or one-origin. The prefix "mono" means one, single, or sole. The word "
ginomai" means to to become, to make, assemble, brought to pass, or wrought. What then was the one, single, solitary, sole making of Jesus?
The Holy Spirit.
Matthew 1:18-20
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, since he was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had thought this over, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
Conceived by the Holy Spirit alone, not the Holy Spirit plus a fleshly ovum from the sinful virgin Mary. The text has always been understood to preclude a male sperm, but it also precludes a female ovum. This goes against the traditional viewpoint in which Mary contributed an egg, or ovum, and Jesus was half-human and half Spirit in his physical constitution, as a matter of biological conception. Now you can see why dissent is a common response.
Theologically speaking, there is a precedent. Isaac is also called
monogene and he was not an only son. Abraham had eight sons, one before Isaac was born and six afterwards. Neither was Isaac conceived from only one source. Abram and Sarai had sex, and each contributed something to the conception of Isaac. How then is Isaac an "only begotten," or one-sourced child? Isaac is the son of promise! Isaac alone is the son of promise. God promised Abraham he would have a son, so Abraham went about trying to make that happen but nothing occurred having sex with his wife so another woman was used to bring about the promise of God, only God doesn't rely on the works of human flesh and Ishmael was not the son God promised. This is very much like what David did when he was told the man who would build God's house (or temple) would be a man of peace. David, naturally, named his next male child Peace (Solomon = peace). That had nothing to do with the promise God made to build His own house since God does not dwell in houses built by human hands.
It is true the word
monogenes was used in the Greco-Roman cultures to refer to an only child, but John is saying much more than that. John's gospel can be read as a (aggressive) repudiation of prevailing philosophies of his time, especially that of old-school and Hellenist Judaism. John opens his gospel referencing Philo (born c. 25 BC), who had written about Alexander the Great as the epitome of divine logos bestowed on humanity, and the great mediator who stood between God and Man. Alexander was only a man. Alexander died. Jesus, in comparison, did not
have logos; he
is the logos of God. Jesus was with God in the beginning and Jesus is the logos of God that
is God, God made flesh. We miss the significance of John's preamble in modernity. In John's day that was a red-hot glowing poker jammed in the eye of the Hellenist Jewish leaders shaken around inside the skull with a trail of loudly proclaimed epithets. Jesus was not a man like Alexander. Jesus was not a man like Caesar. Neither was Jesus a god like Caesar. Jesus came back from the grave, having defeated death and, as a consequence, Alexander
and Caesar were going to bow their knee acknowledging Jesus as King and Lord.
Jesus had one source and only one source.
God and God alone was the source of Jesus. God was the source conceptually, redemptively, prophetically, and every other way that mattered.
You can, therefore, see why my position receives dissent. You could take this post to your pastor or elder for consideration but they're not likely to agree. All the protests using individual verses can be addressed but it all boils down to whether or not God used something sinful (Mary*) to provide a means of salvation from sin. Did God use sin to fulfill His
Genesis 3:15 promise? I say, "
No." Jesus is the last Adam, a reference to another man who was made without a female ovum and without something from a sinful human. I'll leave it to you to decide if this position has any veracity with whole scripture.
Jesus is the one and only son of God
and his incarnation has only one source, that of the Holy Spirit,
and Jesus is the son of promise, the promised son who would take away the sin of the world. All the rest of us are adopted.
*
The RCC attempted to avoid this problem by teaching Mary was sinless due to a special endowment of grace from God.
.
. My position is built first on what scripture states, not on any real or perceived absence of proof.
. ALL have sinned and fall short of God's glory, not just the males of the species 
