But that doesn't mean that the verses don't shed light on the topic.
Matthew 11:11:
Rather than seven long paragraphs to explain why the verse doesn't say what it says, I'll go with the idea that Jesus said what he meant: John the Baptist was the greatest born of woman.
Luke 11:27-28:
Rather than five paragraphs to explain why the verse doesn't say what it says, I'll go with the idea that Jesus said what he meant: a focus on Mary is misguided. BTW, I never said that Mary wasn't blessed - Scripture clearly said she was. Jesus' response equates Mary and those who follow God's Word. Apparently, no special status for Mary.
While Protestants might consider tradition, few will consider it as inspired as they would Scripture. Only a few Protestants find the Mariology tradition compelling. Using Acts 1:14 to claim that Mary is a co-founder of the Church seems a stretch. The focus of Acts is on the surviving Apostles (with the later inclusion of Paul). Mary's listing in Acts 1:14 doesn't give her any prominent role other than being there with the other women and Jesus' brothers and praying with the Apostles.
Quoting a verse out of context for polemical purposes and understanding what it means in context are two different things. Sometimes understanding God's word requires us to put in some extra paragraphs in order to consider context and avoid eisegesis--Paul took a whole chapter to exegete Genesis 15:6 in Romans 4, and every Protestant pastor I know has a library of commentaries. It does not illuminate what Jesus "meant" to jump down to verse 11 and quote "John the Baptist was the greatest born of woman" out of context as implying John's superiority to Mary without considering what "born of woman" means in context, what the subsequent contrast with "the least in the kingdom of heaven" means, and whether Mary should be classified as "born among women" or among those in the "kingdom of heaven" who are superior to John. This last point is the key issue, and it is not addressed by avoiding the context of the verse.
Rather than five paragraphs to explain why the verse doesn't say what it says, I'll go with the idea that Jesus said what he meant: a focus on Mary is misguided. BTW, I never said that Mary wasn't blessed - Scripture clearly said she was. Jesus' response equates Mary and those who follow God's Word. Apparently, no special status for Mary.
Except the verse doesn't say "a focus on Mary is misguided", nor does it say "everyone who follows God's word has the same status". Rather, it indicates that blessing someone merely because of physical kinship is misguided when hearing and obeying God's word is what counts. And while everyone who obeys God's word may be blessed in some sense, it is difficult to read this verse as an exercise in "Mariological restraint" unless one reads the second half of the verse as denying that Mary is blessed. But this is clearly not what the verse means, for when the second half of the verse is compared with Luke 1, the implication is that Mary is blessed because she did hear the word of God and obey it. And it is difficult to read the rest of Luke 1 and conclude that everyone is *as* blessed as Mary--everyone is not saluted by an angel with the title "full of grace"; everyone is not welcomed by the Holy Spirit filling everyone in the room to break out in prophecies and songs when they walk in and say hello. You are not denying Mary is blessed, but you're not explaining how to harmonize your reading of this verse as implying equal blessedness of all believers with Luke 1's portrayal of Mary as the most blessed among women--if she is blessed among women, by definition, all other women are not as blessed as her. Moreoever, Jesus clearly teaches that some will receive greater rewards in the kingdom of heaven in places such as the Parable of the Sowers and the Parable of the Talents, among others, so the conclusion that everyone is equally blessed isn't consistent with the rest of Scripture, either.
While Protestants might consider tradition, few will consider it as inspired as they would Scripture. Only a few Protestants find the Mariology tradition compelling. Using Acts 1:14 to claim that Mary is a co-founder of the Church seems a stretch. The focus of Acts is on the surviving Apostles (with the later inclusion of Paul). Mary's listing in Acts 1:14 doesn't give her any prominent role other than being there with the other women and Jesus' brothers and praying with the Apostles.
The Apostles only taught by oral tradition for most of the first two decades of the church, exercising the binding and loosing authority Jesus gave them; and towards the tail end of that time-frame, Paul obligated Christians to follow both oral tradition and Scripture in 2 Thessalonians 2:15. Lutheranism and Anglicanism are not insignificant elements of Protestantism, and they have historically maintained elements of Catholic Mariology (speaking historically and not of their liberalized offshoots in recent years); and even Calvinists have been divided on Mariology since Bullinger rejected Calvin's overreaction against Catholic Mariology as un-Biblical. Mary's listing in Acts 1:14 gives her a role in praying for Pentecost, which was the founding of the church; she does not need to be the only one there to be rightly called a co-founder.