The people in Jesus' hometown did not welcome Him. In fact, they held Him in contempt, and Jesus was amazed. Not that He was surprised that they were not believers. He was surprised at the depth of their callousness, because with unbelief, ladies and gentlemen, comes hostility. Those who did not believe in Christ soon grew to hate Him. It's a sobering lesson drawn from Mark's gospel.
Today on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. R.C. Sproul takes us to Nazareth, the town where everyone knew Jesus, the town that watched Him grow into a man, and the town that utterly rejected Him. Familiarity breeds contempt, and it's a warning we find beginning in Mark chapter 6, verse 1. So far all this time that we've been spending observing the public ministry of Jesus, it has been for the most part on or around the immediate region of the Sea of Galilee and Capernaum. Now the location for His ministry shifts as Jesus moves away from Capernaum and from Galilee and goes home. He comes back to Nazareth, which is about twenty-five miles southwest of the Sea of Galilee and of Capernaum.
He comes not to the city of His birth, but to the village where He grew up, which was an obscure village. Excavations have gone down to the base rock of Nazareth and discovered that there were many caves in those rocks and that the people of Nazareth built their village out of a rocky hillside and in an area that covered sixty acres. The whole town was sixty acres.
Less than five hundred people lived there. And of course, Jesus growing up in such a small village obviously knew everyone in town. If you want to imagine the size of Nazareth, you think of this property where our church is located is just about six acres.
So the whole town of Nazareth was only about ten times larger than our church property. But Jesus made the journey. His disciples went with Him. And we read in verse 2 that when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many of the people were astonished. That's another word that reaches the very top of the frequency list of Greek words that are found in the New Testament because everywhere Jesus goes according to the writers of the gospel, His teaching, His power, His miracles provoke a response of astonishment, thaumatsai. They're amazed at the wisdom of Jesus, at the power of Jesus.
But there's a little twist of this astonishment that occurs here in Nazareth, as well as astonishment that is experienced by Jesus Himself. What surprised these people was that Jesus of Nazareth was going into the synagogue and teaching like a rabbi. And with Him were these students who followed Him everywhere He went. They knew Jesus. They knew He didn't go to seminary. They know He didn't go to the university. They know He didn't study under the great rabbis of the day. So for all intents and purposes, they knew that Jesus was not even qualified to be a teacher and to be a rabbi. And so lacking the credentials, they were first of all shocked that He would even enter into the synagogue and begin teaching there. But then they listened, and now they were astonished again because they couldn't get over His wisdom and profundity in what He was teaching. They didn't understand that this was the Word of God incarnate Himself who was teaching, who didn't need a degree from Gamaliel to be an expert in theology. And they were also amazed about the reports of the deeds that had been performed by Jesus. And so they asked this question, Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us? And so they were offended at Him. Oh, there's a lot in this question.
Let's look first of all at the first part of the question. Is this not the carpenter? It doesn't say, Is this not the son of the carpenter, Joseph? But they knew Jesus as a carpenter. And the Greek word here, tektron, means carpenter or stonemason or somebody that is involved in the craft of building. It's very possible that instead of a carpenter that works with wood, Jesus was more like a stonemason, but in all probability He worked both with wood and with stone, as builders in this day were people who would make yoke for oxen and cabinets and all of that sort of thing.
And a carpenter or tektron, you get the word architect from this, which simply means chief builder. Well Jesus is known as that lad that grew up there in this village and worked as a builder. Now in the ancient world, builders did not have a lot of prestige. They were not high on the rung of status. They were considered menial laborers. And so they looked at Jesus and said, What's He doing, a carpenter, teaching in the synagogue?
Now there's another little nuance here that I don't want to pass over too quickly. When Jesus was a young man, Herod Antipas, who after Herod the Great died inherited a portion of the kingdom of Herod the Great, and he became the ruler of the fourth. He became the tetrarch of Galilee. And he wanted to build a city where his palace would be housed and would be the capital, the regional capital of Galilee. And so he built this city just four miles north of Nazareth. And the historians tell us that he hired craftsmen and laborers from all around the district to help him build his capital city. It's just possible that among those who were hired by Herod Antipas included Joseph and Jesus.
We don't know that for sure, but it's coming pretty close, just four miles away. If artisans from the region were hired, and certainly Jesus and Joseph were included in that group of artisans, then it's possible that they participated in this as well. But notice something stranger. Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary? Now these questions are questions that strongly suggest ridicule. And we know that legally speaking, among the Jews, Jesus was the son of Joseph. So why did they say, isn't He the carpenter, the son of Mary? Not because they were enamored by the virgin mother. This wasn't some thinly veiled testimony to the virgin birth or trying to exalt the status of the mother.
No. In almost every single case, the Jews would always name men as the carpenter, men in according to their relationship to their father, not to the mother. Even if Joseph is dead by now, the custom would still be to call Jesus the son of Joseph. But instead they call Him the son of Mary.
The best guess we have for that is this, that they still believed that Jesus was the illegitimate son and that Mary had this baby out of wedlock. Isn't He that carpenter who was the son of that woman? We know that family. He's the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon. And are not His sisters with us?
Now some people jump through hoops. For those who believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary argue that these brothers and sisters must have been children of Joseph by a previous marriage. No such import anywhere in history that would indicate that. Or that they were cousins arguing that the Greek word for brothers and sisters can be translated cousins.
Not normally. There's a specific word for cousin in the Greek language. You'd have to have a theological bias to try to force that.
The text is clear. Jesus had brothers and sisters. And what's so amazing about the testimony of the New Testament is that His brothers and sisters were unbelievers. James we know later became a believer after the resurrection.
He became the leader of the church there in Jerusalem and the author of the book of James that we have in the New Testament. But at this period in time when Jesus comes to Nazareth, not only are the townspeople unbelievers, but His brothers and sisters are unbelievers. Probably by now Joseph is dead, and the only believer in Jesus' household was His mother. And so the townspeople come to the synagogue and they say, who is this guy?
Carpenter, illegitimate son of Mary. We know his family. We know his brothers.
We know his sisters. So they were offended at Him. The Greek there is the word skandalizimai. It's a form of that verb from which the noun is skandalon, which comes right over into the English language as the word scandal. These people were scandalized by Jesus. They were profoundly offended. They did not want any identification with Him because He embarrassed them, and He ashamed them.
Let's stop for a second. Does Christ serve as a skandalon for you? Are you embarrassed by Him? Are you a Secret Service Christian?
You don't want anybody to know your real identity because being identified with Him is an embarrassment, is shameful, is a scandal. The word skandalon was also used for the concept of that building stone that was rejected. Interesting, isn't it? That when builders went out and selected stones to be used in the construction of building, they examined the quality of the stones, the strength of the stone, just as Michelangelo used to go to the quarries in Italy to choose the very best marble for his statues. And sometimes he would find flaws, cracks, even in Carrara marble, and he would reject it.
So in the ancient world when the builder would go out and he'd try to choose the materials for his construction, if he found flaws or cracks in the stone, he would reject them, deny them. The New Testament makes much of this in the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy of the Messiah that the stone which the builders rejected became the chief cornerstone of the building of God. In that building image, remember, it's the prophets and the apostles who are called the foundation for the church. And there's no other foundation that can be laid except that one which is laid in Christ Jesus.
But Jesus Himself is not the foundation. He's the cornerstone. But as the cornerstone, He's the scandal. He's the disgraced one. He's the one who was ashamed, that was rejected by His own people, by His family, by the townsmen, by the nation of Israel, the one whom God appointed to be the cornerstone of His building was considered flawed, repulsive by His contemporaries.
It's the same word here that is used in the text to describe the revulsion that the people of Nazareth felt with respect to Him. But Jesus knew what was going on, and so He said to them, borrowing an ancient Semitic adage, a prophet is not without honor except in his own country, except among his own relatives, except in his own house. I can't imagine what this was like for Jesus going home.
I know what it's been like for me when I go home back to my hometown and I see the people I grew up with. They can't believe that I'm a minister, and they can't wait to say, and they can't wait to say, we know you win. How in the world did you ever become a minister if the board who ordained you would inquire of us?
You wouldn't have a chance to be ordained to the minister. I know what that's like. Just the past week I was in Louisville, and while I was there, I remembered years ago how Muhammad Ali was first named Cassius Clay, and he used to give these outrageous poems in which he would predict the outcome in the round of his next victory when he was Cassius Clay, saying, I am the greatest. And because of his braggadoci, he was nicknamed by sports journalist the Louisville Lip. And so that was not a very good reflection on the town of Louisville many, many years ago before Muhammad Ali became the heavyweight champion in the world.
But I couldn't get over it. When I came into Louisville and I saw Muhammad Ali Avenue, Muhammad Ali Center, Muhammad Ali Building, now the whole town gives honor to Muhammad Ali. But there was a time when he was an embarrassment to them. And there's a reason why this ancient adage emerged in the lure of the people that every prophet experienced the same thing. And Jesus said, a prophet is never without honor, except in his own country, except in his own family, except in his own house. Now he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.
Now let's unpack that for just a second. It wasn't because suddenly when Jesus went to Nazareth, He lost all His power, and that healing of the woman with the hemorrhage and the power went out of Him and it didn't come back. It's not like that, that Jesus suddenly became incapable of manifesting this miraculous power that was so characteristic of His ministry.
But rather, the circumstances by which God the Holy Spirit would unleash that power were not available there, because it was a judgment of God on this town of Nazareth that God withholds His power, for the most part, from this stiff-necked people who held Jesus in contempt. And now we're told that Jesus is amazed, that Jesus is astonished at what? At the unbelief of these people. Now that's really strange to me that Jesus would be surprised by unbelief because He had to deal with it every day of His life. But it's not that He was surprised that they were not believers. He was surprised at the depth of their callousness, because with unbelief, ladies and gentlemen, comes hostility. Those who did not believe in Christ soon grew to hate Him.
And I ask you this question. Why didn't they believe? Why didn't they believe in Jesus? Because they saw Him working with His hands? Because they knew because they knew His mother? Because they knew His brothers and sisters? Because they knew He didn't study under a well-known rabbi?
No. You know why they didn't believe in Jesus? The same reason your next-door neighbor doesn't believe in Jesus. They didn't believe in Jesus because God the Holy Spirit had not invaded their hearts and opened their eyes and regenerated their souls. Unless God the Holy Spirit opens the eyes, opens the hearts of sinful human flesh, no one will truly come to Him. Before the Holy Ghost opened your eyes and invaded your heart, Jesus was a stumbling block to you. You rejected Him as strongly as these people from Nazareth.
And we're surrounded out there in this world by people who want nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus. I don't know how many times I've heard people say to me, hey preacher, I don't need Jesus. I don't need Jesus.
I can't think of any more foolish statement a human being could ever make than to assess their circumstances to that degree and say, I need this. I need that. I need this. I want this.
I want that. But one thing I don't need is Jesus. Now there are probably people sitting in this room right now who have said that and perhaps are still saying that, and they've been dragged to church this morning by their spouse, or for some other reason their ear, but their hearts are still far from Him. I say to you, there is nothing on this earth you need more desperately than Jesus. Because if you don't have Jesus, you have no hope in this life or in the world to come. Let me say it again. If you don't have Jesus, you have no hope.
You're in a hopeless condition. And frankly, my heart breaks for you if you don't have Jesus. If the name of Jesus is something that embarrasses you, makes you ashamed, you don't want to be numbered among those people. That's the way people are. They want to distance themselves as far as they can from any identification with Christ, or with any identification with anybody whose name is not in high regard.
There's a great danger here, folks. These people had the Lord of glory in their midst during His childhood. They had Theotokos, the mother of the One who was God incarnate in their midst for over three decades.
And all they saw was the offense. So I ask you this morning, what is it about Jesus that offends you? What is it about God that offends you? The great danger, dearly beloved, is that God is offended by you and that Christ will be offended by you. All who trip over the scandal on, the scandal of Christ, scandal of Christ will have His offense at them. Let's learn from these people.
That should force us to ask a couple of questions. Is there something in Scripture I disagree with? Have I stubbornly refused to submit to something that Christ taught?
May it never be so. Such an important message today from Dr. R.C. Sproul from his sermon series in the Gospel of Mark. We're glad you've joined us for the Lord's Day edition of Renewing Your Mind. This verse-by-verse study reminds us of Christ's work both while He was here on earth, but also of the work that needs to be done in each of us. We hope our resource offer today will help you in your further study.
It's R.C. 's commentary on Mark's Gospel. It's nearly 400 pages, and it provides you with R.C.
's insight into every passage. You can go online and make your request for this commentary with your gift of any amount to Ligonier Ministries. You can find us at renewingyourmind.org. We are privileged to bring you Dr. Sproul's teaching every Sunday here on the program, and another way for you to listen is through RefNet. That's our internet outreach featuring teaching and preaching from a Reformed perspective. You'll hear men like Dr. John Gerstner, who was R.C. 's mentor many years ago, along with Alistair Begg, John MacArthur, and our Ligonier Ministries teaching fellows. We invite you to download the free RefNet app or listen on your computer by going to RefNet.fm. Well, when Jesus sent out His disciples two by two, He gave them authority over unclean spirits. He also told them not to take any money. We'll learn the details as we continue Dr. Sproul's series next Sunday here on Renewing Your Mind.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-03-17 09:33:19 / 2024-03-17 09:41:29 / 8