Okay, by way of background, to catch us up a little bit here, in our previous classes we talked about the background and the circumstances of Jesus Christ's birth. In our last class we talked about Herod the Great, the kind of individual that he was, his paranoia which led him to commit a number of unsavory acts in his lifetime. We talked about the wise men arising from east from the Parthian Empire, which was a great contender with Rome at that time, and how that no doubt made Herod quite paranoid when this caravan of travelers comes from the Parthian Empire and shows up there in Jerusalem asking about the newborn king of the Jews. We talked about Herod's reaction to that, how he murdered the infant boys of Jerusalem and the surrounding towns to try to be sure to kill what he viewed as a contender to his throne as king of the Jews. We also talked about how Joseph and Mary were warned by an angel before this happened so they would have time to flee to Egypt and escape that slaughter. And then we talked about how after Herod's death, after he passed from the scene, an angel told Joseph, down while they were in Egypt, that it was now safe to return back to the area of Judea. So then they returned and settled up in the town of Nazareth, up in Galilee. Here's an artist's conception of what Nazareth would have looked like around that time. Fairly a small town, perhaps two, three, four hundred people, maybe, more or less, sat down in a bowl, surrounded by hills there. Those of you who have been to Nazareth would know. So this is, again, just a small place. This is where Jesus would grow up.
So that brings us then to where we'll pick up the story here today, beginning in Luke 2 and verse 40. We plan to cover 12 verses today, so this will be quite a bit of detail.
So picking it up here, Luke 2 and verse 40, and the child, referring to Jesus, grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. So let's unpack this verse here and see what it tells us about Jesus Christ, later childhood. It says, first of all, the child grew. So he's physically growing. He grew up in Nazareth, which as we talked about earlier, the meaning of Nazareth, it would be, if you translated into English, it would be something like Shootville or Branchtown, because Jesus was prophesied to be the branch from the stump of Jesse, the father of David. So he was to be a descendant of King David, and as the branch, he would grow up in Branchtown or Branchville, as we might call Nazareth, getting its name from the Hebrew word, netzer, which means branch. Continuing on, it says he became strong in spirit, meaning that the Spirit of God was working with him, in him, since he had God's Spirit from when he was in the womb. He was divinely conceived by God's Spirit, so he is being influenced by God's Spirit from birth. It says he was filled with wisdom, meaning that the understanding and the insight which comes from God's Spirit at work within him. So he was a very wise and understanding child, wise well beyond his years.
Finally, it says the grace of God was upon him. Grace is the same word that is used throughout the New Testament, meaning the favor, the good will, the goodness or the blessing of God. All of those factors were at work in Jesus Christ's life. Again, the favor, the good will, the goodness and the blessing of God was upon him.
So Jesus, we read here, grows up to be a good Jewish boy, brought up by righteous and God-fearing parents who, living in what is no doubt a very heavily religious environment there.
Remember as we talked about several classes ago, the region of Galilee, where these have events are taking place, had largely been resettled. It had originally, that was part of the territory of the northern ten tribes of Israel, and they were taken away in exile by the Assyrians a number of centuries before. And the land was largely desolate. The Assyrians did bring in pagans, brought in Gentiles there to settle the land. But the archaeological record shows that most of the cities were destroyed and not inhabited again until the period leading up to the first century. And they were resettled then by very religiously observant Jews and a smattering of Israelites in there as well. And they settled in that area because they knew from prophecies that the Messiah was to appear, not be born, but would appear in Galilee. So they wanted to be there when the Messiah appeared on the scene. So that's why many of the towns that we read about in the Gospels, like Nazareth, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Corazun, and others were settled just in the century or two leading up to this time, and settled again by very religious Jews. And now we come in the story to the only event of Jesus Christ's childhood that's recorded for us in Scripture, and that is when he goes to the temple with his family when he's 12 years old. This might be a good time to mention that there are various documents that have circulated over the years about Jesus performing miracles as a child. For instance, the Quran, the Muslim holy book, says of Jesus, he's called Isa in the Quran, I.S.A. It has a story in there that Jesus, when he was a child, made birds out of clay and told them to come to life and fly away, and they did. That's recorded in the Quran. That story is actually taken from an apocryphal gospel called the Infancy of Jesus, Thomas's Infancy of Jesus. By apocryphal, not inspired, it's actually a fake document, like a number of false gospels that circulated in the early centuries there, and the Quran just picked up that story out of this fake gospel and included it in the Quran. So from time to time, people hear about these gospels and documents that have Jesus Christ performing miracles when he's a child. But is there any truth to that? Actually, there's another scripture we can take a look at that shows that is not the case. We can look over at John 2 in verse 11, and this is the story of Jesus turning the water into wine at the wedding feast in Kana. Kana, as most people would pronounce it, but it's actually Kana there. And notice that the conclusion of this story of Jesus turning water into wine, John says, this beginning of signs, the word signs means miracles, Jesus did in Kana of Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. So notice that this says this was the beginning of signs.
So here, in other words, is the first of Jesus's miracles when he's 30 years old performing the miracle at Kana. So this tells us that, no, he wasn't performing miracles when he was a child, because this is the beginning when he starts his ministry there. So you can discount all of these false documents, stories that circulated out there, and that you read about from time to time, that say that Jesus did miracles when he was a child. That is just simply not true. And we'll be talking about this particular miracle a few classes from now when we get into that.
So now we come in the story of Luke to Luke 2 and verse 41, again about the only event from Christ's childhood that's recorded in the Bible for us. It says here, his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of Passover, the Passover. And of course, this is in obedience to God's instruction.
There are a number of instructions about the need to observe his holy days to keep those celebrations. One we're most familiar with, Deuteronomy 16 and verse 16, because we read it on every holy day as part of the offering instructions. And it says, three times a year, all your mail shall appear before the Eternal your God in the place which he chooses at the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And this was back in Luke, it's called the Passover, because that was the most dominant feature of the Feast, you might say. Passover and Unleavened Bread were used interchangeably there in the Gospels. At the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, and at the Feast of Tabernacles, and they shall not appear before the Eternal empty-handed. This is, you may have heard the term, I know I use it from time to time, pilgrimage feasts. They're called that because the Jews are commanded to travel to Jerusalem to keep the feasts there. They go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. So that's why in a lot of sources you'll find these referred to as the pilgrimage feasts. Passover slash Days of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles there. So I noticed also here as we read that, or as we just read, that Joseph and Mary did this every year. Actually, let me back up to that, let you see that. Yes, his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.
So one of my study questions is, what does this show about Joseph and Mary? It shows that they were very obedient servants of God, keeping God's commandments in every way. So continuing back in Luke 2 and verse 42, and when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. One of the study questions I sent out was, why mentioned the 12 years old? Well, obviously that's when this happened, but what is the significance of 12 years in the life of a Jewish boy? Previously, I've talked a little bit about the Jewish educational system in Galilee at that time, and it might be helpful to review that at this point because it ties in with Jesus being 12 years old. By way of review, Jewish boys and girls would go to school from about age 5 or 6 up to age 12. And this was called Bet Sephir. Bet, meaning house or place in Hebrew. Sephir, meaning book or writing. So they would go to school. It was called Bet Sephir, meaning house of writing or house of the book. And typically these schools were adjacent or in the local village synagogue. The synagogue wasn't strictly a place of worship. It functioned as more or less a community center, you might say, sort of like this recreation center.
People would meet there for different types of celebrations, that sort of thing. And it would also function as more or less the schoolhouse. Sometimes, as in Capernaum, there's an enormous schoolhouse built directly adjacent to the synagogue there. And that's where the children have gone and studied for school in the community is at the local synagogue there. So this Bet Sephir took place there. So there the schooling of the children, again age 5 or 6 to 12, would focus very heavily on the Bible. They would learn and memorize large portions of Scripture.
There they would learn things like history, too. But the history would be about the history of their people, of the patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, David, Solomon, people like that. They would study their country's history there. That would be the history they would be taught. They would also learn things like geography. But it would not be world geography.
It would be the geography of the land of Israel, of the Promised Land, the Holy Land there, and their interaction with the neighboring countries around there. So it wasn't all Bible that they studied, but it was an education that was heavily focused on the Bible. That would be the center of it. And as I've mentioned before, in this schooling, the boys were expected to memorize the entire Torah, the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And by memorize, I mean the entire books there, the entire five books.
They were expected to do that by the time they were age 12. Now, you may be thinking, in your mind, I remember the first time I came across that I thought, that's impossible. How can anybody memorize that much? But actually, if you go to Israel today, you'll see school kids doing exactly that. Places like New York. If you go to a Jewish school there, you'll see little Jewish boys sitting there, memorizing Torah, memorizing Genesis, memorizing Exodus, memorizing Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, memorizing the whole thing. So that was a part of their study at Bethsephir, the place of writing or the place of the book. After that, when they turned 12, the girls would generally finish their education at that point.
The boys would then go on to what was called Beth Midrash. Beth, again, meaning place or house.
Midrash, meaning explanation. What does that mean? Well, then they would go on to study the other books of the Old Testament, of the Hebrew Scriptures, there. Obviously, some of the kids would not have the mental capacity to memorize the entire Torah, the five books of Moses.
But those who were gifted in that way, had that ability, would go on to Beth Midrash then.
Obviously, well, part of that education then was to go on and study and to memorize the entirety of the Old Testament. Think about that. The entirety of the Old Testament.
Jesus did this. How do I know that? Because Jesus is regularly called rabbi in the Gospels.
The requirements for being a rabbi at that time was you had the entirety of the Old Testament in your head. You knew it. You memorized it. Otherwise, you could not be a rabbi. So Jesus did this. I have no doubt that Paul did it. Paul was studied under one of the most famous rabbis of the time, Gamaliel or Gomaliel, as he would have been called in Hebrew.
So when you come to Jesus and Paul, being so familiar with the Scriptures, there you read Paul's writings and he just rattles off Scripture after Scripture after Scripture throughout the Old Testament because he has memorized it. It's all in his head. It's all there. Jesus, same thing. They're continually quoting different passages there. So this was part of the study for those boys who were gifted in that way.
They would memorize the entirety of the Old Testament. Now again, a lot of them would not have that capability. So they would, I hate to use the term dropout, they would drop out of the formal study of trying to memorize like that, probably 99 out of 100 would, and they would at that point learn a trade, the family trade, whether the father is a carpenter or tecton or builder, as Joseph was, or perhaps he's a metal worker or a leather worker or a potter or whatever.
They would learn the family trade there. It would be passed on from father to son, or if the father wasn't around an uncle or cousin or something like that, would take the boys under their wings and teach them the trade there. So a lot would drop out. But they would still go to the synagogue and continue to learn about the Old Testament scriptures there. That was expected of everyone on the Sabbath and otherwise, as we read.
So what's relevant to our story here today, and the significance of the 12 years old, is that at age 12 there was this transition from Bet-Sefer to Bet-Medrash there at age 12. So again, a Jewish boy was expected to have learned the entirety of the Torah by that time.
And if he did, then he would participate in what was called his first Passover. It doesn't literally mean his first Passover because the families as a family unit would keep the Passover and all the children would be involved in it and so on. What it means is it would be his first Passover as a member of the adult community. He would be considered an adult at that time at age 12, having memorized the Torah or at least done his best to memorize that.
And what that meant is that at that time, he would participate along with his father in taking the family Passover lamb up to the temple to be sacrificed there for the Passover there. So it was essentially a rite of manhood, you might say, for a 12-year-old boy on the verge of manhood at that time.
So Jesus is 12 years old when this takes place. So it tells us he is transitioning from boyhood to manhood in the eyes of the Jewish community there at that point. Some of you are probably thinking, well, let's see, I've heard about the Bar Mitzvah. How does that tie in? Bar Mitzvah is different in that it takes place at a boy's 13th birthday.
Not 12, but 13. So it's later. The Bar Mitzvah, from what I was able to determine, it also essentially marks the meaning of Bar Mitzvah, meaning son of the covenant, I think, or son of the commandments, meaning the boy has now become an adult, a Jewish male, a Jewish man in the family, as delineated by his Bar Mitzvah there. I think the Bar Mitzvah celebrations, the oldest I could trace them to is back in the Middle Ages there, but I think probably it's derived from what we've just discussed back here, that in the first century that transition was viewed as age 12, basically from boyhood to manhood there.
So my point in mentioning all of this as background is to help us understand the context of this again, because Jesus is not your average 12-year-old boy, like a 12-year-old today who's interested in skateboarding and the Rockies and the Broncos and all this kind of thing. That's his obsession in life. No, a 12-year-old boy, and particularly Jesus, has already spent half of his lifetime studying and memorizing God's Word and living it from childhood there.
So he is now considered, Jesus is, an adult, ready to go on and study and memorize the rest of the Old Testament Scriptures here. So back to the story here then, in verse 42. Continue on. When he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. When they had finished the days as they returned, so the feast is over, they're returning back to Galilee, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem.
And Joseph and his mother did not know it, but supposing him to have been in the company, in the group, in the caravan, you might say, they went a day's journey and sought him among their relatives and acquaintances.
So what this is telling us is that the Passover feast, the week-long feast that included Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread, the family starts the long trip, approximately 100 miles back up to Nazareth in Galilee. You can look at a map on the back of your harmony there and again see the road. You have Jerusalem just here above Judea, and you'll see a dotted line that symbolizes a road going down to Jericho in the Jordan Valley, and then a dotted line going north parallel with the Jordan River up to Galilee. So that's probably the route they would have taken there. Generally, the Jews tried to avoid going straight north through Samaria because of their conflict with the Samaritans, which we'll get to at some point here in these classes here. So they would have gone down from Jerusalem about 3,000 feet drop from Jerusalem over about 15 miles to get down to Jericho in the Jordan Valley.
There would have been a lot of people, probably in the tens of thousands at least, taking this same route to go down to Jericho and up to Galilee there. I would have included probably many of Joseph and Mary's friends and relatives there, because it says here that there were relatives and acquaintances along on this. Now, when you traveled to go to the pilgrimage feast on the pilgrimage feast then, you traveled as a family, an extended family. It would be your family. It would be your in-laws, your brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, all of this, because it was very much a family activity there to make these trips those three times a year.
And think too, now Jesus is 12 years old. We know from earlier classes that Joseph and Mary had other children. So by this time there's probably at least three or four smaller siblings of Jesus, brothers and sisters there. So they, Joseph and Mary, have their hands full. So obviously you read the story between the lines, and Joseph probably thinks that Jesus is with Mary, and Mary thinks that Jesus is with Joseph, and they don't realize until they stop for the night, probably somewhere around Jericho, that, no, Jesus is not here. So what do they do?
Then they turn around and go back up to Jerusalem, approximately 15 miles or so.
So continuing the story here, verse 45, it says, So when they did not find him, when they stopped for the night, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him. Now so it was that after three days they found him in the temple. The three days is probably one day traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. They find out his missing, so there's another day traveling back uphill from Jericho to Jerusalem. And then on the third day, sometime, they look in the temple and indeed find Jesus there. And as it says here, they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.
And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. So there's a lot of information packed into these verses. So let's dig into this a little bit deeper here. First of all, the Jerusalem temple was a common place for teaching. There were specific areas of it that were set aside for teaching. We find Jesus there teaching. Later on, we'll find Peter and John teaching. And that was commonly done in these porch areas around the outside here. It would be in the shade and these, I'll give you a little idea of the scale. These columns are about 30 feet high, the height of a three-story building. So this is an enormous complex here. And apparently, teachers were welcome to teach there in the temple so long as they didn't rile the Sadducees and the priests who were governing the temple there, which will receive those conflicts later on in Jesus Christ's ministry as well. And of course, also at the temple, there's always a ready audience of religious people there wanting to learn more about God's Word and God's way of life. So the teachers there have a ready-made audience there. So notice here that what Luke says let me move forward again here. Excuse me. Actually, let me back up.
Yeah, it says, whoops, wrong verse. One more. Yeah. So it says, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers. Teachers may have been rabbis as Jesus as a rabbi, as Paul later is a rabbi teaching there. An interesting possibility I came across in one commentary is this might have been the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was more or less a combination of Congress and Supreme Court for the people of that day. They were people who were very knowledgeable of the laws of God. And the source said that during the Passover season that the Sanhedrin would actually meet in public and people could come and ask members of the Sanhedrin questions about the law. It would be like the Supreme Court having open days where you could come and ask any of the Supreme Court justices questions about the law or so on. That's kind of the equivalent. Whether that's who these teachers were, we don't know. But we do know that the teachers were people who would have been considered experts in God's law. So Jesus is sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. So we see Jesus asking them questions and also they are asking him questions because it says his answers or his responses would actually be a better word there.
And it says, of course, they were astonished at his responses. So what's going on here?
We tend to look at this as Jesus is just asking the men questions there, but actually they're asking him questions too. So what's going on? Why would they be asking questions of a 12-year-old kid here? Sounds a little odd. Maybe you've noticed in reading the Gospels that on a number of occasions someone will ask Jesus a question and how does he respond? He responds by asking them a question or vice versa. There. Now if we did that today, if we ask somebody a question and they respond with a question, our natural reaction is, hey, you're dodging the question. Come on, give me a straight answer. It wasn't the case then because asking questions was a very common way that rabbis taught at that time. And there's a good reason for that. Let's say that I ask you a question and you give me the answer. Well, I may accept your answer or I may not because I don't know whether to believe you or not. I don't know whether you know what you're talking about or not. But if I ask you a question and you respond to my question with a question that makes me find my own answer, then I'm going to believe it because I had to do the mental work to come to a conclusion. And because it's my answer and not your answer, I own it, essentially, to use the common phrase. So by answering a question with a question, the rabbis, the teachers of that day, helped the person to come to his own answer to the question. So it was truly his answer and not just the answer of the teachers. And this method of teaching has been used by Jewish rabbis and teachers for centuries, and it's actually still used today. If you went to a Jewish school, you would see them asking questions back and forth of each other there. And the point, again, is to help them come to their own answer there. And that's what Jesus is doing at various times.
Let me illustrate this with a story that I heard from an American teacher who leads study groups in Israel. And he told a story about a group that he was leading that stopped in the Israeli city of Safat. It's up north of Capernaum, maybe 10 miles or so up there.
One of the members of his group was an American lady who taught art in school. She was very interested in art. They're walking through the streets of Safat, and they notice a photo shop there. And this store photo shop has some gorgeous photos hanging on the wall. So the American lady, the art teacher, goes into the studio photo shop there and notices that it's run by an elderly Jewish rabbi. And it's a true story. Rabbis aren't necessarily employed full-time, so they have their own jobs on the side, as this man did. And she's blown away by these beautiful photos there. And being an art teacher herself, she says, May I ask you a question? Which of these photos is your favorite? And so she starts the conversation by innocently asking questions. She's not familiar at all with this Jewish method of asking questions here. So she asks, Which one of these photos is your favorite? And the rabbi responds by asking, Are you married? And she thinks, Yes, why?
So she doesn't understand it, but she asks him a question. Yes, I'm married. Why? And the rabbi says, Do you have children? She says, Well, I have two daughters and a son. Why? Again, she doesn't realize that if she hadn't asked why and stopped the questioning, the rabbi would have probably just ignored her there. So the rabbi then responds. He asks, Do you have children? She says, Yes, I have a son and two daughters. Why? And the rabbi says, Which one is your favorite?
So what's the rabbi's answer? The rabbi is answering her question, but he's answering it in a way that makes her think about the answer. The rabbi's answer is, My photos are like children.
You can't pick out one favorite. I like each one for different reasons. So he answers her question with a series of questions to make her think and come to her own answer there. And I think that's a beautiful illustration of this rabbinical teaching method here that we see back here in Luke 2 here and also in Jesus Christ's ministry. So let's look at a few examples because Jesus Christ does this fairly regularly. Let me find my place here again in my notes. Matthew 12 verses 9 through 13.
This is referring to Jesus Christ. It says, Now when he had departed from there, he went into their synagogue, and behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, that they might accuse him? So they ask Jesus the question.
But their motive is not because they want to learn more about God's truth from this rabbi, Jesus. Their motivation is to trap him, to make him look bad, because they want him to answer yes or no, whether it's lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not, because that was actually one of the big debates about the law at that time. So they know that whichever way Jesus answers, there are going to be people there in the synagogue who disagree with that answer.
He's going to alienate them. Either way he answers. So what does Jesus do? He answers their question with a question. He says, Then he said to them, What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out?
Question. He throws the question back at them there. And then he says, follows up with another question. He says, Of how much more value, then, is a man than a sheep?
So he's answering their question with his question there. And then he says, to spell it out plainly, therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. So we ask them two questions in return. Of course, they would, if they had a sheep that fell into a pit on the Sabbath, they would lift it out. That was permissible under the law, even on the Sabbath day. So we caught them in their own trap. And then he asks to follow up and make his point, how much more valuable is a man than a sheep? Because they all understood that man is made in the image of God. Therefore, man is the greatest of God's creations. So he's much more valuable than a sheep. So if you can rescue a sheep who's fallen into a pit on the Sabbath day, certainly you can heal a human being on the Sabbath day. So check and mate there with his two questions there. He nails them. What can they do? The rest of the story won't cover it there. Well, he says, then he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. And then it says, the Pharisees plotted to destroy him after that because they realized they'd been had. They tried to humiliate him in front of the people in the synagogue there, and they end up getting the tables turned and totally humiliated and embarrassed themselves there. Because again, they were trying to trap him.
Let's look at another example of Jesus answering a question with a question in Matthew 21.
This happens at the temple, not a synagogue, verses 23 through 27.
Now, when he came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted him as he was teaching, so he's teaching in the temple, as we read about earlier, as the teachers could do. And said, By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority? But Jesus answered and said to them, I also will ask you one thing, which if you will tell me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things. And he says, The baptism of John, where was it from? From heaven or from men?
Does Jesus answer their question? Yes. Their question was, Where do you get this authority?
He says, I got my authority from John the Baptist. But he's answering it in the form of a question there. Now, he answers her question by saying, John the Baptist, because who is John? John is a prophet, as we'll read about in our next few classes here. He's a priest. He's the son of Zechariah, the priest. So he's automatically a priest. He is also the forerunner of the Messiah, who was promised to come. And continuing on, it says, let's see, do I have this here?
Yeah, yeah, continuing the middle part of verse 25.
Then from heaven. Heaven is a synonym here for God, God the Father. So if they say, from heaven, from God, then Jesus will say, Well, why didn't you believe him?
But if they say it's from men, then the people are going to be mad at us, because they all think John was a prophet, which indeed he was here. So they're trapped. And their response then, in verse 27, is so they answered Jesus and said, We don't know. We can't answer. It wasn't that they didn't know. They knew, but they couldn't admit that in front of the people. So he said to them, Okay, you don't answer my question, then I'm not going to answer your question. So neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. So here, again, we'll cover a number of examples like this in the Gospels as we go forward. But we'll see this teaching method of answering a question with a question and forcing people to think about the answers there constantly throughout the Gospels. So I mentioned this again as background to help us understand what's going on here. This wasn't, it would have been unusual for a 12-year-old boy to be there with the teachers of the law and the temple answering and asking questions, but it was not uncommon in terms of a teaching method of that day. So continuing our story here, then, back in Luke 2 and verse 47, And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
So those there at the temple that day knew there was something special about this 12-year-old boy here. He's only 12 years old, but he's obviously not your ordinary 12 years old. He is astonishing people with his questions and answers, responses to their questions there.
He's holding his own and maybe even bettering these men who have been teachers of the law, who spent 30, 40, 50, 60 years studying and memorizing the law. And Jesus is right in there with them, astonishing people with his answers. So this is an amazing sight. Continuing in verse 48, So when they, this is Joseph and Mary, saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said to him, Son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously.
And notice his response here. And Jesus said to them, Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business? And again, there's a lot of interesting stuff here in these few verses here. Mary is understandably worried they can't find Jesus. They don't know where he is. They thought he was with relatives or friends, but he's not. But this doesn't mean Jesus is being rebellious or irresponsible. No, as he says here, he is just being about his father's business.
And notice how he, notice Mary's comment and his response to it. What does Mary say?
She says, Son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously.
And Jesus gives a very subtle correction to what he said.
He said, Your father and I have sought you anxiously. And what is Jesus's response?
Did you not know I must be about my real father's business?
So he flips it around a little bit and reminds Mary who his real father is.
Mary knew this, of course, since she'd been given that message by the angel Gabriel, but Jesus just very subtly reminds her of that. And even though, notice also what he says, even though he's just 12 years old, how does he phrase it? He says, Did you not know that I must be about my father's business? Even at 12 years old, he knows it's not an option for him.
It's also interesting here because what does this tell us? It tells us that at 12 years old, he understands who and what he is.
He understands that at 12 years old. I know I've had this discussion with several of you here and some of the other congregations about when and how did Jesus come to realize this?
Here he's 12 years old. He obviously realizes he is unique. He has a unique relationship with God the Father. He is the one and only Son of God and acknowledges God the Father is His Father. How and when did He know it?
What did He know and when did He know it? We just don't know because Scripture doesn't tell us, but I think we can come to some conclusions by looking at some other Scriptures here.
Well, did He know it from birth? I doubt it because, frankly, a baby's brain isn't wired to understand concepts like that for a number of years. Even a seven or eight-year-old can't understand those kinds of concepts. The physical wiring of the brain just isn't there. There's been a debate maybe you've heard in the last few years about teenage boys. Their brain just isn't developed. Having been one of those, I know that's true. It doesn't get developed fully until they're 20, 21, 22, something like that, which explains a whole lot. Some of you, Sam and Son are going to figure that out here in a few years. But the brain is just not developed.
Jesus being a physical human being, albeit with God's Spirit, there were just some concepts the brain cannot comprehend, even with us, until we reach a certain level of maturity and so on.
I think it had to have been a learning process for Jesus, for this realization to come on Him here.
I think that as He studied and as He memorized God's Word, back in Beth's effort that we talked about earlier, that the realization started to dawn on Him. I think as He traveled the road from Galilee to Jericho to Jerusalem for the feast three times a year, as He walked through areas that He in a previous life had interacted with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, with the prophets of old, that the realization grew on Him who and what He was. I don't think He had it there from birth. Yes, He was the Son of God from birth. Yes, He was divine from birth. That's not what I'm seeing. But I think as He grew and matured, that the realization and the spiritual understanding came to Him here. And I say this because it is clear that Jesus learned throughout His lifetime.
He didn't know it all from the very beginning here. Let's take a look at a couple of scriptures here.
One is Hebrews 5, verses 8 and 9. And the fact that He learned tells us automatically that He didn't know it all from the beginning. Hebrews 5, 8 and 9 says, Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. So this verse tells us that He learned and also He became perfected by the things that He went through in this physical life here.
So again, He was perfect from the beginning, but you might say He became more perfect by the things which He learned. He obviously never sinned or anything like that, but He became even more perfect by the things that He learned and experienced in this life. And there's another verse that ties in this as well, John 8 and verse 28. Then Jesus said to them, When you lift up the Son of Man, referring to His crucifixion, then you will know that I am, and again, the He is inserted there. It should not be in the original, that I am, referring to one of the names of God from the Old Testament there. And that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father taught me, I speak these things. So notice here that He says that the Father taught Him. How did the Father teach Him?
Well, obviously He was with God. We know from John 1 and Philippians 2 that Tim read earlier today that yes, He was with the Father before He became a physical human being. Is that when the Father taught Him? No, I don't think that's what it's talking about here. He had to learn, as we saw in Hebrews 5 there, He had to learn as He grew and matured. So how was He taught?
I think, frankly, the same way that we are taught. How does God teach us? Think about that for a while. How does God teach us new spiritual concepts? How does He give us new spiritual understanding? Well, through God's Spirit at work within us. Just as Jesus Christ had. Again, He had it from the womb, not from later on in life as we do. But as we study God's Word, how does God reveal things to us? First of all, we've got to be studying His Word to know His mind, to know His thinking, to know His character. So we've got to be studying His Word, but as we study that Word, things jump out at us that we never noticed before. Hopefully, as we go through this class, we're gaining spiritual understanding there here. Things jump out that we never noticed before, maybe in prayer. As we're praying to God, suddenly some realization will come to us that we haven't thought about before. Or maybe in a sermonette or a sermon or a Bible study like this, suddenly things will click that we never saw before. What is that? That's God's Spirit working within us and giving us spiritual understanding from the Father. And I think that is the same process that Jesus Christ went through as He's growing up in this time period that we're talking about. As He studies God's Word, as He travels through this land, these realizations are coming to Him of who and what He is there. Now, in His case, obviously, it was a much vastly deeper level of understanding and insight that He gets and a vastly accelerated pace of understanding there because of who and what He is. But I think He learned over time, just as each of us learn over time. When we're baptized and have our hands laid on us and we receive God's Spirit, we don't know it all then. We're just scratching the surface. It takes years of growing and understanding for God to reveal things to us. And it's a constant process here. People come up to me and thank me for these studies. And I say, well, I'm learning more about it for a minute than anybody else here because digging into and trying to explain these things is the best way to understand it yourself.
By far there. So again, I don't think we can prove that, but I think that's a logical assumption because we see it in the lives of all of us sitting here. But that's the way God works.
You know, I look forward to the time when I can ask Jesus Christ in person.
When did it come to you? I'll find out one of these days here, but I don't know for sure right now.
So concluding and wrapping up today's class here with Luke 2, verses 51 and 52, then he went down with them, went down from Jerusalem back up to Nazareth, and came to Nazareth and was subject to them, but his mother kept all these things in her heart.
And as we've seen before several times, Luke mentions that Mary kept these things in her heart.
What does that mean? Well, she's got to be blown away by the wisdom and the spiritual understanding of this 12-year-old boy that she's given birth to, now growing into a young man there. And this again shows that in terms of Luke, where he got his information, since it's his, Mary kept these things in her heart. She obviously wasn't blabbing this to a lot of other people. She kept them in her heart. So the obvious implication here is that Luke interviewed Mary as he is researching and writing his gospel, and she is the source for a lot of this information, because again, Joseph is long gone from the scene. Actually, as Dave Hale mentioned to me before he started here, this is the last mention of Joseph. We've seen the gospels. He disappears from the scene sometime after Jesus is 12 years old here. There, so he's out of the scene. Others, like we talked about with Simeon and Anna last time, they were elderly at the time. They told Mary these things at the temple. They're long gone. So Mary is obviously the source of the information that that Luke is telling us here. Here also notice one of these phrases here that tells us something important about the nature and the character of Jesus Christ. And I was reminded of this in Mr. McMaster's sermon there. In verse 49, we saw that Jesus understood that he is the Son of God, the unique Son of God. But how does that affect him? Does it make him proud?
Does it make him elevated? Anything like that? No, not at all. In fact, it's the obvious. It's the opposite of that. Did not make him look down on his human parents, Joseph and Mary.
Notice what it says here. He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them.
He realizes he is the unique Son of God, and yet he is subject to his human parents, Joseph and Mary, hardworking peasant types there. He is subject to them. He is the perfect Son of God, and as God's Son, he is the perfect human Son as well, and how he interacts with his parents.
Just as we would expect him to be, frankly. In verse 52, Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men. Here we see a growth process on two levels. One, he is physically growing, becoming an adult man, but he is also growing in wisdom, growing in maturity, as it says here, both physical and spiritual, and also that he is growing in favor with both God and with other human beings. It's interesting here, this word favor, in favor with God and man, that's the same word that's translated elsewhere in the New Testament, is grace, carous as it is in the Greek here. So what is it telling us here? It tells us that you could say that he is increasing in grace with God and man. Grace being the favor, the goodwill, the goodness, the blessings that God is pouring out on Jesus. And Jesus is in turn pouring that out on everybody that he comes in contact with. Goodwill and blessing and goodness, that's the way he interacts with other people there. So that concludes our study for today. Any questions? Any obvious? Raised here, I kind of ripped through this pretty quickly here. But yes, Dave.
Sure, sure. Yes.
Right, especially as he's starting to realize some of these things, too. He starts feeling these funny realizations. And yeah, you would think he would certainly ask Mary. And Joseph, too, because Joseph was also told he would be conceived and born there.
I will mention, just for Nick Sabath, the sermon that I plan to give. I've tried to time this to fit in at a good place. In here, I've mentioned a concept before called Remes, R-E-M-E-Z, Hebrew word meaning hint or echo or allusion to something. It's a concept we see many, many times used in the Gospels. Actually, depending on which scholar you look at, up to 400 times.
And there are a lot of scriptures in the Gospels that just come across a little bit odd unless we realize this is another teaching technique like the questioning and questioning, answering your question with a question we talked about here. And this is a concept we'll talk about because, as we get into the ministry of John the Baptist, we find John doing it, we find Jesus doing it, we find each of the four Gospel writers using this method of teaching in their Gospels here.
So we'll be talking about that in next week's sermon there. So we'll wrap it up there and dismiss the class then. So hope you all have a great week and a good remainder of the Sabbath!
