Gospel of Mark Study #17

“Gettin’ Too Big for His Britches”

Mark 6:1-13

Study #17 in Mark Series

INTRODUCTION:

There is an old saying that goes, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” What does that mean? The word contempt means, “to look down upon” or “to think little of.” It is different from hatred, although contempt can lead to hatred. When we are around something every day, we start to take it for granted. It becomes “old hat” to us. We may lose sight of how precious that thing is because we see it every day and to us it becomes just another dusty old piece of junk.

TRANSITION:

Jesus lived the first 30 years of His earthly life in Nazareth, a humble little town in Galilee. His father, Joseph, was a village carpenter. Jesus, as the eldest son, followed in His father’s footsteps. After Joseph died, probably when Jesus was still in His teens, He took on the job of breadwinner for the family and helped His mother care for His younger siblings. He was known as “the carpenter,” “the tékton” (ὁ τέκτων), a skilled craftsman who worked with wood and stone. Nearly everyone in that town knew of His fine work. But a Rabbi? with disciples? with a new message? HARDLY! To them He was just a lowly blue-collar working man, like them. They concluded that He was just getting too uppity. They thought that He was getting too big for His britches. Let’s look at the story in Mark 6:1-13. 

NOTES on the Text

Verse 1: Jesus left there and went to His hometown, accompanied by His disciples.

·         “Jesus left there...” Where is “there”? We do not know exactly but probably Capernaum, or Bethsaida, or one of the towns close to there.

·         “...went to His hometown...” There is no question about this one—He went back to Nazareth where He spent the first thirty years of his life. And this time He took His disciples with Him. The two towns are about 20 miles apart. Biblical archaeologists tell us that Nazareth in the time of Jesus had a population of about 500 people. It was a little backwater town of no real importance, giving rise to the uncomplimentary adage known throughout Israel, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Verse 2: When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles!”

·         This was undoubtedly the synagogue He had attended for 30 years, along with His brothers. It was the same synagogue Joseph, His earthly father, had attended. Jesus probably knew every person there, and they all knew Him. Moreover, He had probably made furniture or built something for every man in the room. They all knew Him, and He knew all of them.

·         It was the custom for the ruler of the synagogue to invite a guest to read the Scripture text for the day and to make comments on it. Jesus had moved away from Nazareth but now had come back home for a visit. As a recognized Rabbi, traveling with a band of His disciples, He was given the honor of speaking to the assembly, even though many of the people there did not like Him anymore, thinking he had grown too uppity.

·         Matthew records this same event in Nazareth in Matthew 13:54-58 giving the same basic details. However, you need to remember that this was not the first time Jesus showed up back in His hometown to attend the synagogue service. Luke records that first experience in Luke 4:16 30. On that occasion, shortly after His time of temptation in the wilderness, He went there alone and performed no miracles. What I find fascinating is that after the horrible treatment Jesus got the first time He would ever consider going back to Nazareth. It is a testimony of His mercy and forgiveness. Let’s take a quick look at what happened that first time: Luke 4:16-30.

Ø  Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through the whole countryside. ¹⁵ He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised Him. ¹⁶ He went to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day He went into the synagogue, as was His custom. And He stood up to read. ¹⁷ The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place [in Isaiah 61] where it is written: ¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, ¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ²⁰ Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on Him, ²¹ and He began by saying to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” ²² All spoke well of Him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from His lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. ²³ Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ ²⁴ “I tell you the truth,” He continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵ I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶ Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. ²⁷ And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” ²⁸ All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. ²⁹ They got up, drove Him out of the town, and took Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. ³⁰ But He walked right through the crowd and went on His way. ³¹ Then He went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to teach the people.

·         So now He has come back to Nazareth and once again chooses to go to the same synagogue where they threw Him out the last time He was in town. But notice: they recognized the power of His words and even His ability to perform great miracles. Yet they took offense at Him. They resented Him. They turned to one another and remarked: “Who does he think he is, coming back here like this and telling us that we are all sinners and need to repent and turn back to God? Why, he’s just getting’ too big for his britches!”

·         This may be what the apostle John had in mind when he wrote in John 1:10-12, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, yet those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” 

Verse 3: “Isn’t this the carpenter [i.e., ὁ τέκτων]? Isn’t this Mary’s son, and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

·         Why did they take offense at Him? Was He unkind in the way He spoke to them? NO. Was He speaking in a prideful manner? NO. Was everything He said true? YES. So, what was it about Him that hacked them off so badly?

·         “... they took offense at Him.” Literally, “they were scandalized by Him.” The Greek verb scandalídzo (σκανδαλίζω) originally meant “to put a snare or obstacle [σκάνδαλον, scandalon] in the way, to be caught in a trap or snare.” They were caught in the snare of their own unbelief, and they stumbled over Jesus. They just could not bring themselves to believe that He was the Messiah, the Anointed One of Israel that they had been waiting for so long, even though they recognized His power and His miracles. They were blinded by their own unbelief, and they were ensnared by their rationality. They thought that they knew Him, which was, of course, their stumbling stone.

·         One more thing about this verse... a huge segment of Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church, makes the claim that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a perpetual virgin until the day she was carried bodily to Heaven, that she never had sexual intercourse with Joseph, even after the birth of Jesus. They say that the people mentioned here were not really blood brothers and sisters of Jesus but were stepsiblings, because they were Joseph’s children by a previous marriage. This is ludicrous and does a disservice to the Greek text. This is only one of many passages that speak about Jesus’ brothers and sisters. In fact, the James mentioned here is the James who wrote the Book of James. And Judas, also the half-brother of Jesus wrote the Book of Jude. Apparently, both, along with Jesus’ other family members, became believers after the resurrection of Christ from the dead. 

Verse 4: Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”

·         Here Jesus speaks of three locations where a prophet gets no honor or recognition:

1.       In his own hometown

2.      Among his relatives

3.      Inside his own house (John 7:5 says, “For not even His brothers were believing in Him.”)

·         It is also true that when a person comes to Christ and becomes a new Christian, these are the three hardest nuts to crack, the three places that present the biggest challenges for witnessing and for living a consistent, godly life.

Verses 5-6a: He could not do any miracles there, except lay His hands on a few sick people and heal them. ⁶ And He was amazed at their lack of faith.

·         It was not that He tried to heal some and found Himself incapable, but that so few people had faith enough to come to Him for healing. Their pride and unbelief kept them home, so they just stayed sick.

·         At the place where the Lord Jesus might have expected to find the greatest faith in Him, He found the most persistent unbelief. And although He was the omniscient Son of God, He marveled at His unbelieving neighbors.

·         Notice: They were “astonished” at His teaching and miracles, and He “marveled” at their unbelief. Similar sensations but for vastly different reasons. 

Verses 6b-7: Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. ⁷ Calling the Twelve to Him, He sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.

·         1^st Stage of His Galilean ministry: He continued His itinerant preaching ministry from town to town.

·         2^nd Stage of His Galilean ministry: He sent out the Twelve, 2-by-2 with authority and power. This was apparently the first time they had gone out without Jesus, and thus it constituted an advanced step in their training.

Verses 8-9: These were His instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. ⁹ Wear sandals, but not an extra tunic.”

·         “Take nothing except a walking stick.” This was to train them in the practice of faith in preparation for the time when they would be completely on their own.

·         They were not to take food along, or even money to buy food. They were not even to carry a bag for personal items. Moreover, they were not to take an extra change of clothes or even wear a double layer. They had the clothes on their backs, their sandals, and a stick, plus nothing!

·         Jesus wanted them to trust Him for their daily bread. He wanted them to trust Him to provide them with clothes to wear. He wanted them to look to Him for a place to lay their heads to sleep. He was teaching them to trust Him in all things, in all situations, all day, all the time.

Verse 10: "Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town."

·         Why was this important? If someone opened his/her home to them they were to look at that as God’s provision for their need. Even if someone else came along and offered them better lodgings or more sumptuous fare they were to stay put. They were not to play one host against another.

Verse 11: “And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.”

·         This was not as a show of spite, or outrage, or because of the personal affront but as a testimony to show the seriousness of rejecting the message of the Son of God.

Verses 12-13: They went out and preached that people should repent. ¹³ They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

·         These guys were complete rookies. None of them had ever preached before. None of them had ever cast out a demon. None of them had ever healed a sick person. They had no power of their own and no knowledge of how to go about the task that Jesus had assigned them. All they had was His example to follow. They had heard Him preach, so they said what they had heard Him say. They had seen Him cast out demons, so they did it the same way He did it, citing His name as their authority over the powers of darkness. They had seen Him heal sick people, so they laid their hands on the sick, anointed them with oil because it was the only medicine they had, and then they prayed like crazy, calling on the strong name of Jesus to heal them.

·         AND IT WORKED! When they preached, people believed their message and got saved. When they did battle with the demons, the powers of darkness fled. When they laid their hands on sick people and prayed for them in Jesus’ name, the people got well, just like Jesus had said would happen.

CONCLUSION:

A principle of Scripture is “a lasting and abiding truth not affected by culture, time, location, or circumstance.” So, what are some “principles” that we can glean from this passage?

1.       People are apt to undervalue things with which they are familiar. The men of Nazareth were offended at our Lord. This still goes on today. Many people still take offense at Him. They bristle at the sound of His name.

2.      Notice how humble was the rank in life which Jesus condescended to occupy before He began his public ministry. They said of Him, “Is not this the carpenter?” It shows that Jesus was not afraid to work with His hands. He has called us to follow in His footsteps of humility and hard work.

3.      We see too, how exceedingly sinful is the sin of unbelief. Two phrases highlight this fact: “He could do no mighty work” at Nazareth because of the hardness of the people’s hearts. And “He marveled because of their unbelief.” Unbelief is the oldest sin in the world. It began in the Garden of Eden and brought death to the whole world. It kept Israel out of Canaan for forty years. It is the sin that especially populates Hell: “He that believeth not shall be damned.” Yet it is the most common sin in the world. Thousands are guilty of it on every side. In many cases they claim to be Christians, but in practice they are really unbelievers. They do not implicitly believe the Bible and receive Christ as their Savior.

4.      We need to watch our own hearts carefully, even after we have believed. The root of unbelief is never destroyed this side of Heaven.

5.      Jesus never passed through Nazareth again. That was His last visit to His boyhood home. He left, never to return. The people there lost their opportunity because of their hard hearts and blind eyes.