Familiarity Breeds Contempt

Mark’s Chapter 6 Outline: Nazareth, the Twelve, and the Contrast of Unbelief and Faith

Well, let's take our Bibles and turn to Mark chapter 6. As we move along through our study of Mark, I want to remind us where we were last time. We had gone through, as we noted, several of Jesus' parables and then several of Jesus' miracles.

And we ended on the miracle of raising the daughter of Jairus from the dead, and that is the end of chapter 5. Now at the beginning of chapter 6, there are a series of things that we're going to see. I was just, as I was preparing my lesson, I was sort of amazed at the length of the chapter and all of the things in the chapter, because I don't want to belabor any part.

I want to make strides as we go and study. I talked to a man today on the phone, a pastor friend of mine, who is, he's five books away from having preached every book of the Bible. But he did say, he said, but I don't go as slow as you.

Which I thought was kind of funny. He's a dear friend and we were just talking about our styles of preaching and how long it takes us to get through something. And he's one that's giddy up. He wants to maintain the theme of the book as he goes.

And I think that's useful. I think if we sometimes get too tied up in the particularities, we will miss the forest for the trees. I've said that many times. But in chapter 6 of Mark, to take this all at one shot would be just about impossible for me, because several things happen.

The very first thing is Jesus is going to, he's going to visit his hometown of Nazareth. This is likely the second visit. We're going to talk about that when we actually study the text. And then right after that, he's going to send his 12 out on a mission.

And we're going to talk about that in contrast to what happens in Nazareth. And then it almost is like it stops for an aside and it goes into an entire section, verses 14 to 29, is about the martyrdom of John the Baptist.

It sort of takes that story and plugs it in right here, a story which we're probably very familiar with. And then we get to verse 30, and we see two miracles, or three miracles really, back to back. We see the feeding of the 5 ,000, beginning at verse 30.

Then we see the walking on the water, beginning at verse 45. And then the last few verses, verses 53 to the end, is the healing of the multitudes. Nothing really specific, but Jesus continues to do these healing miracles.

So I've entitled, and I like titles. I know you don't have to have a title, but I do like titles. I like Mike's title for his Sunday school lesson last week, you know, when I walked in to help him start his recording device.

And the king is dead, long live the king. I thought that was a creative title. And I like to try to be creative with my titles as well. So my title for this chapter is Miracles, Mission, Martyrdom, and, no, I'm sorry, Malice, Mission, Martyrdom, and Miracles, because that's what we're going to see.

And so tonight, we're going to study the first part, which is the malice part. And I will admit, I did get that outline from Dr. Wilmington. I used his outline Bible. And we're going to look at verses 1 to 6.

But I'd like to read through verse 13, because if time allows, I'd like to show what I think is a contrast in these two narratives. We're going to see Jesus go into Nazareth. We're going to see what happens there.

And then we're going to see Jesus send out the apostles, and something drastically different happens there. And I do think that, again, I think the writers of these gospels are strategic, and they're telling us things that are strategic.

And I think that these two narratives go together. So we won't read the whole chapter, but we will read verses 1 to 13. Speaking of Jesus, it says, He went away from there and came to His hometown, and His disciples followed Him.

And on the Sabbath, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many who heard Him were astonished, saying, Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by His hands?

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joseph, and Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us? And they took offense at Him. And Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.

And He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief. And He went about among the villages teaching. Verse 7,.

And He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two. And He gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.

And He said to them, Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. And if any place will not receive you and will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.

So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick. And they healed them. Father, I thank You for Your Word. May You now keep me from error as I teach and bless the people to hear Your Word afresh and by the power of the Spirit be taught.

In Christ's name, Amen. So Mark chapter 6 verse 4, I have jokingly said is my life verse. And the reason why I have jokingly said that is because as many of you know, I have been at this church since I was 7 years old.

And having been in the same place for so long, when Jesus said a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown, I can remember very well when I first became the pastor of the church and became the one who was preaching every Sunday.

I can remember people who saw me as a little boy. I mean, some of the people here had been Sunday school teachers to me when I was a child. Some had verbally disciplined me over the years for getting into trouble and things.

I was always thankful for Patsy Hoffman because she always treated me with a lot of respect even though she, again, was my Sunday school teacher when I was a kid. It was like a flip-flopping of relationships when I became an adult.

But I remember specifically, and Pat will get a kick out of me sharing this, I remember specifically on one particular theological topic, and I'll tell you what it is, it was the subject of women pastors, and there was a person here who disagreed with my position on it, and they said, well, you just believe that because that's what your mother believes.

And they were referring to Pat, of course, my step-mom, but just said, well, you just believe that because that's what your mother believes about women pastors. And I remember thinking, well, certainly I did hear that growing up from my step-mom, and I did understand that that was wrong having heard it from her, but I also came to that conclusion based upon my own understanding of the scripture.

It wasn't just because mommy said so. And what's interesting about that going a little bit further is there are things that Pat knows that I've disagreed with her about, and even things that I've been able to show her, and things that we, even as a church, have grown in of these things.

So I just remember that being somewhat discounting, well, you were just a little boy, and mommy taught you that, and that's not really the truth, that's just what you think because that's what you were taught as a child, very dismissive.

And what I learned is that, and you've all heard this phrase, but tonight this is really what I want you to think, familiarity breeds contempt. Familiarity, when we first get to know someone, sometimes we think a lot of that person, and then the more we get to know them and we start seeing the holes in the dike, we start seeing the problems, we start to feel a little bit more familiar and a little less impressed.

And I remember one of my seminary professors said, he said, you know what an expert is? I said, no sir. He said, an expert is a man who's carrying a briefcase and he's 20 miles from home. And what he meant was, he says, you're an expert when you leave your hometown and you go somewhere else.

People who don't know you see you coming, oh, this guy's the expert. But when you're at home, you're just Keith. When you're at home, you're just that guy, right? And so familiarity, that type of familiarity is in one sense what we're seeing here in the situation with Christ.

Christ has come back home. He's come back to Nazareth and Nazareth did not have a great reputation. If you remember in the Gospel of John when Jesus was first meeting the apostles and one of the apostles said, when they said, we found the Messiah, he's from Nazareth, what'd they say?

Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? So Nazareth as a place did not have the best of reputations. Nazareth was in Galilee. It was about 20 miles west of the Sea of Galilee and it was on a rocky hillside.

I think, if I remember correctly, I don't have it in my notes, but I do believe it was 60 acres. So, I mean, I know people who have property that's more than 60 acres. I mean, you know, 60 acres is kind of big, but it's not that big.

You know, if you think of this square block right here is about 6 acres, so it's only about 10 times the size of our church property. And there was only about 500 people who lived there. It was a very small place in a very small location, small group of people.

So, I bring that up to simply say, Jesus would have probably known everyone. In a town of 500, you don't have much anonymity. In a town of 500, you're going to know everybody and everybody's going to know you.

And I want to point out one other thing before we get into the nuts and bolts of this text. This text is also given to us in Matthew 13, 53 to 58 with basically the same verbiage. But Luke's gospel gives us an entirely different account where Jesus visited Nazareth and he spoke from the word of God in the synagogue and the people took him out and wanted to throw him off the cliff.

You guys remember that story? Remember what they said then? Yeah, that time they also said, this guy is the carpenter's son. Who does he think he is? In fact, very quickly, if you don't mind, just turn with me to the Luke story because I actually don't think it's the same story.

I actually think it's possible that this was Jesus' first visit to Nazareth after his ministry began and the one we're reading in Mark is the second visit. They read as two different accounts and we see the one consistent thing is this group of people within the church that doesn't, or within the community that do not want to respect this man because he's the hometown boy.

So go with me to Luke chapter 4 in verse 14. And in Luke's gospel this happened right after the temptation in the wilderness. This again is why I think it's a different situation. It says in verse 14, Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee and a report about him went through all the surrounding country and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.

And he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.

And the eyes of all the synagogue were fixed on him and he began to say to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

And they said, is this not Joseph's son? And he said to them, doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, physician, heal yourself. What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.

And he said, truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heavens were shut up three years and six months and a great famine came over the land and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath and the land of Sidon to a woman who was a widow.

And there were many lepers in Israel at the time of the prophet Elijah and none of them was cleansed but only Naaman the Syrian. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.

They rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst he went away.

Now again, I am not saying this is the same story as Mark chapter 6. I am saying look at what happened the first time. According to Luke's narrative I think this is Jesus' first time. Probably a year has separated Mark 6 and Luke 4 as I have been able to look at these two events.

And in Luke 6 Jesus goes and at first he stands up and he reads the scripture. And by the way that is a powerful scripture. He reads the scripture about the promise being fulfilled of God's blessing on his people.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me to anoint the good news, the gospel to the poor. Jesus said this is the gospel and then he points to himself and he says this is fulfilled in your hearing today because of me.

And what is their response? Is this not Joseph's son? Now I think in that moment, verse 22, I think it is a positive. And the reason why I say that is if you read verse 22 again. And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth and they said is this not Joseph's son?

The idea of look at the hometown boy. He is made good. And he stood up and he preached and now he is saying a powerful word. Look at the good that he is doing. But then Jesus in his inimitable way turns the crowd against him.

Jesus was good at that. Jesus was good at speaking truth and then having people not like it. If you remember John chapter 6 he has an entire crowd of people who are listening to him preach and at the end of chapter 6 they are all gone.

Only the disciples are left. And the reason why is because he preached hard words in John 6. If you read John 6 it is a hard sermon. Even to this day it is hard to interpret and understand exactly what he was saying.

He is talking about eating his blood or eating his flesh and drinking his blood. There is a lot of difficulty there. And you can imagine that first century audience going what in the world is this guy talking about?

Well in this Jesus uses two Old Testament examples. Gentile examples specifically as receiving a blessing. Jewish people don't want to hear that. And so they respond with murderous rage. They are going to throw him down the cliff.

And as I said Nazareth is built on a rocky cliff. So this is again the first time we hear Jesus utter the words a prophet is not acceptable in his hometown. So he has already said it once. He has already experienced this once.

Hatred and wrath. And then we get to Mark 6 and he is now back. It says in verse 1 of Mark 6 he went away from there and came to his hometown and his disciples followed him and on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him were astonished saying where did this man get these things?

What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? And then they begin to interrogate is this not the carpenter the son of Mary? Now other gospels I think it is Matthew's gospel.

We can look if you want but I am pretty sure Matthew's gospel says is this not the carpenter's son? That is not a textual variant or a discrepancy. It is most likely that both gospels are correct. Jesus having been brought up by Joseph would have been by trade the same trade of his father.

So it is likely that some of them said is this not the carpenter's son? We read that in Luke's gospel. Is this not Joseph's son? But it is also some is this not the carpenter? Is this not the tradesman?

Who is this guy preaching to us? This guy is a carpenter. Now the term carpenter here the Greek word has the same root as our word architect. Tech is the root and it actually can also be translated as a stonemason.

But Josh McDowell's book more than a carpenter would have to be more than a stonemason and it wouldn't work. But actually at that point it could be either and it is likely that the artisan or the craftsman would have worked in wood and stone at that point in time.

So it is not as if one or the other is necessarily right or wrong. Jesus like many today who work in construction probably worked in many different mediums as a person who built things. But we translate it typically as the word carpenter.

And it says is this not this the carpenter? And then they bring up the next issue the son of Mary. Now why the son of Mary? There is a lot of debate as to why it mentions Mary. Some people reference the fact that in Jewish rules the mother is the one through whom the lineage comes not the father.

Jewish people are a matriarchal society. You get your Jewish roots from your mother not from your father. I don't think that is the reason for this. I think it is possible that it is referencing that Joseph has died.

Joseph is not mentioned after Jesus' 12th year. You remember when Jesus was left behind at the temple and Joseph was there. That is the last that we read of Joseph in the narrative. So it is possible that he has already gone on to be with the Lord and so only Mary is mentioned.

And again that is just one possibility. I think sometimes we over read into things. But it says is not this the carpenter? The son of Mary and the brother and it lists James and Joseph and Judas and Simon and then it says and are not his sisters here with us.

So we have four brothers named and an unknown number of sisters and a couple of things just to say about that. In Roman Catholic tradition Mary is considered to be a perpetual virgin which means that she did not have any other children other than Jesus and even Jesus was not birthed naturally.

According to Roman Catholic teaching Jesus was birthed in a supernatural way that would not disturb Mary's virginal integrity. I have often equated it to something like Star Trek. He was beamed from the womb to the room because there is a strong teaching in Roman Catholicism that Mary maintained her virginity throughout her life.

And so when we come to passages like this we say well Jesus had brothers and sisters how could Mary have remained a virgin? Well the typical answer that Rome gives is that Joseph had other wives or at least one other wife and therefore these brothers and sisters are not by his mother but only from his earthly father.

There is nothing in the text to substantiate that. That is seeking to find an answer to a question based upon a theological presupposition. It is what we call an a priori assumption. It is also a Greek word baloney.

There are some who say that the word should be translated cousins rather than brothers and sisters. Again that is baloney. It is in Nazareth not Middleburg. So you understand this text tells us he had brothers and sisters and I want you to notice two of the important names, James and Judas.

Now Judas is another way of saying Jude or Jude is another way of saying Judas. We have two books in our Bible. One is the epistle of James and one is the epistle of Jude. It is my belief and the belief of many scholars and I think our elders all agree that the two men James and Jude are the brothers mentioned here.

What is interesting about that is that they are not believers during Jesus' lifetime. We see other places in the gospel narrative where these men are saying Jesus out of his mind and we have talked about that in previous classes.

I just thought it important to mention their names. This is the James who would later become the pastor of the church at Jerusalem. He would be involved in Acts 15 which is the Jerusalem Council where they were discussing Gentile entrance into the church and he speaks at that council.

He is referenced in the book of Galatians as being the brother of our Lord and again we have the letter which bears his name, the book of James and Jude as well. Some people say Jude was Jude because Judas has such a negative connotation with Judas Iscariot and that is possibly true but it is also just our English way of saying it.

In fact James isn't even James. In Hebrew it would have been Jacob, not James. There is no James. There is no J sound in Hebrew so any time you hear a J sound that is a Germanic change. That is German brought in the J sound and that sound where we get Jesus and Jehovah and all those things are from that.

It is not something we see in Hebrew or in Greek. In Hebrew it is Yesu and in Greek for Jesus it is Yesu and Yesus. In Hebrew it is Jesus and Yesu and this would be Jacob. So it says, Are not his sisters with us?

And they took offense at him. The whole town is downgrading Christ based upon their familiarity with him. We know this guy. We know his mama. We know his brothers. We know his sisters. We have seen him do some amazing things.

We have heard of him doing some amazing things rather but instead of receiving him they take offense at him. So Jesus repeats the phrase, A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.

Notice that phrase addition. Why does Jesus mention his household? Because even in his household there were those who did not yet believe in him. Verse 5. This is the hardest one for me. I will just be quite honest with you.

When I am studying and trying to get my thoughts together, verse 5 is the most difficult. It says, And he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.

The reason why I say that I find that difficult is because we live on this side of the charismatic renewal. As you are familiar with, Pentecostalism was given birth in the early 1900s. Charismaticism has risen since then.

What has come out of Charismaticism is the word faith teaching. Word faith is not biblical. Word faith is not something that is derived out of scripture. It is something that has been force fed into scripture.

But there are those who would say that you exercise your faith in such a way that God becomes a guarantor of whatever your faith demands. The phrase that you are probably very familiar with is the phrase, Name it and claim it.

What this group, these hypercharismatics have done is they have created the idea that if you are not healed from whatever your malady is, it is because somehow you have not expressed enough faith. We mentioned Richard Taylor earlier.

Richard Taylor was a dear friend and his wife was a legend in our church, a legend of faith. She was just a wonderful lady who just had a sweet disposition and a wonderful way about her and Sybil. The years that she was here, she and I had dozens of very meaningful conversations and she had been in a wheelchair since she was 12 years old.

She was a paraplegic, meaning that she had no feeling below the waist and so she had to be in a wheelchair since she was before she was a teenager. Sybil and I talked a lot about her pain that she suffered and I remember the last years of her life, those things increased and it was very difficult for her.

She told me how over the years there were those who had said to her that if she had enough faith she could get out of that wheelchair and walk. I am not one to want to strike just anybody, but that does make me angry when I hear someone mock the faith of someone that I know truly has genuine faith.

Johnny Erickson Tata is probably one more familiar to you all, a lady whose faith has been demonstrated in years of faithfulness to the Lord and yet she was injured diving into a pool, broke her neck.

She has no use of her body from the neck down and yet she trusts in the Lord. And so I only mention this as to say when people come to verse 5 and they say Jesus could do no mighty work there except that he lay hands on a few six people and healed them.

And we go into verse 6 and we are going to talk about verse 6 where it says he marveled at their unbelief. Some people believe that somehow the reason why people today are experiencing pain, suffering, sickness, illness is because they don't believe.

And I do not believe that that is what this text is intending to convey. But I have to step back and say okay then what is it intending to convey? Because it is easy to say what it ain't, but sometimes a little harder to say what it is.

And I did touch on this a little bit last week because I said even though I don't believe that Christ's power is diminished over our lack of faith, I do believe God responds to faith. And so that is what I think we are seeing here is Christ is in a place of people who have dismissed him due to their familiarity.

They have dismissed him due to his family. They have dismissed him due to his lack of notoriety being born and raised in their own hometown and it says he could do no mighty work there. And again I simply take that to mean that his healings and miracles were not on display there as they were in other places because of their unbelief.

Jesus is responding to their unbelief and we see his response in verse 6. Look at what verse 6 says. And he marveled at their unbelief. Now I want to say something. There are only two passages in the Bible where Jesus marvels.

Only two places that I am aware of and correct me if I am wrong. I think this is right. I looked it up but again I could have overlooked something. But I found only two places where Jesus is said to have marveled and it is this and the other place is Matthew chapter 8 verses 5 to 13.

Now in Matthew chapter 8 if you want to go there I just want to show you the difference between what is happening here and what happens in Matthew chapter 8. Go to verse 5. It says in verse 5 when he entered Capernaum a centurion came forward to him appealing to him Lord my servant is lying paralyzed at home suffering terribly and he said to him I will come and heal him.

But the centurion replied Lord I am not worthy to have you come under my roof but only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority with soldiers under me. I say to one go and he goes and to another come and he comes and to my servant do this and he does it.

When Jesus heard this he marveled and said to those who followed him truly I say to you with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth and to the centurion he said go let it be done for you as you have believed and the servant was healed at that very moment. So Jesus marvels in this text but he is not marveling at unbelief.

In this text he is marveling at faith. So the two times we see Christ marvel in the scriptures is first he marvels at faith and that is the centurion what we just read and I love this story I wish I had time to go through it but how the centurion says you don't have to come to my house just say the word.

I have men under me think about what the centurion is saying I have men under me who do what I command even from a distance all you have to do is say the word. That is a level of faith that is really astounding.

We think about and we are going to see at the end of chapter 6 just like at the end of chapter 5 the lady touching the garment the different things people feeling like they had to be close to him feeling like they had to do something.

This guy said if you say the word he will be healed. That level of faith is amazing and it astounded even the Lord. It caused even the Lord to marvel. So Jesus marvels at faith first but then in Mark chapter 6 as we return there we find that he marvels at something else.

He marvels at unbelief. Yes sir? That's right and in the mark it does say he could not. It does come across in Mark as a could not. Did not. Would not or did not. I was trying to find an answer too. In Matthew's gospel it seems like a willful thing and in Mark's gospel it seems like an ability thing.

I don't think it is an ability thing I think it is a choice. I will double check but as I said when I was looking through it I didn't because I was looking for an answer and I thought that very same thing.

I thought maybe it is just an issue of how this is translated. How does the King James going back to Mark 6. How does the King James translate to verse 5? There could do. Now one more thing about this before we go to verse 6 because I want to end.

I know we have run out of time. The other thing to just mention about that because I think I said this last week. Jesus can do anything at any time and we know that because when he was on the water and the waves were crashing around they didn't believe.

They said specifically Master do you not care that we are perishing? They didn't say hey get up and still the storm. They said do you not care that we are perishing? And Jesus got up calmed the wind and the waves and he looked at him and said what?

Oh ye of little faith. So he didn't respond to their big faith at that moment and in verse 5 it says he didn't do many mighty works but he still healed people. Notice what it says at the end. He says except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.

He wasn't without power but he was without motivation. Maybe that is a way to put it. He had power a group of people who were staring at him in unbelief and he marveled at their unbelief in contradistinction to how he marveled at the belief of the centurion.

And so amen. See you are the title man. That is good. Did you have something Rosanna? No. And that is the point I am making. Faith is not required for Jesus to do anything. It wasn't required for him to calm the storm.

It wasn't required. Does God call us to faith? Does God respond to faith? Yes. But the idea is faith required for him to have the ability? No. Here is another proof text if you will. It is not Jesus but it is the apostles.

When they were going to the beautiful gate in the book of Acts there was a man who was there who was lame. Thank you. I couldn't come up with the word. Lame man outside the beautiful gate. And the man was asking for alms which are donations right?

And what did Peter say? Silver and gold have I none but this I say unto you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ rise and walk. That man there is nothing about his faith in that story but at the name of Christ rise and walk.

So the idea that faith is some form of prerequisite to give power to God. And that is what some charismatics have said. I don't know if you have ever heard them say it. But they will say that God is empowered by our faith.

That is the worst kind of blasphemy because it is saying that God needs us to do what he can do. That is right. Lazarus is four days dead by now he stinketh. King James. And that is God's prerogative.

And so when we think of this I definitely don't want us to come away thinking that Jesus is somehow made impotent by lack of faith. But when I say he lacks motivation maybe that is the wrong way of thinking of it because often we think of motivation as an emotional thing.

But Jesus chooses as Brother Andy said what Matthew says probably more clearly is what is here. He is choosing not to because he is not responding to their unbelief. Sure and as I said this is why I have been dealing with it this week as I have prepared.