WWUTT 2162 Jesus Controversies in His Hometown (Mark 6:1-6)

Jesus Is Rejected in Nazareth

In Mark 6, Jesus went back to his hometown to teach. And in this particular section, we see two very controversial subjects regarding Jesus having siblings and also regarding his miracles when we understand the text.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel of Mark, we're on to chapter six today, where Jesus is rejected in his hometown of Nazareth. But we also read in just these few verses at the start of the chapter, two very controversial subjects.

And we'll consider what those two controversies are. Let me read here verses one through six out of the Legacy Standard Bible, hear the word of the Lord. And Jesus went out from there and came into his hometown and his disciples followed him.

And when the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue and many listeners were astonished, saying, where did this man get these things? And what is this wisdom given to this man? And such miracles as these performed by his hands.

Is this man not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us? And they were taking offense at him. And Jesus was saying to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.

And he could do no miracle there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he was marveling at their unbelief and he was going around the villages teaching. So you probably picked up on the two controversial subjects in just these six verses, right?

The first one is the mention of Jesus' siblings and even names his brothers, James and Joseph and Judas and Simon. You're surely familiar with a doctrine called the perpetual virginity of Mary. This is the idea that Mary was a virgin not only when she became pregnant with Jesus, that's a very important doctrine to believe in, the doctrine of the virgin birth, but Mary even remained a virgin after Jesus was born, never consummating her relationship with Joseph.

So if that's the case, then how is it that it could be said here that Jesus has siblings or they would be his half siblings since he was conceived not of the seed of man, but of the seed of the Holy Spirit.

And then you have the names that are given and even his sisters are here with us. So what are we to make of this regarding the controversy surrounding the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity? We'll come to that here in a moment.

And then the second controversy has to do with a statement that's made in verse five. Jesus could do no miracles there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. So how is it that Jesus could do no miracles there?

Because of the people's unbelief. So if we don't believe, then we're not gonna see a miracle. And maybe the reason why we haven't seen a miracle is because we just don't believe hard enough. So we'll consider that controversy as well.

Jesus' Hometown, Family, and Trade

Let's come back to the start of the chapter, verse one. Jesus went out from there and came into his hometown and his disciples followed him. Nazareth would have been a very small town. It was of course in Galilee.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary and Jesus fled Bethlehem to get away from the tyranny of Herod. And they went to the Alexandrian settlement in Egypt. And then when it was heard that Herod the Great had died, Joseph brings Mary and Jesus back into the land and they settle in Nazareth, which was the town where Joseph and Mary were before Caesar gave the edict regarding the census.

And they had to travel from Nazareth down to Bethlehem. So here they are back in Nazareth. And this was where Jesus lived and grew up and learned the trade of his father at the end of Luke two, it says that Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature.

And as Joseph was his earthly father, so he learned the trade of his earthly father, which was carpentry. Now, typically when we think of carpentry, we think of it being working with wood, but in this particular case, carpentry in first century, small towns in Judah and Galilee, carpentry was working with any material, any material that would have been common to that particular area.

So Jesus may have been skilled, not just in wood, but even in stone and possibly also metal. Local blacksmith could be considered also the town carpenter. So these were some of the trades that Jesus had learned as the son, a son of Joseph.

And that's how the people identify him as the carpenter. So we go on here in verse two, when the Sabbath came, Jesus began to teach in the synagogue, very common on Sabbath days, which would have been Saturday, for the people to go to the synagogue and hear the word taught, just like we might go to church on Sunday, which is the Lord's day and hear the word preached.

So the people would do this going to the local synagogue whenever the Sabbath rolled around. So they're listening to Jesus teach and they are amazed by what it is that he's teaching. Many listeners were astonished saying, where did this man get these things?

And what is this wisdom given to this man? And such miracles as these performed by his hands. Now they knew because they knew Jesus and they knew his family. They knew that Jesus was a carpenter. They knew that he didn't go off to synagogue seminary, whatever they would have called it back in the time and learned all of the important things regarding the scriptures so that he had all this wisdom.

He was well-educated. No, he was from Galilee and worked as a carpenter. So how is it that he is so articulate and knowledgeable of the things that he is talking about? And then they go on to name members of his family.

Is this man not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us? And they were taking offense at him. So as said, this is a common passage used to show that Mary was not a perpetual virgin, but that she did indeed have other children with Joseph, which would be considered the half siblings of Jesus.

How true is this? It's not just common among Roman Catholics, although we typically think of that doctrine as being specific to Roman Catholicism. The Greek Orthodox also believe it. The Anglicans also believe it.

And there are even some Protestants that believe it. John Wesley, who was the father of Methodism, the Wesleyan denomination, even the Nazarenes would credit John Wesley's theology for their denomination.

Wesley also believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. But how can someone stand on that position firmly when it's plainly stated here that Jesus has half siblings, naming even his brothers and mentioning his sisters?

Let me go to something here. I teased this out a few weeks ago when we had read previously of Jesus' mother and brothers and sisters that had come to him and wanted to see him. And I said, I was gonna wait to talk about the perpetual virginity of Mary until we got to this section here in chapter six.

So let me play this account, this video, by a fellow named Dr. Brant Petrie, who's written quite extensively on Marian dogmas in the Roman Catholic Church. And he makes this apologetic regarding Jesus having half siblings in defense of the perpetual virginity of Mary.

Listen to this, and I'll kind of interrupt as we go here and add some commentary.

Well, here's a question that is typical. Ryan asks, well, why do Catholics believe that Mary is a perpetual virgin when it mentions Jesus' siblings, Jesus has brothers and sisters?

Yeah, so I have a, this is one of my favorite chapters in the book, there's a whole chapter just on that question with a specific focus on the perpetual virginity of Mary and the brothers of Jesus. So I can't do it justice in a nutshell here.

But let me put it this way. In brief, many Catholics will rightly respond by saying that in ancient Greek and in Hebrew, the word brother did not only mean a uterine brother, like the son of the same mother.

Yeah, well, like Lot in Genesis is a nephew,.

But he's called Adelphos.

Exactly, Genesis 14, he does that. So he calls him brother. But many times that will seem like kind of special pleading to our non-Catholic friends because they'll look at Mark chapter six, where it mentions the brothers of Jesus, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas.

And it mentions his sisters in the context of saying, hey, isn't this the son of Mary? And these are his brothers and sisters. And don't we know them? Who is this guy who's coming and performing these works?

So they'll say, well, in context, it looks like these people are the brothers of Jesus. So I think it's not enough to just say that the word brother could mean cousin. What you have to actually show is if you read Mark's gospel in context, it is the best proof for those guys not being his brothers, but being his cousins.

Because if you fast forward to Mark 15, the same two guys, James and Joseph, who are called the brothers of Jesus in Mark six, are later identified in Mark as the sons of a woman named Mary, but who is called the other Mary, right?

Not the mother of Jesus. So in other words, the gospel themselves tell you that the brothers of Jesus are the children of another woman named Mary, who's at the foot of the cross, right? And who John's gospel in chapter 19 identifies as Mary, the wife of Clopas.

Okay, so let me stop there. Now he's making some connections here that scripture actually doesn't make. So he's trying to say the scripture plainly says this, but it really doesn't. That name Joseph is only used in Mark's gospel.

Mark six three, as we read about it here, the name comes up again in Mark 15 40 and in verse 47. So here's Mark 15 40, talking about Jesus hanging on the cross. There were some women looking on from a distance among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the less and Joseph and Salome.

And then in verse 47 and Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph were looking on to see where he had been laid. So we have James and Joseph, Judas and Simon mentioned in Mark six three. We have Mary the mother of James the less and Joseph in Mark 15 40.

And then Mark 15 47, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph were looking on to see where he had been laid. But there's nothing there that plainly says that Mary the mother of Joseph is also Mary the wife of Clopas.

That name Clopas comes up only once and that's in John 19 25. Therefore the soldiers did these things but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene.

But nowhere there does it say that Mary the wife of Clopas was also Mary the mother of James and Joseph. Mark does not ever mention another Mary as another Mary. It appears as if Mark only ever mentions Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus.

So you get to Mark 16 one and when the Sabbath passed, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought spices so that they might come and anoint him. We also know that Mary was at the foot of the cross of Jesus and in Mark's gospel, he never mentions that the Mary that is at the cross of Christ is specifically Jesus' mother.

So Mary the mother of Jesus is not said in that way in that term in Mark 15, though we know Jesus' mother was there at the foot of the cross because as said in John's gospel, he assigns John to take care of his mother Mary who is there seeing him die as he hangs there on the cross.

So again, I'm just kind of mentioning this because we're kind of connecting the dots, trying to understand how the arguments go with regards to this controversial passage, like I said. And so again, what we heard there from Dr. Petrie, he was making some connections that the scriptures really don't make.

Now I will say that this is not an essential matter. It is necessary for us to believe that Mary was a virgin when she became pregnant with Jesus because Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit. He was without sin because he was not conceived of the seed of man.

So it is an essential doctrine for us to believe in the virgin birth, but you don't have to settle on Mary being a virgin after Jesus' birth or not being a virgin. That is a matter that we can agree to disagree on.

I will say though that this doctrine is born out of a misunderstanding of sexuality, as though sex is something gross, as though it makes someone unclean. And we want to think of Mary as pure. So we have to reject the fact that she ever would have consummated her marriage with Joseph, even though it says in Matthew 1 .25 that Joseph kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son and called his name Jesus.

So there seems to be all indication there in Matthew's gospel that they did eventually consummate their marriage, but it wasn't until after Jesus was born. Mary is no less pure, is no less a godly woman, just because she consummated her marriage with her husband and had other children with him.

That would not make Mary any less pure, but for whatever reason, we kind of have this concept, which is a wrong understanding of human sexuality, to think that Mary is a better person, is a more pure person, is a better representative of a godly woman if we say that she perpetually remained a virgin after Jesus was born.

Well, then she would be in disobedience if that is the case, because as Paul makes the point in 1 Corinthians 7, a man's body is no longer his own, but belongs to his wife. A wife's body is no longer her own, but belongs to her husband, and each one should give to one another their conjugal rights.

So Mary would withhold that from Joseph just so we can feel a little bit better about the holiness of Mary? That just, the whole doctrine itself is built on a bad premise. It is unnecessary to believe that Mary was perpetually a virgin, but as I'm pointing out here, there's really not the biblical evidence for it.

And there's no reason for us to believe that these men who are mentioned here by name are actually Jesus' cousins and not his brothers, because the context is really quite plain. Is this not the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?

And they were taking offense at him. And then Jesus responds to them saying, a prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household. So this is, you know, Jesus speaking to the fact that these people think they know me.

They think they've gotten me figured out. So why would they be impressed or convicted by the words of a prophet? Which Jesus was certainly a prophet. He was more than that, but indeed he was a prophet.

Why would they be motivated by his words? Because they think they know this man. He's not speaking anything great. I used to play in the dirt with this guy. So there's nothing special about him. Why should I be so impressed by his words?

They saw him doing miracles. And it says, how does he do such miracles as these performed by his hands? They saw him doing miracles, and yet they didn't believe that it was anything spectacular because they don't think any more of this man than that kid that used to run down that street over there and laugh and play with the other kids in the neighborhood.

That's who we know that kid to be. And so it says in verse five, he could do no miracle there except that he had laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. Now here's that other controversial passage with people saying of this verse that because the people in Nazareth did not have enough faith, Jesus could do no miracle.

He was prevented from doing a miracle. Even guys like Stephen Furtick, false teacher, but Stephen Furtick has said things like, if you don't believe God, then he can't do the miracle in your life. So you have to have faith or you're never gonna see a miracle.

You're never gonna see God do anything. But that's not what is meant by this, by saying he could do no miracle there except lay, and then look at the next part, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.

Clearly he did do miracles there. So it's not that his power is gone and he has no ability to do a miracle because people don't believe in him hard enough. It's like, you know, the Peter Pan thing. If you say, I don't believe in fairies, then somewhere a fairy falls down dead and you have to clap your hands and say, I believe in fairies in order to bring the fairy back to life.

That's what this sounds like. If you say that you don't believe in miracles, well, you're not gonna see a miracle. Jesus doesn't have any power to do a miracle because you won't believe in him. Well, clearly he did do miracles because number one, the people said that they saw him do miracles.

And then number two, it says that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. So what does it mean then to read that he could do no miracle there? It means that he could do no miracle that would convince them.

Because that goes in the context of what it just said, what Jesus just said. A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household. And he could do no miracle there.

In other words, he can't do any kind of miracle that's gonna convince them of anything since they had already made up their minds, since their hearts were hard and they weren't interested, though they had even seen miracles, they weren't interested in hearing any more from him.

And so therefore, what could he do that would convince them otherwise? So he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. Those that did believe, those on whom Jesus did have compassion. And then in the next portion, verse six, and he was marveling at their unbelief.

Now, it's not as if it is being said here that Jesus is like surprised by this in the sense that he thinks you should be believing in me, but you're not. Really, you're not?

What?

I didn't see that coming. You know, it's not as if that's Jesus' reaction, but marveling at their unbelief is also to say that he was extremely disappointed in them, that he was angry at them, even in a certain sense, because they would not believe.

This is what is meant by marveling at their unbelief. Because as said earlier, the people marveled at Jesus. They were astonished, saying, where did this man get these things? So Jesus marveled at their unbelief as though to be heartbroken over the fact that this people would not believe.

They were not impressed with him because he had grown up among them. But he is heartbroken about them because these are the people that he grew up around. And he would hope that they, most of all, would even come to the knowledge of who he is, even after his teaching in the synagogue.

But he marvels at the fact that they continue to be so hard-hearted and are unwilling to repent and believe. And so it says, last portion of verse six, he was going around the villages teaching. The circuit that he was on, he went into those other villages and taught there because the people in his own hometown would not accept him, but rather rejected him.

That's a pattern that we see pretty regularly. Jesus teaches Nicodemus, who won't believe that he is the son of God. So he goes to Sychar in Samaria and teaches the woman at the well, and she believes that he is the Messiah.

So where the people will not accept him, he will go to those who will, preaching the message of the kingdom and in his mercy, healing the sick and curing them of their diseases. And as I said yesterday, the cure that we need is Christ.

You and I are sin sick, and we need to be cured of our diseases, which only Christ can do. And it is only by believing in him that we can know that kind of cleansing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ that washes away our sin, that opens our eyes to the reality of our sin and our need for a savior, and that Christ is that savior.

So Jesus healed those who had faith. He walked away from those who did not. And we can know that our sins are forgiven and we have fellowship with him because we have faith in Jesus. Let's finish there.

We'll come back into our study of Mark 6 tomorrow. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we have read here. And I pray that we would not be those who are so unbelieving, but that we would recognize what the scriptures say about Jesus, about the son that was given for the forgiveness of sins, the lamb who has come to take away the sin of the world.

And if we believe in Jesus and we've been forgiven our sins, help us to walk in that forgiveness, not going back to those dead works for which Christ died, but instead we turn from them and in the righteousness of Christ, desiring to live godly and holy lives in this present day.

So lead us in these things, convict our hearts where we need to be convicted. May we not be so hard-hearted, but receptive to your correction that we may be sanctified and prepared for that day of Christ.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.

Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.

Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word when we understand the text.