Mark 6 commentary

MARK 6 COMMENTARY
A Prophet Without Honor
1 Jesus left there and went to his hometown,
accompanied by his disciples.
GILL, "And he went out from thence,.... From Capernaum;
and came into his own country; or "city", as the Syriac, Arabic, Persic, and
Ethiopic versions read, the city of Nazareth; so called because it was the place where
Christ was conceived, and where he was educated; for which he had a regard, and
was willing it should partake of the benefit of his doctrine and miracles:
and his disciples follow him; as they did wherever he went; and which is a true
characteristic of a disciple of Jesus.
HENRY, "Here, I. Christ makes a visit to his own country, the place not of his
birth, but of his education; that was Nazareth; where his relations were. He had been
in danger of his life among them (Luk_4:29), and yet he came among them again; so
strangely doth he wait to be gracious, and seek the salvation of his enemies. Whither
he went, though it was into danger, his disciples followed him (Mar_6:1); for they
had left all, to follow him whithersoever he went.
JAMIESON, "Mar_6:1-6. Christ rejected at Nazareth. ( = Mat_13:54-58; Luk_
4:16-30).
See on Luk_4:16-30.
COFFMAN, "Events related in Mark 6 are: (1) rejection of Jesus at Nazareth
(Mark 6:1-6); (2) sending forth of the Twelve (Mark 6:7-13); (3) the beheading of
John the Baptist (Mark 6:14-29); (4) the feeding of the five thousand (Mark
6:30-44); (5) walking on the sea (Mark 6:45-52); and (6) preaching and healing in
Gennesaret (Mark 6:53-56).
JESUS REJECTED AT NAZARETH
And he went out from thence: and he cometh into his own country; and his
disciples follow him. (Mark 6:1)
His own country ... refers to Nazareth, located some fifteen miles from
Capernaum. That was the home of Joseph and Mary; there Jesus grew up; and
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from its name the Lord came to be called a "Nazarene" (Matthew 2:23; Mark
1:24). "It derives its celebrity from its connection with the history of Christ.[1]
Mark did not name Nazareth in this verse but used a more general term, "his
own country," thus including numerous villages throughout the area (Mark 6:6).
His disciples follow him ... This indicates that the Twelve accompanied Jesus and
contrasts with only three of them witnessing the raising of Jairus' daughter
(Mark 5:37).
ENDNOTE:
[1] C. E. W. Dorris, The Gospel according to Mark (Nashville: The Gospel
Advocate Company. 1970), p. 138.
BARCLAY, "WITHOUT HONOR IN HIS OWN COUNTRY (Mark 6:1-6)
6:1-6 Jesus left there and came into his own native place, and his disciples went
with him. When the Sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue. Many, as
they listened, were amazed. "Where," they said, "did this man get this
knowledge? What wisdom is this that has been given to him? And how can such
wonderful things keep happening through his hands? Is not this the carpenter,
Mary's son, the brother of James and Joses and Judah and Simon? Are his
sisters not here with us?" And they took offence at him. So Jesus said to them,
"A prophet is not without honour except in his own native place, and amongst
his own kinsmen and in his own family." And he was not able to do any
wonderful deeds there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and
healed them. And he was amazed by their unwillingness to believe. He made a
tour of the villages teaching.
When Jesus came to Nazareth he put himself to a very severe test. He was
coming to his home town; and there are no severer critics of any man than those
who have known him since his boyhood. It was never meant to be a private visit
simply to see his old home and his own people. He came attended by his disciples.
That is to say he came as a Rabbi. The Rabbis moved about the country
accompanied by their little circle of disciples, and it was as a teacher, with his
disciples, that Jesus came.
He went into the synagogue and he taught. His teaching was greeted not with
wonder but with a kind of contempt. "They took offence at him." They were
scandalised that a man who came from a background like Jesus should say and
do things such as he. Familiarity had bred a mistaken contempt.
They refused to listen to what he had to say for two reasons.
(i) They said, "Is not this the carpenter?" The word used for carpenter is tekton
(Greek #5045). Now tekton (Greek #5045) does mean a worker in wood, but it
means more than merely a joiner. It means a craftsman. In Homer the tekton
(Greek #5045) is said to build ships and houses and temples. In the old days, and
still to-day in many places, there could be found in little towns and villages a
craftsman who would build you anything from a chicken-coop to a house; the
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kind of man who could build a wall, mend a roof, repair a gate; the craftsman,
the handy-man, who with few or no instruments and with the simplest tools
could turn his hand to any job. That is what Jesus was like. But the point is that
the people of Nazareth despised Jesus because he was a working-man. He was a
man of the people, a layman. a simple man--and therefore they despised him.
One of the leaders of the Labour movement was that great soul Will Crooks. He
was born into a home where one of his earliest recollections was seeing his
mother crying because she had no idea where the next meal was to come from.
He started work in a blacksmith's shop at five shillings a week. He became a fine
craftsman and one of the bravest and straightest men who ever lived. He entered
municipal politics and became the first Labour Mayor of any London borough.
There were people who were offended when Will Crooks became Mayor of
Poplar. In a crowd one day a lady said with great disgust, "They've made that
common fellow, Crooks, Mayor, and he's no better than a working man." A man
in the crowd--Will Crooks himself--turned round and raised his hat. "Quite
right, madam," he said. "I am not better than a working man."
The people of Nazareth despised Jesus because he was a working man. To us that
is his glory, because it means that God, when he came to earth, claimed no
exemptions. He took upon himself the common life with all its common tasks.
The accidents of birth and fortune and pedigree have nothing to do with
manhood. As Pope had it,
"Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunello."
As Burns had it,
"A prince can mak' a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a'that!
But an honest man's aboon his might--
Guid faith, he mauna fa'that!
For a'that, an'a'that,
Their dignities an'a'that,
The pith o' sense an'pride o'worth
Are higher rank than a'that."
We must ever beware of the temptation to evaluate men by externals and
incidentals, and not by native worth.
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(ii) They said, "Is not this Mary's son? Do we not know his brothers and his
sisters?" The fact that they called Jesus Mary's son tells us that Joseph must
have been dead. Therein we have the key to one of the enigmas of Jesus' life.
Jesus was only thirty-three when he died; and yet he did not leave Nazareth until
he was thirty. (Luke 3:23.) Why this long delay? Why this lingering in Nazareth
while a world waited to be saved? The reason was that Joseph died young and
Jesus took upon himself the support of his mother and of his brothers and
sisters; and only when they were old enough to fend for themselves did he go
forth. He was faithful in little, and therefore in the end God gave him much to
do.
But the people of Nazareth despised him because they knew his family. Thomas
Campbell was a very considerable poet. His father had no sense of poetry at all.
When Thomas' first book emerged with his name on it, he sent a copy to his
father. The old man took it up and looked at it. It was really the binding and not
the contents at all that he was looking at. "Who would have thought," he said in
wonder, "that our Tom could have made a book like that?" Sometimes when
familiarity should breed a growing respect it breeds an increasing and easy-
going familiarity. Sometimes we are too near people to see their greatness.
The result of all this was that Jesus could do no mighty works in Nazareth. The
atmosphere was wrong; and there are some things that cannot be done unless the
atmosphere is right.
(i) It is still true that no man can be healed if he refuses to be healed. Margot
Asquith tells of the death of Neville Chamberlain. Everyone knows how that
man's policy turned out in such a way that it broke his heart. Margot Asquith
met his doctor, Lord Horder. "You can't be much of a doctor," she said, "as
Neville Chamberlain was only a few years older than Winston Churchill, and I
should have said he was a strong man. Were you fond of him?" Lord Horder
replied, "I was very fond of him. I like all unlovable men. I have seen too many
of the other kind. Chamberlain suffered from shyness. He did not want to live;
and when a man says that, no doctor can save him." We may call it faith; we
may call it the will to live; but without it no man can survive.
(ii) There can be no preaching in the wrong atmosphere. Our churches would be
different places if congregations would only remember that they preach far more
than half the sermon. In an atmosphere of expectancy the poorest effort can
catch fire. In an atmosphere of critical coldness or bland indifference, the most
Spirit-packed utterance can fall lifeless to the earth.
(iii) There can be no peace-making in the wrong atmosphere. If men have come
together to hate, they will hate. If men have come together to refuse to
understand, they will misunderstand. If men have come together to see no other
point of view but their own, they will see no other. But if men have come
together, loving Christ and seeking to love each other, even those who are most
widely separated can come together in him.
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There is laid on us the tremendous responsibility that we can either help or
hinder the work of Jesus Christ. We can open the door wide to him--or we can
slam it in his face.
BURKITT, "Our blessed Saviour having in the former chapter wrought two
famous miracles, in curing a woman of her bloody issue, and raising Jairus's
daughter from death, we find him here in the beginning of this chapter passing
into his own country, that is, the city of Nazareth in Galilee, called his own city
and country, because he was there conceived, there brought up; there Joseph
and Mary, and his kindred dwelt, and Christ with them, duting his private life,
which was till he was thirty years of age.
Now our Saviour being come into his own country; observe, 1. What his
employment was: he preached in their synagogues, and held communion with the
Jewish church, although she had many corruptions in her.
Teaching us, by his example, not to desert and forsake the communion of such a
church, in which there is found neither heretical doctrine nor idolatrous
worship, although many things be found in her culpable and blame-worthy. The
Jewish church was certainly such, and yet our Saviour maintained not occasional
only, but constant communion with her.
Observe, 2. The influence and effect which our Saviour's preaching had upon his
own countrymen, the people of Nazareth: it did work admiration in them, but
not faith; they were astonished, but did not believe. Men may be mightily moved
and affected by the word, and yet may never be converted by it: the men of
Nazareth wondered, and yet were offended: they did not believe in him, but were
offended at him.
Observe, 3. The ground and cause of this their offence, and that was, the
meanness of his extraction, and the poverty of his condition: Is not this the
carpenter?
From whence the ancient fathers, particularly Justin Martyr, concluded, that
our Saviour did work at his father Joseph's trade during his father's life, and
thence was called the carpenter's son; and when Joseph was dead, (which was
before Christ was thirty years old, when he entered upon his public office,) he
was then called the carpenter.
The ancients say, he spent his time in making ploughs and yokes, and that thence
it was he drew so many similitudes in his preaching from the yoke and the
plough. This we are sure of, that our Lord lived not thirty years before his
manifestation idly and unprofitably. It is most probable that he followed his
father's calling, and wrought under him it being said, that he was subject to him,
Luke 2:15, as a child to a parent and as a servant to his master.
Add to this, that it seems not only true, but requisite, that Christ should be of
some trade, because by the Jewish canons all fathers were bound to teach their
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children some trade: doubtless our Lord, during his private life, did give no
example of idleness. Indeed, after he entered upon his prophetic office, he no
longer followed Joseph's calling, but applied himself wholly to the work of the
ministry: he made no more ploughs, but one to break up hard hearts; no more
yokes, but one for the devil's neck. However, in regard to our Savior's low
extraction and mean education, his countrymen were offended at him.
Learn hence, That the poverty and meanness of Christ's condition, was that
which multitudes stumbled at, and which kept many, yea most, from believing on
him. None but a spiritual eye can discern beauty in a humbled and abased
Saviour.
Learn, 2. That it is the property and practice of profane men to take occasion,
from the outward quality and condition of God's ministers, both to despise their
persons, and to reject their doctrine.
Observe, 4. The reason assigned by our Saviour why the men of Nazareth
despised him and set him at nought, because he was their countryman and
acquaintance: their familiarity bred contempt. Teaching us, That very often the
faithful ministers of God are most contemned and dishonoured where they are
most familiarly known. Sometimes the remembrance of their mean original and
extraction, sometimes the poverty of their parents' condition, sometimes the
indecencies of their childhood, sometimes the follies of their youth, are ripped
up; all which are occasions of contempt, and gave ground for this proverbial
saying, That a prophet is not without honour save in his own country. Which,
like other proverbial speeches, holds true in the general, and that for the most
part it is so, but it is not universally true in all persons and cases.
However, this good use may be made of our Saviour's observation, to teach his
ministers to be wise in conversing with their people, not to make themselves
cheap and common in every company, not too familiar with all sorts of persons,
nor to be light and vain in any company; for this will certainly breed contempt,
both of their persons and ministry.
Our duty is, by strictness and gravity of deportment, to maintain our esteem in
the consciences of our people, and to temper gravity with condescending
affability. That minister who prostitutes his authority, frustrates the end of his
ministry, and is the occasion of his own contempt.
Observe, 5. How this people's contempt of Christ's person, and unbelief of his
doctrine, did hinder Christ from working miracles among them: He could do no
mighty works there. Not because he was unable, but because they were
unwilling. Not as if their infidelity abated his divine power, but they were
unprepared to receive any benefit by him; his miracles would have been cast
away upon such inconvincible persons. Who will sow upon barren sands, or
water dead plants?
It was an act of justice in Christ to deprive the Pharisees of those advantages
which they had so long resisted. Christ had a natural ability to do mighty works
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there, but no moral ability. He could not do it honourably, their unbelief was a
moral hinderance; so then this inability proceeded from no deficiency in Christ's
power, but from a defect in their faith. he could not, because he would not; and
he would not, because it was not fit for him so to do.
Although Christ be omnipotent, and has all power in his hands, yet unbelief
binds his hands, and hinders him in the execution of that power. Unbelief is such
a sin, as keeps men from being partakers of the benefits of Christ.
Observe, 6. How the incredulity and unbelief of this people was so great, that
Christ wondered at it: He marvelled because of their unbelief. Not because he
was ignorant of the cause of it, but because he had used such marvellous means
for the curing them of their unbelief.
Learn hence, That unbelief is a great sin at all times; but when marvels are
wrought for the cure and healing of it, and it remains uncured, it is a marvellous
sin, and justly causes admiration and wonder in Christ himself: He marvelled
because of their unbelief.
BENSON, "Mark 6:1-6. And he came into his own country, &c. — For an
explanation of this paragraph, see the notes on Matthew 13:53-58. Is not this the
carpenter’s son? — There can be no doubt that Jesus in his youth wrought with
his supposed father Joseph. He could there do no mighty work — Not
consistently with his wisdom and goodness; it being inconsistent with his wisdom
to work miracles there, where he knew the prejudices of the people would
certainly prevent any good effect they might otherwise have had in promoting
the great end he had in view in coming into the world; and with his goodness,
seeing that he well knew his countrymen would reject whatever evidence could
be given them of his being the Messiah, or a divinely-commissioned teacher. And,
therefore, to have given them greater evidence would only have increased their
guilt and condemnation. And he marvelled because of their unbelief — He
wondered at their perverseness in rejecting him upon such unreasonable
grounds as the meanness of his parentage. It is justly observed here by Dr.
Macknight, that
“the Jews in general seem to have mistaken their own prophecies, when they
expected the Messiah would exalt their nation to the highest pitch of wealth and
power, for this was an end unworthy of so grand an interposition of Providence.
When the eternal Son of God came down from heaven, he had something
infinitely more noble in view: namely, that by suffering and dying he might
destroy him who had the power of death; that by innumerable benefits he might
overcome his enemies; that by the bands of truth he might restrain the rebellious
motions of men’s wills; that by the sword of the Spirit he might slay the monsters
of their lusts; and that by giving them the spiritual armour he might put them in
a condition to fight for the incorruptible inheritance, and exalt them to the joyful
possession of the riches and honours of immortality. Wherefore, as these
characters of the Messiah were in a great measure unknown to the Jews, he who
possessed them was not the object of their expectation. And, though he laid claim
to their submission by the most stupendous miracles, instead of convincing them,
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these miracles made him who performed them obnoxious to the hottest
resentment of that proud, covetous, sensual people. It seems they could not bear
to see one so low in life as Jesus was, doing things which they fancied were
peculiar to that idol of their vanity, a glorious, triumphant, secular Messiah. Our
Lord, therefore, having made this second trial with a view to see whether the
Nazarenes would endure his ministry, and to show to the world that his not
residing with them was owing to their stubbornness and wickedness, he left
them, and visited the towns and villages in the neighbourhood where he expected
to find a more favourable reception. Thus the unbelief of these Nazarenes
obstructed Christ’s miracles, deprived them of his preaching, and caused him to
withdraw a second time from their town. In which example the evil and
punishment of mis-improving spiritual advantages, is clearly set forth before all
who hear the
CONSTABLE, "Mark mentioned the disciples' presence with Jesus, but
Matthew omitted that detail. Mark evidently recorded this incident because it
constituted another occasion of discipleship training, a particular concern of
Mark's in this section of his Gospel. Jesus visited Nazareth as a rabbi preparing
His disciples for their ministry. This was the second rejection in Nazareth that
the synoptic writers documented. The first one came when Jesus left Nazareth to
establish His base of operations in Capernaum (Matthew 4:13; Luke 4:16-31).
SBC, "I. Christian doctrine applicable to all classes of men.
II. Christian doctrine calculated to excite the profoundest surprise.
III. Christian doctrine always conveying the impression of unique power.
IV. Christian doctrine showing the magnificence of the personality of its teachers.
Parker, City Temple, 1871, p. 95.
MACLAREN, "THE MASTER REJECTED: THE SERVANTS SENT FORTH
An easy day’s journey would carry Jesus and His followers from Capernaum, on the
lake-side, to Nazareth, among the hills. What took our Lord back there? When last
He taught in the synagogue of Nazareth, His life had been in danger; and now He
thrusts Himself into the wolf’s den. Why? Mark seems to wish us to observe the
connection between this visit and the great group of miracles which he has just
recorded; and possibly the link may be our Lord’s hope that the report of these might
have preceded Him and prepared His way. In His patient long-suffering He will give
His fellow-villagers another chance; and His heart yearns for ‘His own country,’ and
‘His own kin,’ and ‘His own house,’ of which He speaks so pathetically in the context.
I. We have here unbelief born of familiarity, and its effects on Christ
(Mar_6:1 - Mar_6:6).
Observe the characteristic avoidance of display, and the regard for existing means of
worship, shown in His waiting till the Sabbath, and then resorting to the synagogue.
He and His hearers would both remember His last appearance in it; and He and they
would both remember many a time before that, when, as a youth, He had sat there.
The rage which had exploded on His first sermon has given place to calmer, but not
less bitter, opposition. Mark paints the scene, and represents the hearers as
discussing Jesus while He spoke. The decorous silence of the synagogue was broken
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by a hubbub of mutual questions. ‘Many’ spoke at once, and all had the same thing to
say. The state of mind revealed is curious. They own Christ’s wisdom in His teaching,
and the reality of His miracles, of which they had evidently heard; but the fact that
He was one of themselves made them angry that He should have such gifts, and
suspicious of where He had got them. They seem to have had the same opinion as
Nathanael-that no ‘good thing’ could ‘come out of Nazareth.’ Their old companion
could not be a prophet; that was certain. But He had wisdom and miraculous power;
that was as certain. Where had they come from? There was only one other source;
and so, with many headshakings, they were preparing to believe that the Jesus whom
they had all known, living His quiet life of labour among them, was in league with the
devil, rather than believe that He was a messenger from God.
We note in their questions, first, the glimpse of our Lord’s early life. They bring
before us the quiet, undistinguished home and the long years of monotonous labour.
We owe to Mark alone the notice that Jesus actually wrought at Joseph’s handicraft.
Apparently the latter was dead, and, if so, Jesus would be the head of the house, and
probably the ‘breadwinner.’ One of the fathers preserves the tradition that He ‘made
plows and yokes, by which He taught the symbols of righteousness and an active life.’
That good father seems to think it needful to find symbolical meanings, in order to
save Christ’s dignity; but the prose fact that He toiled at the carpenter’s bench, and
handled hammer and saw, needs nothing to heighten its value as a sign of His true
participation in man’s lot, and as the hallowing of manual toil. How many weary
arms have grasped their tools with new vigour and contentment when they thought
of Him as their Pattern in their narrow toils! The Nazarenes’ difficulty was but one
case of a universal tendency. Nobody finds it easy to believe that some village child,
who has grown up beside him, and whose undistinguished outside life he knows, has
turned out a genius or a great man. The last people to recognise a prophet are always
his kindred and his countrymen. ‘Far-away birds have fine feathers.’ Men resent it as
a kind of slight on themselves that the other, who was one of them but yesterday,
should be so far above them to-day. They are mostly too blind to look below the
surface, and they conclude that, because they saw so much of the external life, they
knew the man that lived it. The elders of Nazareth had seen Jesus grow up, and to
them He would be ‘the carpenter’s son’ still. The more important people had known
the humbleness of His home, and could not adjust themselves to look up to Him,
instead of down. His equals in age would find their boyish remembrances too strong
for accepting Him as a prophet. All of them did just what the most of us would have
done, when they took it for certain that the Man whom they had known so well, as
they fancied, could not be a prophet, to say nothing of the Messiah so long looked for.
It is easy to blame them; but it is better to learn the warning in their words, and to
take care that we are not blind to some true messenger of God just because we have
been blessed with close companionship with him. Many a household has had to wait
for death to take away the prophet before they discern him. Some of us entertain
‘angels unawares,’ and have bitterly to feel, when too late, that our eyes were holden
that we should not know them.
These questions bring out strongly what we too often forget in estimating Christ’s
contemporaries-namely, that His presence among them, in the simplicity of His
human life, was a positive hindrance to their seeing His true character. We
sometimes wish that we had seen Him, and heard His voice. We should have found it
more difficult to believe in Him if we had. ‘His flesh’ was a ‘veil’ in other sense than
the Epistle to the Hebrews means; for, by reason of men’s difficulty in piercing
beneath it, it hid from many what it was meant and fitted to reveal. Only eyes purged
beheld the glory of ‘the Word’ become flesh when it ‘dwelt among us’-and even they
saw Him more clearly when they saw Him no more. Let us not be too hard on these
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simple Nazarenes, but recognise our kith and kin.
The facts on which the Nazarenes grounded their unbelief are really irrefragable
proof of Christ’s divinity. Whence had this man His wisdom and mighty works? Born
in that humble home, reared in that secluded village, shut out from the world’s
culture, buried, as it were, among an exclusive and abhorred people, how came He to
tower above all teachers, and to sway the world? ‘With whom took He counsel? and
who instructed Him, and taught Him?’ The character and work of Christ, compared
with the circumstances of His origin and environment, are an insoluble riddle, except
on one supposition-that He was the word and power of God.
The effects of this unbelief on our Lord were twofold. It limited His power. Matthew
says that ‘He did not many mighty works.’ Mark goes deeper, and boldly days ‘He
could not.’ It is mistaken jealousy for Christ’s honour to seek to pare down the strong
words. The atmosphere of chill unbelief froze the stream. The power was there, but it
required for its exercise some measure of moral susceptibility. His miraculous energy
followed, in general, the same law as His higher exercise of saving grace does; that is
to say, it could not force itself upon unwilling men. Christ ‘cannot’ save a man who
does not trust Him. He was hampered in the outflow of His healing power by
unsympathetic disparagement and unbelief. Man can thwart God. Faith opens the
door, and unbelief shuts it in His face. He ‘would have gathered,’ but they ‘would
not,’ and therefore He ‘could not.’
The second effect of unbelief on Him was that He ‘marvelled.’ He is twice recorded to
have wondered-once at a Gentile’s faith, once at His townsmen’s unbelief. He
wondered at the first because it showed so unusual a susceptibility; at the second,
because it showed so unreasonable a blindness. All sin is a wonder to eyes that see
into the realities of things and read the end; for it is all utterly unreasonable (though
it is, alas! not unaccountable) and suicidal. ‘Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this.’
Unbelief in Christ is, by Himself, declared to be the very climax of sin, and its most
flagrant evidence (Joh_16:9); and of all the instances of unbelief which saddened His
heart, none struck more chill than that of these Nazarenes. They had known His pure
youth; He might have reckoned on some touch of sympathy and predisposition to
welcome Him. His wonder is the measure of His pain as well as of their sin.
Nor need we wonder that He wondered; for He was true man, and all human
emotions were His. To one who lives ever in the Father’s bosom, what can seem so
strange as that men should prefer homeless exposedness and dreary loneliness? To
one whose eyes ever behold unseen realities, what so marvellous as men’s blindness?
To one who knew so assuredly His own mission and rich freightage of blessing, how
strange it must have been that He found so few to accept His gifts! Jesus knew that
bitter wonder which all men who have a truth to proclaim which the world has not
learned, have to experience-the amazement at finding it so hard to get any others to
see what they see. In His manhood, He shared the fate of all teachers, who have, in
their turn, to marvel at men’s unbelief.
II. The new instrument which Christ fashions to cope with unbelief.
What does Jesus do when thus ‘wounded in the house of His friends’? Give way to
despondency? No; but meekly betake Himself to yet obscurer fields of service, and
send out the Twelve to prepare His way, as if He thought that they might have
success where He would fail. What a lesson for people who are always hankering
after conspicuous ‘spheres,’ and lamenting that their gifts are wasted in some
obscure corner, is that picture of Jesus, repulsed from Nazareth, patiently turning to
the villages! The very summary account of the trial mission of the Twelve here given
presents only the salient points of the charge to them, and in its condensation makes
these the more emphatic. Note the interesting statement that they were sent out two-
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and-two. The other Evangelists do not tell us this, but their lists of the Apostles are
arranged in pairs. Mark’s list is not so arranged, but he supplies the reason for the
arrangement, which he does not follow; and the other Gospels, by their arrangement,
confirm his statement, which they do not give. Two-and-two is a wise rule for all
Christian workers. It checks individual peculiarities of self-will, helps to keep off
faults, wholesomely stimulates, strengthens faith by giving another to hear it and to
speak it, brings companionship, and admits of division of labour. One-and-one are
more than twice one.
The first point is the gift of power. Unclean spirits are specified, but the subsequent
verses show that miracle-working power in its other forms was included. We may call
that Christ’s greatest miracle. That He could, by His mere will, endow a dozen men
with such power, is more, if degree come into view at all, than that He Himself
should exercise it. But there is a lesson in the fact for all ages-even those in which
miracles have ceased. Christ gives before He commands, and sends no man into the
field without filling his basket with seed-corn. His gifts assimilate the receiver to
Himself, and only in the measure in which His servants possess power which is like
His own, and drawn from Him, can they proclaim His coming, or prepare hearts for
it. The second step is their equipment. The special commands here given were
repealed by Jesus when He gave His last commands. In their letter they apply only to
that one journey, but in their spirit they are of universal and permanent obligation.
The Twelve were to travel light. They might carry a staff to help them along, and wear
sandals to save their feet on rough roads; but that was to be all. Food, luggage, and
money, the three requisites of a traveller, were to be ‘conspicuous by their absence.’
That was repealed afterwards, and instructions given of an opposite character,
because, after His ascension, the Church was to live more and more by ordinary
means; but in this journey they were to learn to trust Him without means, that
afterwards they might trust Him in the means. He showed them the purpose of these
restrictions in the act of abrogating them. ‘When I sent you forth without purse . . .
lacked ye anything?’ But the spirit remains unabrogated, and the minimum of
outward provision is likeliest to call out the maximum of faith. We are more in
danger from having too much baggage than from having too little. And the one
indispensable requirement is that, whatever the quantity, it should hinder neither
our march nor our trust in Him who alone is wealth and food.
Next comes the disposition of the messengers. It is not to be self-indulgent. They are
not to change quarters for the sake of greater comfort. They have not gone out to
make a pleasure tour, but to preach, and so are to stay where they are welcomed, and
to make the best of it. Delicate regard for kindly hospitality, if offered by ever so poor
a house, and scrupulous abstinence from whatever might suggest interested motives,
must mark the true servant. That rule is not out of date. If ever a herald of Christ falls
under suspicion of caring more about life’s comforts than about his work, good-bye
to his usefulness! If ever he does so care, whether he be suspected of it or no,
spiritual power will ebb from him.
The next step is the messengers’ demeanour to the rejecters of their message.
Shaking the dust off the sandals is an emblem of solemn renunciation of
participation, and perhaps of disclaimer of responsibility. It meant certainly, ‘We
have no more to do with you,’ and possibly, ‘Your blood be on your own heads.’ This
journey of the Twelve was meant to be of short duration, and to cover much ground,
and therefore no time was to be spent unnecessarily. Their message was brief, and as
well told quickly as slowly. The whole conditions of work now are different.
Sometimes, perhaps, a Christian is warranted in solemnly declaring to those who
receive not his message, that he will have no more to say to them. That may do more
than all his other words. But such cases are rare; and the rule that it is safest to follow
11

is rather that of love which despairs of none, and, though often repelled, returns with
pleading, and, if it have told often in vain, now tells with tears, the story of the love
that never abandons the most obstinate.
Such were the prominent points of this first Christian mission. They who carry
Christ’s banner in the world must be possessed of power, His gift, must be lightly
weighted, must care less for comfort than for service, must solemnly warn of the
consequences of rejecting the message; and so they will not fail to cast out devils, and
to heal many that are sick.
BI 1-6, "And He went out from thence, and came into His own country.
Jesus re-visits Nazareth
I. Gracious condescension. Jesus, although He had been cruelly treated at Nazareth,
once more turns His steps homewards. Jesus practised what He preached (Mat_
18:21-22). Love of home natural to men. Thoughts suggested by visits home. How
shall we be received-welcomed or sighted? Have we so passed our time since we left
home, that we may deserve a cordial reception; or may even some poor Nazareth be
justifiably ashamed of us?
II. Unworthy prejudices. “He came to His own and His own received Him not.”
Neither did His brethren believe in Him (Joh_7:5). Why? Because He was known to
them; and was poor and of lowly origin. Some look at religion as children at books,
more attracted by the binding than the contents.
III. Fatal rejection. Nazareth turned its back on Jesus. He left never to return. Learn:
I. To do good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us.
II. To guard against evil and ignorant prejudices.
III. To take heed how we reject Jesus.
IV. To beseech Him to return and save us, if we have thoughtlessly or wilfully
slighted Him. (J. C. Gray.)
Christ’s return to Nazareth
Was it not a strange metamorphosis to Him-once a peasant lad; now the Light of the
world! And yet here are surroundings unchanged, and natures as narrow and stupid
as ever, and He, having moved away from them as the infinite is remote from the
finite; He, able to heal the sick and forgive sins by a word, and they helpless and
hopeless in both body and soul. As He spoke, authority seemed to voice itself in
natural, faultless utterance. He had not gained this gift at the feet of any sage. Public
debate could not confer it. The people were astonished. Such wisdom and such deeds
are not in the carpenter’s line, they said.
I. The sinner cannot understand nor endure the saint. Humanity cannot comprehend
divinity. Now, no more than then, is there any room for Christ where Satan rules.
II. God’s greatest blessings are often prevented by man’s distrust. Unbelief forfeits
infinite mercies. So does unauthorized credulity. (De W. S. Clark.)
Unbelief at Nazareth
12

Our Lord may have had two reasons for leaving Capernaum and for visiting
Nazareth. One, a personal reason-to see His mother and His sisters, who seem to
have been married there. The other, a ministerial reason-to escape from the busy
throngs who resorted to Him by the lake, and to take a new centre for evangelistic
labours on the part of Himself and His disciples.
I. The unreasonableness and inexcusableness of unbelief in Christ.
1. He was well-known to them. They had hitherto always found Him true and
upright; therefore they ought to have candidly considered His claims.
2. He brought with Him a great and acknowledged reputation.
3. He came to Nazareth and taught publicly, thus giving His townsmen an
opportunity of judging for themselves of His wisdom and moral authority.
II. The grounds of unbelief in Christ.
1. Prejudice on account of His origin and circumstances.
2. His educational deficiency. He had not been trained in the rabbinical schools,
so they thought nothing of Him.
III. The rebuke of unbelief. “A prophet is not without honour,” etc. There was
sadness in Christ’s language and tone. Yet what a reproach to the unbelieving! They
might be offended; there were others who would believe, evince gratitude, and render
honour.
IV. The consequences of unbelief.
1. Christ “marvelled.”
2. The results to the people of the town were lamentable-“He could do no mighty
work.”
3. Benefit to others-“He went round about the villages, teaching.” The
indifference or contempt of the unspiritual and self-sufficient may be the
occasion of enlightenment and consolation to the lowly, receptive, needy.
Application:
(a) The coming of Christ to a soul, or community, is a moral probation
involving serious responsibility.
(b) It is the most fatal guilt and folly, in considering the claims of Christ,
to overlook the wisdom and grace of His character and ministry, and to
regard circumstances at which the superficial and carnal may take
offence. (J. R. Thomson, M A.)
Jesus visiting His own country
By going thither-
I. He gratified a human yearning.
II. He illustrated afresh an old and familiar experience.
1. He was one of many, yet by Himself even in this.
2. One of the greatest of griefs to a pious spirit, to be hindered from doing good
and conferring benefit.
3. A greater humiliation than His human birth, because a moral one consciously
13

experienced.
III. He exhibited Divine mercy.
1. Past offences were forgiven.
2. Although conscious of restriction because of their unbelief and indifference,
He still persisted in His works of mercy. (A. F. Muir, M. A.)
Rejection of Christ
I. Indifference to Christ sometimes arises from familiarity with His surroundings.
Beware of that familiarity with sacred things which deadens spiritual sensibility.
II. Contempt for Christ sometimes springs from association with His friends.
III. The rejection of Christ brings about a withdrawal of His influence-“He could
not,” etc. His power was omnipotent, but, it conditioned itself, as infinite power
always does in this world; and by this limitation it was not lessened, but was glorified
as moral and spiritual power. If faith, the ethical condition, be absent, we bind the
Saviour’s hands, and He cannot do for us what He would. He does not wish to leave
us, but He must; old impressions become feebler, the once sensitive heart waxes dull.
(A. Rowland, LL. B.)
Christ at home
I. The wonders in everyday life. Growth of knowledge and experience; change of
circumstances, etc.
II. The jealousy of home-grown greatness. Tyranny of custom. Beware of egotism,
shutting out from light and beauty, divinity and blessedness.
III. The most invincible obstacle is the will of man. Against stupidity even the gods
fight in vain! When the business of the kingdom seems at a standstill, ask whether
the cause be not want of wish, will, prayer. (E. Johnson, M. A.)
Detracting from the Divine greatness of Christ
I. How this is done.
1. By attributing Divine effects to secondary causes,
2. Absence of faith and spiritual sympathy.
3. By being offended at the mystery of His humiliation, either in Himself or in
His followers.
II. What it produces.
1. Unsatisfied indecision.
2. Hardening of heart.
3. The doubter’s own loss. (A. F. Muir, M. A.)
14

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? What are these remarkable miracles he is
performing?
BARNES, "
CLARKE, "
GILL, "
HENRY, "II. There he preached in their synagogue, on the sabbath day, Mar_
6:2. It seems, there was not such flocking to him there as in other places, so that he
had no opportunity of preaching till they came together on the sabbath day; and then
he expounded a portion of scripture with great clearness. In religious assemblies, on
sabbath days, the word of God is to be preached according to Christ's example. We
give glory to God by receiving instruction from him.
III. They could not but own that which was very honourable concerning him. 1.
That he spoke with great wisdom, and that this wisdom was given to him, for they
knew he had no learned education. 2. That he did mighty works, did them with his
own hands, for the confirming of the doctrine he taught. They acknowledged the two
great proofs of the divine original of his gospel - the divine wisdom that appeared in
the contrivance of it, and the divine power that was exerted for the ratifying and
recommending of it; and yet, though they could not deny the premises, they would
not admit the conclusion.
JAMIESON, "
COFFMAN, "This man ... as sneeringly repeated by the villagers was
derogatory. "There is a contemptuous tone about the expression."[2] The
citizens of the Lord's home town despised him because he was one of themselves.
Having no conception of their own value as human beings, they made their own
guilty unworthiness the basis of rejecting the Lord. The light of all ages shone in
their dark streets, but they were blind to it. (See full discussion of the
phenomenon of Nazareth's unbelief in my Commentary on Matthew, pp.
207-210).
This was the second rejection of Jesus at Nazareth, the first being recorded in
Luke 4:15ff. Matthew 13:54-58 is parallel to this account of the second rejection.
ENDNOTE:
15

[2] E. Bickersteth, The Pulpit Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William
B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), Vol. 16, 5:243.
CONSTABLE, "The reaction of the people in this synagogue contrasts with that
of Jairus, the ruler of another synagogue (Mark 5:22). Mark recorded three
questions the observers in Nazareth raised. They wondered where Jesus got the
teaching and the authority that He demonstrated. They asked each other who
had given Him the wisdom He manifested, and they questioned where Jesus had
obtained His ability to do miracles. Obviously they had not concluded that they
came from God. Their questions manifested unbelief and hostility. Their
personal acquaintance with Jesus' family and Jesus' former manner of life
among them made it hard for them to think of Him as anything more than a
mere man. This is the only place in the New Testament where the writer referred
to Jesus as a carpenter. A "carpenter" (Gr. tekton) worked with stone and metal,
as well as wood. [Note: Ibid., p. 310.] Jesus' critics asked rhetorically if Jesus was
not just a common worker with His hands, as most of them were.
"It was the common practice among the Jews to use the father's name, whether
he were alive or dead. A man was called the son of his mother only when his
father was unknown." [Note: Hiebert, p. 139.]
Formerly the people of Nazareth had referred to Jesus as Joseph's son (Luke
4:22). Evidently they now called Him Mary's son as a deliberate insult implying
that He was an illegitimate child (cf. Judges 11:1-2; John 8:41; John 9:29). The
Jews did not speak insultingly about such a person's birth if they believed he
lived a life pleasing to God, but if that person became an apostate they spoke
publicly and unreservedly about his illegitimate birth. [Note: See Ethelbert
Stauffer, Jesus and His Story, pp. 207-8, cf. pp. 16-17.] Consequently this
appellation reflects the belief of the Nazarenes that Jesus was not virgin born
and was displeasing to God. [Note: Cf. Cranfield, p. 195.]
NISBET, "THE SUPREMACY OF CHRIST
‘From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is
given unto Him, that even such mighty works are wrought by His hands? Is not
this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda,
and Simon? and are not His sisters here with us? And they were offended at
Him.’
Mark 6:2-3
So they asked of old; so we ask to-day. For is He not wholly one of ourselves—a
Man of our flesh and of our bone? ‘Whence, then, and why?’ Surely a natural
question enough, and never was it asked more anxiously or more nervously than
to-day. For we in our day have had specially opened to us the Gospel of the
humanity of Jesus.
I. Man’s Brother.—How near it has brought Him to us! How real, we feel now,
was the surrender of Himself to the limitations of the narrow and local situation!
How deep and complete was the process by which He emptied Himself, and took
our nature, and talked our language, and shut Himself up in our temporary
frontiers, and confined Himself to our round of thoughts, and conformed to the
shape of our historical conditions! We start, sometimes, in sudden alarm as the
16

solid actuality of it all comes home to us. It is like a new revelation, with its
strong and swift surprise. The Incarnation had been to us but a phrase. We had
never imagined that it was so downright and physical a fact as we now see that it
must have been. Yes! We start back sometimes in alarm. Yet we recover heart as
we recognise the extraordinary gain of the nearness, of the neighbourhood, of the
brotherhood into which it has brought Jesus Christ. He had been so mystically
remote, so unactual, so visionary, as we first learned of Him through our Creeds.
Now we see that it is true in a sense that we had never dreamed of, that He
became as one of us, and was on all points tempted like as we are, and was
touched with our infirmities.
II. Man’s Master.—It is just here that a new wonder begins to reveal itself, a
secret begins to open. This Man, Who was so near, Who was so like the others, so
brotherly, so utterly natural, began to take up before man’s eyes such a strange
aloofness. He showed Himself so solitary; He was in possession of such
unaccountable resources; He assumed such a unique supremacy; He had
knowledge which could not be explained; He drew on some hidden fountain of
His own; He claimed and exercised an authority for which there was no obvious
and intelligible justification. What is it? What does it mean? He dwells apart; He
takes counsel with no one; He never classes Himself with other men; He stands
over them; He refuses all identification; He speaks out of some far-away pre-
eminence. The Gospel story is the record of the growth of this strange
singularity—this remote and solitary pre-eminence. He Who begins as man’s
Brother shows Himself more and more as man’s Master, as his sole supreme
Lord.
III. Man’s King.—His claim is paramount. His authority cannot even be
challenged; it cannot submit to criticism. It repudiates, of necessity, all offers
from without. It cannot allow itself to be influenced or modified. And the nearer
you come to Him the more you find that this is true. It is this total isolation of
Jesus on earth among men which makes the Gospel story so impressive. He is
come so near, He has made Himself ours; yet what we learn, what we feel, is that
He is perfectly separate from us; that not one of us for one moment moves on His
level. He draws upon resources of which we have no cognisance, and possesses
knowledge which lies outside our experience or proof.
(a) Men are judged at last wholly according to their relationship to Him. ‘I was
hungry, and ye gave Me meat … and ye gave Me no meat.’
(b) His appeal to the universal sense of sin. Never for an instant does He exhibit
the slightest consciousness of that which is the inevitable experience of all other
men. He cannot class Himself among their sinful ranks. He stands wholly outside
their sickness of soul, and this is why He can heal them.
(c) His knowledge of the Father is not a knowledge for which He wrestles and
strives with other struggling men, gaining a higher insight than others by force
of a more prevailing effort. Nay, He delivers it, He assumes it, as an experience
possessed by Him alone and with utter certitude.
17

IV. The keyword.—Once again we are driven back on to the keyword of
Christianity: Transfiguration. He takes all as it stands, and, without altering
what it is, nevertheless changes it from glory to glory. Without in any way
ceasing to be what it is, by nature or substance, His humanity became other than
it was. Nothing is gone, nothing is destroyed, nothing is perverted, nothing is de-
naturalised; but, for all that, it is a new thing, a new creature. There is nothing
else like it, it stands alone; and yet there is no point at which we can leave go of
the human nature and reach out for something that we call Divine. The Divine is
seen within the human. The Divine revelation is made through the transfigured
flesh. Go nearer and nearer to your Brother, Jesus, and you draw nearer and
nearer to Christ. Press closer and closer to that Humanity, and lo! you find
yourself adoring your God.
V. Nearness and neighbourhood had their own peculiar perils of old, when He
was on earth. They retain that peril still. It was just because they knew Him so
familiarly, and felt Him so close in ancient Nazareth, when they rejected Him.
But by loving Him as a man we shall learn to fear Him as our Judge, to honour
Him as our King, and to worship Him as our Lord God.
Rev. Canon H. Scott Holland.
Illustration
‘The holiest of men may to all outward eyes appear exactly like other people. For
in what does holiness consist but in a due fulfilment of the relative duties of our
state in life, and in spiritual fellowship with God. Now the relative duties of life
are universal. Every man has his own. That which makes one man to differ from
another is not so much what things he does, as his manner of doing them. Two
men, the most opposite in character, may dwell side by side, and do the very
same daily acts, but in the sight of God be as far apart as light and darkness.’
3 Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son
and the brother of James, Joseph,[a] Judas and
Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And
they took offense at him.
CLARKE, "Is not this the carpenter - Among the ancient Jews, every father
was bound to do four things for his son.
1. To circumcise him.
2. To redeem him.
3. To teach him the law.
18

4. To teach him a trade.
And this was founded on the following just maxim: “He who teaches not his son to
do some work, is as if he taught him robbery!” It is therefore likely that Joseph
brought up our Lord to his own trade.
Joses - Several good MSS. read Ιωσητος, Joset, and one, with several versions,
reads Joseph.
GILL, "Is not this the carpenter?.... Some copies read, "the carpenter's son", as
in Mat_13:55 and so the Arabic and Ethiopic versions; but all the ancient copies,
Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Persic versions, read "the carpenter": such may Christ be
reasonably thought to be, since his father was; and which business he might follow,
partly through the meanness and poverty of his parents; and partly that he might set
an example of industry and diligence; and chiefly to bear that part of the first Adam's
curse, which was to eat his bread with the sweat of his brow: nor ought this to have
been objected to him by the Jews, with whom it was usual for their greatest doctors
and Rabbins to be of some trade or secular employment; so R. Jochanan was a
shoemaker (z) R. Isaac was a blacksmith (a), R. Juda was a tailor (b), Abba Saul and
R. Jochanan, were undertakers for funerals (c); R. Simeon was a seller of cotton (d),
R. Nehemiah was a ditcher (e), R. Jose bar Chelphetha was a skinner (f); and others
of them were of other trades, and some exceeding mean: the famous R. Hillell was a
hewer of wood, and Carna, a judge in Israel, was a drawer of water (g); and so
Maimonides says,
"the great wise men of Israel were some of them hewers of wood and drawers of
water (h).''
They say,
"a man is obliged to learn his son an honest and easy trade (i):''
there are some businesses they except against (k), but this of a carpenter is not one;
yea, they say,
"if a man does not teach his son a trade, it is all one as if he taught him thievery (l).''
Nor did they think it at all inconsistent with learning; for they have a saying (m), that
"beautiful is the learning of the law, along with a trade.''
The Jews ought not to have flouted Christ with this trade of a carpenter, since,
according to them, it was necessary that a carpenter, in some cases, should be a
regular priest; as in repairing of the temple, especially the holy of holies. So says
Maimonides (n);
"there was a trap door, or an open place in the floor of the chamber, open to the holy
of holies, that workmen might enter thereby into the holy of holies, when there was a
necessity of repairing any thing; and since we make mention of workmen, it may be
observed here, when there is need of building in the midst of the temple, great care
should be taken, ‫כשר‬ ‫כהן‬ ‫האומן‬ ‫,שיהיה‬ "that the workman, or carpenter, be a right
priest".''
19

Yea, they expressly say, that the Messiah is one of the four carpenters in Zec_1:20.
"And the Lord showed me four carpenters"; they ask (o),
""who are the four carpenters?" Says R. Chana bar Bizna, says R. Simeon the saint,
Messiah the son of David, Messiah the son of Joseph, and Elijah, and a priest of
righteousness.''
This is with some variation elsewhere expressed thus (p),
""and the Lord showed me four carpenters"; and these are they, Elijah, and the king
Messiah, and Melchizedek and the anointed for war.''
And one of their commentators (q) on the same text says,
"our Rabbins of blessed memory, explain this verse of the days of the Messiah;''
and then cites the above passage out of the Talmud; and another (r) refers unto it;
See Gill on Mat_13:55. The inhabitants of Nazareth go on, in order to reproach Jesus,
calling him
the son of Mary; a poor woman of their town, and perhaps now a widow, since no
mention is made of Joseph:
the brother of James and Joses, and of Juda and Simon? who were all of
them the sons of Alphaeus or Cleophas, who was himself brother, or his wife sister,
to Joseph or Mary; so that Christ was the near kinsman of these his sons: and it was
usual with the Jews to call such an one a brother, and even indeed a more distant
relation. The Vulgate Latin, and Ethiopic versions, instead of Joses, read Joseph:
and are not sisters here with us? And they were offended at him: either at
the manner he came by his wisdom, with which he delivered such doctrine he did;
and by his power, through which he wrought his mighty works, or miracles; they
suspecting he came by them in an unlawful way, through familiarity with the devil,
which they sometimes charged him with having: or at the meanness of his trade and
employment; they could by no means think of him as the Messiah, who made so
contemptible a figure, and was brought up in such a low way of life; and the rather,
since one of their kings in common, was not be a mechanic, or at least of any mean
occupation: of their canons runs thus (s);
"they do not appoint to be a king, or an high priest, one that has been a butcher, or a
barber, or a bath keeper, or a tanner; not because they were unfit, but because their
business was mean, and the people would always despise them.''
Other trades are elsewhere (t) mentioned, from among whom a king, or an high
priest, were never taken; as founders, combers, borers of handmills, druggists,
weavers, notaries, fullers, a letter of blood, or a surgeon, &c. particularly such as
related to women's business. Now, as it was not usual to choose any one to be a king
that wrought at a trade, they could not bear that the king Messiah should be of one;
and because Jesus was, they were offended at him, and rejected him as the Messiah.
Or they were offended at the meanness of his extraction and descent, his father, and
mother, and brethren, and sisters, being all persons in low circumstances of life;
whereas they expected the Messiah would be born and brought up as a temporal
20

prince, in great grandeur and splendour; See Gill on Mat_13:55, Mat_13:56, Mat_
13:57.
HENRY, "IV. They studied to disparage him, and to raise prejudices in the minds
of people against him, notwithstanding. All this wisdom, and all these mighty works,
shall be of no account, because he had a home-education, had never travelled, nor
been at any university, or bred up at the feet of any of their doctors (Mar_6:3); Is not
this the Carpenter? In Matthew, they upbraid him with being the carpenter's son, his
supposed father Joseph being of that trade. But, it seems, they could say further, Is
not this the Carpenter? our Lord Jesus, it is probable, employing himself in that
business with his father, before he entered upon his public ministry, at least,
sometimes in journey-work. 1. He would thus humble himself, and make himself of
no reputation, as one that had taken upon him the form of a servant, and came to
minister. Thus low did our Redeemer stoop, when he came to redeem us out of our
low estate. 2. He would thus teach us to abhor idleness, and to find ourselves
something to do in this world; and rather to take up with mean and laborious
employments, and such as no more is to be got by than a bare livelihood, than
indulge ourselves in sloth. Nothing is more pernicious for young people than to get a
habit of sauntering. The Jews had a good rule for this - that their young men who
were designed for scholars, were yet bred up to some trade, as Paul was a tent-maker,
that they might have some business to fill up their time with, and, if need were, to get
their bread with. 3. He would thus put an honour upon despised mechanics, and
encourage those who eat the labour of their hands, though great men look upon them
with contempt.
Another thing they upbraided him with, was, the meanness of his relations; “He is
the son of Mary; his brethren and sisters are here with us; we know his family and
kindred;” and therefore, though they were astonished at his doctrine (Mar_6:2), yet
they were offended at his person (Mar_6:3), were prejudiced against him, and looked
upon him with contempt; and for that reason would not receive his doctrine, though
ever so well recommended. May we think that if they had not known his pedigree,
but he had dropped among them from the clouds, without father, without mother,
and without descent, they would have entertained him with any more respect? Truly,
no; for in Judea, where this was not know, that was made an objection against him
(Joh_9:29); As for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. Obstinate unbelief
will never want excuses.
JAMIESON, "Mar_6:1-6. Christ rejected at Nazareth. ( = Mat_13:54-58; Luk_
4:16-30).
See on Luk_4:16-30.
COFFMAN, "The carpenter ... From this it is clear that our Lord was himself a
carpenter, as was Joseph; and we reject the allegation that Matthew "softened"
this by recording "carpenter's son," as if the latter was in some manner more
complimentary to Jesus than the fact of his being a carpenter. The snobbery of
the critics in such a view shows.
As a matter of fact, Mark's words here contain elements which actually add to
the glory of Jesus' name. As Barclay noted:
The word used for "carpenter" is [@tekton], meaning not a mere worker in
21

wood. It means "a craftsman", more than merely a joiner. In Homer the
[@tekton] is said to build ships and houses and temples.[3]
The English, word "technician" comes from the same root; thus the villagers'
slur unintentionally glorified Jesus as the Master Workman. Chrysostom said
that our Lord made plows and yokes, and certainly Jesus referred to both in his
teachings (Luke 9:62; Matthew 11:29).
As Barclay said, "They despised Jesus because he was a working man."[4] In
this attitude, the citizens of Nazareth were guilty; but they were not any more
guilty than the scholars who suppose that Matthew tried to cover up the scandal
that Jesus was a carpenter. The imputation of such an attitude to Matthew is an
anachronism in which the current prejudice against people who work with their
hands is retrogressively attributed to the holy apostle of Jesus Christ. Jesus was
both a carpenter and the son of a carpenter, being, of course, the legal son of
Joseph.
The true reason for Mark's reference to "carpenter," as distinguished from
Matthew's "son of a carpenter," lies in the obvious fact that the villagers freely
gossiped about the Lord, using both expressions; and Mark, writing in 65-70
A.D., at a time when Joseph was dead, and having omitted from his narrative the
record of the virgin birth of our Lord, consciously selected the particular form of
the villagers' gossip which could not have been construed as a denial of that
essential tenet of Christianity. Matthew, on the other hand, writing at a much
earlier date than Mark (44 A.D.), and having fully spelled out the particulars of
the virgin birth, and having also as his objective the establishment of Jesus' right
of kingship over Israel (a right that depended upon his legal sonship of Joseph)
found it more natural to record the common gossip of Nazareth in its other form.
There is no way to deny that the gossip existed in both forms as recorded by
Mark and Matthew.
The son of Mary ... To solve the problem of this reference by supposing the
villagers thought Jesus was "illegitimate"[5] is ridiculous, there being no true
evidence that they ever made such a charge; they also called him "the
carpenter's son" on this very occasion (Matthew 13:55). Matthew recorded the
villagers' mention of BOTH his parents (as they supposed). Mark's record of
only this part of their gossip was in all probability for the purpose of stressing
the virgin birth. Even if there had been some intended reflection on the
legitimacy of Jesus by the villagers, which we cannot see at all, then it would only
mean that the wrath of man was praising God; for Jesus WAS the "Son of
Mary," the promised "seed of woman" (Genesis 3:15). Likewise, Cranfield saw
this as "an important piece of evidence in support of the historicity of the virgin
birth."[6]
Brother of James, and Joses, etc. ... The natural way of understanding this is as a
reference to the actual brothers of Jesus, sons of Joseph and Mary after Jesus
was born. Devices such as making these the sons of Joseph by a previous
marriage, or the "cousins" of Jesus, are mistaken efforts to sustain the myth
regarding the "perpetual virginity of Mary," the latter being unscriptural and
even anti-Scriptural. Christ was the "first-born" son of Mary (Luke 2:7) and
22

"the only begotten Son of God." Why "first-born" if she had no other children?
As Halley said, "There would never have been any other meaning read into these
passages, except for the desire to exalt celibacy as a holier form of life."[7]
His sisters ... Matthew recorded, "Are they not all with us?" And from this it is
clear that there were at least three sisters of Jesus. The word "all" could not
have referred to just two.
And they were offended in him ... They rejected Jesus as being any more wise or
able than themselves, the judgment being a moral one rather than an intellectual
one. As is always true, it was their sins which blinded their eyes to the Lord
(John 3:17-19).
[3] William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,
1956), p. 138.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Earle McMillan, The Gospel according to Mark (Austin: R. B. Sweet
Publishing Company, 1973), p 76.
[6] C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to Saint Mark (Cambridge:
University Press, 1966), p. 195.
[7] Henry H. Halley, Halley's Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), p. 383.
GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE, “6:3 - 6:36:31 - 6:31
The Carpenter
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, and Joses, and
Judas, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended
in him.—Mar_6:3.
Jesus had gone up to the city of Nazareth. Once before He had visited it,
immediately after His baptism and at the very beginning of His ministry, only to
be angrily rejected with furious violence. This time His fame, which was being
spread through the land, led them to receive Him with a greater show of
welcome. They were eager to hear His words and to see His works. But a second
time they turned from Him scornfully. “Whence hath this man these things?”
The words may have in them that dark and dreadful meaning which the
Pharisees did not hesitate to express more plainly when they ascribed His
miracles to the power of the devil. At any rate, the people of Nazareth were
offended in Him and went muttering, “Whence hath this man these things? Is
not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and
Judas, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us?”
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“Is not this the carpenter?” This is an illuminating question. It throws light; and
it throws the light in two directions. When you hold up a lamp or lantern in
order to see the face of some one approaching you in the dark, you light up, not
only the face of the person approaching you, but you light up your own face as
well. When these people ask the question, “Is not this the carpenter?” they light
up their own faces and also the face of Jesus.
I
Jesus was a Workman
The word translated “carpenter” is a more generic term than our English word.
It conveys something more than the specific handicraft designated by the latter,
and implies generally a fashioner of articles in wood. Jesus the carpenter was a
maker of all such utensils as were useful in the house and in the field. Justin
Martyr, who lived near to Christ’s own times, tells us that He made ploughs and
yokes, as well as the articles we include within the scope of carpentry. He was the
fashioner of whatever tended to stability, order, and productiveness. Surely we
may see something more than an accidental significance and appropriateness
here! His calling was the symbol of the constructive and productive, as opposed
to the destructive, principle in the world.
That Jesus, before He began His prophetic career, occupied the lowly state of a
carpenter, is of universal, permanent, and, one may add, ever-increasing
significance as a symbolic revelation of the genius of the Christian religion. It is
by no means a merely outward, indifferent fact, too trivial for mention in even
the fullest account of the life of so great a Personage. It has distinct and great
ethical value, both as a biographical fact, and as a means of propagating
Christian faith. How much that humble, yet not ignoble, occupation signifies as
an element in the education of Jesus! What possibilities it provided of keen
insight into the heart of human life, and what protection it afforded against the
unrealities and insincerities attaching to more favoured social conditions!1
[Note: A. B. Bruce.]
There is a beautiful tradition, that Joseph, His reputed father, died while Jesus
was yet a child, and so He worked, not merely to earn His own living, but to keep
the little home together in Nazareth, and Mary and the younger members of the
family depended upon His toil. That is a beautiful tradition. It may be true, but I
do not press it. But this one fact is of utmost importance—He worked for His
living. Oh! that we may derive the strength and comfort from this fact which it is
calculated to afford. Business men, you who have been at work all the week, and
have been harassed by daily labours, and are weary and tired, and seeking for
new inspiration, this Jesus, whose name has become a name of sweetness and
love, was not a king upon a throne; He was not for the better part of His life a
teacher, with the thrill and excitement of public life to buoy Him up. No; the long
years ran on, and He was doing what some of you speak of as “the daily round,
the common task.”2 [Note: G. Campbell Morgan.]
1. Jesus, as a workman, is brought into sympathetic relations with the masses of
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mankind.—His gracious purpose, when He came to earth, was to fathom all the
depths of poor humanity, that He might sympathise and succour to the
uttermost. Not to be the Redeemer only, but also the Brother and Friend of man,
was the mission of the Son of God. Now, where can a more impressive instance of
this be found—a clearer proof that Jesus did actually make Himself like unto His
brothers than when we are told, as in the text, that He became a carpenter? Here
He is seen not merely “in fashion as a man,” but passing down to man’s most
tried and toilsome state, that, proving that, He might implicitly experience every
other.
He who said, “Be not anxious for the morrow,” often needed to trust His
heavenly Father for the morrow’s bread. As in the wilderness, when ready to
perish of hunger, so in the precarious position of a village tradesman, Jesus
wrought no miracle to provide bread, or to relieve His own mind, for His first
miracle was that in Cana of Galilee. Condescending from the throne of universal
providence to live a life of faith for our sakes, the Son trusted the Father before
He stood up to preach, “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of
these things.”
Probably all of Jesus’ apostles were manual labourers except Matthew. We are
told expressly that Paul, the greatest of them all, earned his living by working
with his hands. Again and again in his letters Paul calls attention to the fact that
he has earned his own living by manual labour. Nor was he ashamed of it. He
seems to have been proud of his hands because the haircloth had blackened them
and the thread had left its marks on them. Listen to him as he says to the elders
of Ephesus, who met him down on the sea coast at Miletus: “Ye yourselves know,
that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with
me.” The sight of his hands drew them to him, and made them love him all the
more. After he had prayed with them they fell on his neck and kissed him—
strong men sobbing because they were to see his face no more. These are two
facts, then, never to be forgotten, that Jesus, the founder of the Christian
religion, was a manual labourer, and the pierced hands into which He will gather
the lives of nations and men are hands that have been disciplined by toil. Paul,
the apostle, who did more for Christianity than any other man who has ever
lived, also was a manual labourer, and the hands with which he grips the
heartstrings of the world are hands that have been stained by toil.1 [Note: C. E.
Jefferson.]
It is a significant fact that not a few high-minded thinkers of modern times,
repelled by that insidious blight which works in scenes of frivolity and pomp,
have gone forth to live in communities where all take equal share in tilling the
soil, shaping the plough and loom, and putting the hand to tasks which are
accounted mean. The names of Robert Owen, Laurence Oliphant, Count Tolstoi,
together with many men and women who have entered settlements to cultivate
rural simplicity, stand for a movement which may yet change our chaotic
civilisations. Not only is there an instinctive desire for the keener vitality which
comes from strenuous, wholesome physical toil, but the restless sense of race-
relations is appeased by such a programme of life. Under these primitive
conditions some who have been born to luxury and unearned ease find
25

themselves in more vivid sympathy with the rank and file of their fellow
citizens.2 [Note: T. G. Selby.]
There is a pretty story told by Martin Luther of a good bishop who earnestly
prayed that God would reveal to him something more than the Bible tells about
the childhood of Jesus. At last he had a dream. He dreamed that he saw a
carpenter working with saws and hammers and planes, just like any carpenter,
and beside him a little boy picking up chips. Then came a sweet-faced woman in
a green dress, and called them both to dinner, and set porridge before them. All
this the bishop saw in his dream, himself standing behind the door, that he might
not be perceived. Then the little boy, spying him, cried out, “Why does that man
stand there? Shall he not eat of our porridge with us?” Thereupon the bishop
awoke. This charming little dream-fable carries with it a beautiful and an
important truth. It is the carpenter’s child who wanted all the world to share His
porridge with Him, who has conquered the heart of humanity.3 [Note: J.
Halsey.]
2. He obliterated the distinction between the sacred and the secular.—No more
effectual and impressive method could have been devised for abolishing the false
distinction between the sacred and the secular than that of sending the great
Messiah to spend the opening years of His manhood in a workshop. The official
priesthood at one time put a huge barrier between the sanctuary and the work-a-
day world, that needed to be broken down before the prophecies could be
fulfilled. The Temple courts at Jerusalem had been hallowed by many a
supernatural vision of the Divine Glory, but the new theophany was to be in a
scene of common toil. To make One who had wrought with His hands the all-
commanding personality of His age, was to prepare men, by an ascending scale
of amazement and faith, for the great mystery of His origin and of His after-
reign of mediatorial power.
The necessity of secular work is sometimes spoken of among Christians as if it
were an evil—a kind of degradation to them—at least a burden and a
hindrance—something in spite of which they may retain their Christianity, but
which can surely not be helpful to it, or form any part of it. Under the influence
of such a feeling, some—especially fresh converts—would fain abandon their
secular engagements altogether, and give themselves wholly to what they call a
religious life—to meditation, and prayer, and preaching, and duties such as
these. But does not the clear daylight of the text dispel such shadows and
delusions of morbid or mistaken minds? Jesus is here seen to set His holy seal on
worldly work—to make it no more worldly—but Christian, Heavenly, Godlike.
Was not His whole life like His seamless robe—of one perfect piece—all of it
religious—all of it devoted to God—all of it gleaming alike with the fair colour of
holiness? Yet thirty years of it were expended in learning and doing the work of
a carpenter, and only three in the sacred office of the Ministry.
As you gaze upon the earliest Christian pictures in the Roman catacombs, you
cannot fail to recognise that the conception of Christ which was conveyed to the
simple minds of the men of the second and third century by the gay and winsome
figure of the Good Shepherd, with the happy sheep nestling on His shoulder,
26

with the pastoral pipes in His hand, blooming in immortal youth, must be very
different from that of the men of a later age, for whom the gracious and gentle
Pastor has given place to the crucified Sufferer, depicted in countless aspects of
misery and woe, from the gaunt and ghastly Crucifixes and Pietas and
Entombments of the early Florentines, to the sublime dignities of Michael Angelo
and Tintoret and Corregio.1 [Note: Bishop Stubbs.]
3. Jesus the carpenter has ennobled manual labour.—It may be said that this is a
truism, and that the Gospel of “the dignity of labour” has become almost a cant.
It is true the sentiment has been heard before, but how many of us are
sufficiently superior to the conventional and artificial distinction of modern
society really to believe in the honourableness of handicraft? If people believe in
it, why are they so anxious to escape from it? Why is it that apprenticeship in all
trades is dropping out of vogue, and that nearly all the youths who leave our
schools prefer to seek a miserable clerkship rather than to earn an honourable
maintenance by manual toil, and that girls prefer almost anything to domestic
service?
In the north of Holland, and about five miles from Amsterdam, there is a
shipbuilding and manufacturing town called Zaandam; and in that town a very
humble old house is carefully preserved in which a carpenter lodged for a time
more than two hundred years ago. Visitors to Zaandam go to see that old house;
it is on record that in the year 1814 it was visited by Alexander i., the Czar of
Russia. That Emperor went to see it because the carpenter who had lived in it in
1697, and for whose sake the house is still preserved, was no less a personage
than one of his own predecessors—Peter the Great, the creator of the modern
Russian Empire.1 [Note: C. Jerdan.]
4. Jesus the carpenter is an example to all good workmen.—The conviction
cannot be too forcibly urged that the only dishonourable employments are
immoral or dishonest ones. The man who makes an honest plough or table is as
honourable as the man who makes a poem or a sermon, and he may be as much
of a gentleman. “No work can degrade you unless you first degrade your work.”
It is not work, but bad workmanship, that is disgraceful. We know the kind of
ploughs and tables, windows and doors, the Carpenter of Nazareth made; and
unfortunately we know, only too well, the kind of thing many a modern
carpenter puts into suburban villas, and calls it a door or a window-frame. Such
carpentering is degrading, but it is the scamping and not the work that is low.
You may not know much of Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ; but every bit
of honest work is an imitation of Christ.2 [Note: J. Halsey.]
A recent writer on Japan says: “If you visit Kyoto to order something from one
of the greatest porcelain makers in the world—one whose products are better
known in London and Paris than even in Japan—you will find the factory to be a
wooden cottage in which no English farmer would live. The greatest maker of
cloisonne vases, who may ask you fifty pounds for something five inches high,
produces his miracles behind a two-storied frame dwelling, containing perhaps
six small rooms. The best girdles of silk made in Japan, and famous throughout
the empire, are woven in a house that cost scarcely one hundred pounds to
27

build.” Robes of immaculate righteousness, delicate and radiant character, and
miracles of goodness at which other worlds marvel, are still produced in some of
the mean byways and obscure surroundings of the world. “Blessed are ye poor,
for yours is the kingdom of heaven.”1 [Note: T. G. Selby.]
5. But His work was not only good; it was the work of self-sacrifice.—A famous
English painter, Mr. Holman Hunt, gave to the world in 1873 a great religious
picture, representing Jesus in the workshop at the close of the day. When we
look at it, we see that the earthen floor is well covered with shavings, which have
come from the planing bench near where Jesus stands. Close by the bench is a
trestle of native form; and the large hand-saw has been left in the wood, not yet
cut through. Jesus has thrown out His arms as He yawns in weariness; and His
shadow formed on the wall in the level evening sunlight, as it is seen with alarm
by His mother Mary, looks like that of a man crucified. Mr. Holman Hunt has
called this picture “The Shadow of Death.”
II
Jesus had Brothers and Sisters
Are there not some of us to whom it never occurred before that Jesus had
brothers and sisters just as we have? Indeed, everything that is human in the life
of Jesus is to some of us more or less unreal. We accept the statements of
theology concerning His humanity, but with a certain mental reserve. Even when
one of the sacred writers himself tells us “He was tempted in all points like as we
are,” we doubt whether he quite meant all he said; and to some of us, it is to be
feared, the temptation in the wilderness is little more than a scenic display. We
cannot think of Jesus as boy and man, as son and brother, entering like others
into ordinary human relationships. We must needs picture Him with a halo of
unearthly light about His head, and, as Professor Rendel Harris has recently
pointed out, even a writer like Dean Farrar cannot speak of the “boy” Jesus
without printing the word with a capital B, as if to suggest that He was never like
other children. The truth is, many of us are Apollinarians without knowing it.1
[Note: G. Jackson.]
Assuming, as we reasonably may, that Joseph died some time before Jesus was
thirty years old, we may find in this fact some new points of contact with the
sympathy of Christ. The father being dead, Jesus as eldest son would become the
head of the household. On Him would now devolve the charge of supporting
Mary and those who were still children, and He would become the guide and
counsellor of those nearer to Him in age. How blessed, then, in all our hours of
lonely anguish, to remember that Jesus lived as a son with the widow, and as a
brother with the fatherless, and that all their griefs were mingled in the cup He
drank on earth!2 [Note: T. V. Tymms.]
1. This is the consecration of the family.—We have often been told that the first
thirty years were the long and patient training for His life-work. Is it not rather
that these thirty years were the patient doing of that work? Was it not as a lad of
twelve that He said, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”
28

And from that hour assuredly He ever did His Father’s business. We see Him in
that little home. Rising early He hastens to help His widowed mother with such
household service as He can render. He hurries to bear the pitcher to the well.
All day He seeks to bring into the home some bit of sunny brightness, some
cheery confidence, some holy peace. And in His work He is able to make things
such as every carpenter makes—things that minister to the pleasure and service
of men. Thus is He doing the business of His Father in heaven day after day and
year after year through all those thirty years. For us the great lesson is this—that
the only religion a man has, is what he has always, not sometimes—what he is in
everything, not just now and then.
In this connection another thought occurs. As stepping into Joseph’s place, Jesus
would become not only the chief bread-winner and comforter of the family, but
on Him would fall the duty of conducting the daily worship which was never
omitted in the home of devout Jews. We may think of Him, therefore, as reading
the Scriptures, offering prayer, and at special seasons maintaining all those
religious rites which were of a private character.
We who are brothers and sisters, are we doing what we can to make the home all
that it ought to be? Do we diligently cultivate what some one has happily called
the “art of living together”? “Is he a Christian?” asked some one of Whitefield
concerning another. “I do not know,” was the answer; “I have never seen him at
home.”1 [Note: G. Jackson.]
2. It is also the creation of a larger family.—When “one said unto him, Behold,
thy mother and thy brethren stand without, seeking to speak to thee, he
answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my
brethren? And he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples, and said,
Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my
Father which is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.” He that
doeth the will of my Father in heaven—he is the man who stands nearest to
Christ. Others might call James “the Lord’s brother”; he called himself the
“servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The new relationship was deeper,
more sacred even than the old. And that same fellowship, with all of Divine
blessedness that goes with it, is open to us to-day. Let us come to God, let us lay
our hands in His, let us say to Him, “Lo, I come to do thy will,” and even of us
Jesus will say, “Behold my brother, and sister, and mother.”
III
Jesus was a Cause of Offence
“They were offended in him.” What was the cause of offence?
1. He could not be measured by the stature of His family.—The question shows
us that these men in Nazareth thought that one can account for a man simply by
knowing his parents and brothers and sisters. There was nothing wonderful in
Joseph nor anything extraordinary in Mary, and therefore there could be
nothing great in Jesus. But in reasoning thus these people were mistaken. There
29

was nothing wonderful about the parents of Muhammad, or of Luther, or of
Goethe, or of Shakespeare. You cannot tell what a man is, simply by knowing
what his parents were. God has something to do with the making of a man. These
people in Nazareth supposed that under equal circumstances characters must be
equal. They adopted the principle that one child must be as bright as another,
and that one boy must be as good as another if they grow up in the same home.
All of which is of course an error. These people overestimated the importance of
circumstances, and forgot that God has something to do with the making of a
man. Their great mistake was that they left out God.
One does not look for a bird of paradise to be hatched in the nest of crossed
sticks built by the rook, and these critics scarcely expected to see the brilliant
Deliverer who had been the subject of prophecy for twenty centuries emerging
from a cottage. The Hindus compare a pretender to a crow which has stuck a
pomegranate flower into its tail. The murmurings in the synagogue, bandied
from lip to lip as the assembly poured forth into the street, implied that Jesus
had no hereditary genius or refinement, that He belonged to an average stock,
and that He was attempting a task too big for His antecedents.1 [Note: T. G.
Selby.]
2. He had begun to teach without having had the special training of a teacher.—
It is much easier for a worldly soul to pay homage to the trained scholar,
however superficial his insight, than to an artisan who claims to know the mind
of God, and to find prophetic foreshadowings of his own work in the Old
Testament Scriptures. But over-specialisation may sometimes involve intellectual
or spiritual suicide, and God has to go outside the caste to find a fitting
instrument of His will. Michael Angelo did not spring from a family of sculptors;
Shakespeare was not reared in a cloister of learning; nor did John Bunyan
illustrate the law of hereditary genius. Jesus Christ began the work which
culminated in the Sacrifice of the Cross as a layman, and it was resented,
“Who would do the scullion work in the great household of humanity if there
were no slaves?” This was the question that perplexed the great philosophers of
antiquity. This was the question which Christ answered by making Himself the
slave of mankind and classing Himself among the scullions.1 [Note: C. W.
Stubbs.]
“Is not this the carpenter?” Yes, thank God! It was the carpenter, and something
more. For you can be a carpenter, and something more. Lowliness of station is
not exclusive of the highest gifts, nor incompatible with the highest culture, nor
inimical to the highest usefulness. You may be carpenter and prophet, carpenter
and poet, just as you can be house-drudge and angel.2 [Note: J. Halsey.]
In the Louvre in Paris there is a famous painting by Murillo. It is entitled, “The
Miracle of San Diego.” A door opens and two noblemen and a priest enter a
kitchen. They are amazed to find that all the kitchen maids are angels. One is
handling a water pot, another a joint of meat, a third a basket of vegetables, a
fourth is tending the fire. The thought of the artist is that it is in toil and
drudgery we develop qualities which are celestial.3 [Note: C. E. Jefferson.]
30

The great Gods pass through the great Time-hall,
Stately and high;
The little men climb the low clay wall
To gape and spy;
“We wait for the Gods,” the little men cry,
“But these are our brothers passing by.”
The great Gods pass through the great Time-hall
With veiléd grace;
The little men crowd the low clay wall
To bow the face;
“But still are our brothers passing by!
Why tarry the Gods?” the little men sigh.
The great Gods pass through the great Time-hall;
Who can may see.
The little men nod by the low clay wall,
So tired they be;
“’Tis weary waiting for Gods,” they yawn,
“There’s a world o’ men, but the Gods are gone.”4 [Note: A. H. Begbie, The
Rosebud Wall, 19.]
3. But the chief cause of offence was the claim that He made for Himself.—This
is the earliest offence given by the Gospel; and it is deeply suggestive, because it
is still the earliest offence taken by each individual soul. What is the ground of
complaint here spoken of? Briefly stated, it is the homeliness of Christianity.
Men refused to recognise a thing which grew amid such mean surroundings. Had
Jesus claimed anything else than a Divine message there would have been no
objection to His mean surroundings. Had He claimed merely the inspiration of
31

human genius no one would have seen any contradiction in the poverty of His
environment. For all human conditions the Jew prescribed toil; he desired that
every man should learn a trade, should live as if he had to earn his bread. But
when he came to speak of man’s relation to God, that changed the spirit of his
dream. To him the attitude of God was ever one of rest. His God lay in the secret
place of His pavilion, with the curtains drawn, and the doors shut, and the
windows deafened! He could work only through His angels; He must not soil His
hands with mundane things. He who professed to be a Son of God must be a
child of mystery. He must have nothing homely about Him. He must be all soul,
no body; all wings, no feet; all poetry, no prose; all heaven, no earth. And is not
this also our first ideal of the Divine Life? In our moments of religious
awakening we deny that morality is evangelical. We are offended when a
preacher cries, “Salvation is goodness, work is worship, integrity is the service of
God!” We say, “These are common things, homely things, things for the
exchange and the market-place; you will see them in Nazareth every day.”1
[Note: G. Matheson.]
Jesus has drawn very near to us in our generation. We have been made to feel
Him as a Brother, as a living, breathing man, touched with all the feeling of our
infirmities. Back in the Gospels in their primal form we have gone, to let the old
tale tell upon us in its simplicity. All this has been for the good. Jesus has become
alive to many to whom He has been only a theological mummy. Thank God for
that. Only remember the nearness of neighbourhood had its own peculiar perils
of old when He was on earth, and that these perils exist still. It is just because
they knew Him so familiarly and felt Him so close in ancient Nazareth, that they
rejected Him.1 [Note: Canon Scott Holland.]
Robert Hichens, in one of his books, tells the story of an artist who desired to
paint a picture to be called “A Sea Urchin.” Says the painter in one place, “I had
made studies of the sea for that picture. I had indicated the wind by the shapes of
the flying foam, journeying inland to sink on the fields. I wanted my figure. I
could not find him. Yet I was in a sea village among sea folks. The children’s legs
there were browned with the salt water. They had clear blue eyes, sea-eyes; that
curious light hair which one associates with the sea. But they wouldn’t do for my
purpose. They were unimaginative. As a fact, they knew the sea too well. They
were familiar with it, as the little London clerk is familiar with Fleet Street or
Chancery Lane.… These children chucked the sea under the chin.” He goes on to
say how he searched for a child who was unfamiliar with the sea. In the heart of
a London slum he found what he sought. He took the child home with him, told
him of the voices that cry in the sea, of the onward gallop of the white horses, of
its unceasing motions, its calm and its tempests; he played music to him in which
the sound of waters could be heard. And at last he was rewarded by beholding
the wonder of the sea itself dawn in the eyes of the London street Arab. The
spirit of the ocean had entered into him, and he was all a-wonder.2 [Note: J.
Steele.]
32

4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without
honor except in his own town, among his
relatives and in his own home.”
GILL, "But Jesus said unto them,.... The following proverb;
a prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his
own kin, and in his own house; the same as in Mat_13:57; See Gill on Mat_
13:57. Only the phrase, "among his own kin", is here added: very probably some of
those that made these reflections, were some distant relations of Joseph, or Mary; for
as Jesus was now in his own country and city, and in his own native place, so among
his kindred and relations; who envied his gifts and attainments, and objected to him
his rise from that branch of their family, which was the most mean and abject.
HENRY, "V. Let us see how Christ bore this contempt.
1. He partly excused it, as a common thing, and what might be expected, though
not reasonably or justly (Mar_6:4); A prophet is not despised any where but in his
own country. Some exceptions there may be to this rule; doubtless many have got
over this prejudice, but ordinarily it holds good, that ministers are seldom so
acceptable and successful in their own country as among strangers; familiarity in the
younger years breeds a contempt, the advancement of one that was an inferior begets
envy, and men will hardly set those among the guides of their souls whose fathers
they were ready to set with the dogs of their flock; in such a case therefore it must not
be thought hard, it is common treatment, it was Christ's, and wisdom is profitable to
direct to other soil.
2. He did some good among them, notwithstanding the slights they put upon him,
for he is kind even to the evil and unthankful; He laid his hands upon a few sick
folks, and healed them. Note, It is generous, and becoming the followers of Christ, to
content themselves with the pleasure and satisfaction of doing good, though they be
unjustly denied the praise of it.
5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay
his hands on a few sick people and heal them.
GILL, "And he could there do no mighty work,.... Or miracle; not that Christ
had no power in himself to work miracles, though their unbelief and contempt of him
were very great; but it was not fit and proper that he should do any there, since such
were their prejudices against him: it is an usual way of speaking with the Hebrews,
when either it is not "fit" and proper that a thing should be done, or they "will" not do
it, to say it cannot be done; see Gen_19:22; and even it is said of God himself, "So
33

Mark 6 commentary

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Mark 6 commentary