Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 6:3
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.
3. Is not this the carpenter? ] Save in this one place, our Lord is nowhere Himself called “the Carpenter.” According to the custom of the Jews, even the Rabbis learnt some handicraft. One of their proverbs was that “he who taught not his son a trade, taught him to be a thief.” Hence St Paul learnt to “labour with his own hands” at the trade of a tent-maker ( Act 18:3 ; 1Th 2:9; 1Co 4:12). “In the cities the carpenters would be Greeks, and skilled workmen; the carpenter of a provincial village could only have held a very humble position, and secured a very moderate competence.” Farrar’s Life of Christ, I. 81.
the brother of James, and Joses ] The four “brothers” here mentioned, and “the sisters,” whose names are nowhere recorded, were in all probability the children of Clopas and Mary, the sister and namesake of the blessed Virgin, and so the “cousins” of our Lord. (Compare Mat 27:56 with Mar 15:40 and Joh 19:25.) Joseph would seem to have died at some time between a. d. 8 and a. d. 26, and there is no reason for believing that Clopas was alive during our Lord’s ministry. It has been suggested, therefore, that the two widowed sisters may have lived together, the more so as one of them had but one son, and He was often taken from her by His ministerial duties. Three other hypotheses have been formed respecting them: (1) that they were the children of Joseph by a former marriage; (2) that they were the children of Joseph and Mary; (3) that Joseph and Clopas being brothers, and Clopas having died, Joseph raised up seed to his dead brother, according to the Levirate law.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mar 6:3-4
Is not this the carpenter?
Jesus Christ, the carpenter
I. How the fact that Jesus was a carpenter was a hindrance to the faith of His fellow countrymen.
1. The objection was natural. He had grown up among them. They had become familiar with His ways.
2. Yet it was wrong and unreasonable. Their intimacy with Him ought to have opened their eyes to His unique character.
3. The objection they raise against His claims tells really in His favour. They find no fault in His character; they can only complain of His trade. High, unconscious tribute to His excellence.
II. How this fact should be a help to our faith.
1. It is a sign of Christs humility.
2. It is a proof that He went through the experience of practical life. Christ knows good work, for He looks at it with a workmans eye.
3. He found the school for His spiritual training in His practical work.
4. This sheds a glory over the life of manual industry.
5. This should attract working men to Christ. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.)
The dignity of honest labour
If labour was first imposed as a curse, it is turned truly into a blessing by this example of Him who thus wrought. The occupancy of a sphere of lowly industry by Christ, henceforth consecrates it as-
I. A suitable occupation of time.
1. Profitable
2. Healthful.
3. Saves from bad effects of indolence.
4. A source of pure and useful enjoyment.
II. An honourable means of maintenance.
1. Nothing degrading in it.
2. Deserves and commands fair remuneration.
3. Preserves a mans independence.
III. A worthy service to others. The products of industrial toil, especially of handicraft, are serviceable in the highest degree. Without them the comfort of large communities must be greatly impaired. He, therefore, who works with his hands the thing that is good, is a useful and honourable servant of his race.
1. In the lowliest spheres, the loftiest powers are not necessarily degraded.
2. In those spheres the holiest sentiments may be cherished, and the holiest character remain untarnished.
3. Whilst in them the humblest labourer may know that his toil is honoured, for it was shared by his Lord. (R. Green.)
Value of industrial employments
The word carpenter was given as an alternative translation by Wycliffe, and has descended into all the succeeding English versions; Wycliffes primary translation was smith, the word that was used in the Anglo-Saxon version. It had in Anglo-Saxon a generic meaning, equivalent to artificer. A worker in iron was called in Anglo-Saxon iren-smith. A smith is one who smites: a carpenter is one who makes cars. The word carpenter, therefore, must be a much later coinage than the word smith. The original Greek term () means primarily a producer; the word wright very nearly corresponds to it, as being closely connected with wrought or worked. It just means worker, and occurs in Anglo-Saxon in the two forms wryhta and wyrhta. This is the only passage in which it is stated that our Lord worked at a handicraft. It is a different expression that is found in Mat 13:53, Is not this the carpenters son? There is no contradiction, however, between the two representations; both might be coincidently employed, and no doubt were, when the Nazarenes were freely and frettingly canvassing the merits of their wonderful townsman. Our Lord would not be trained to idleness; it was contrary to Jewish habits, and to the teaching of the best Jewish rabbis. It would have been inconsistent moreover with the principles of true civilization, and with the ideal of normal human development. It is no evidence of high civilization, either to lay an arrest on full physical development on the one hand, or on the other to encourage only those modes of muscular and nervous activity which are dissociated from useful working and manufacturing skill. Society will never be right until all classes be industrious and industrial: the higher orders must return to take part in the employments of the lower; the lower must rise up to take part in the enjoyments of the higher. (J. Morison, D. D.)
The village carpenter in our Lords time held the position of the modern village blacksmith
Almost all agricultural instruments-ploughs, harrows, yokes, etc.
were made of wood. His workshop was the centre of the village life. (T. M. Lindsay, D. D.)
Jesus came from amongst the labouring classes
That Jesus did in fact spring from the labouring class of the population, is confirmed by the language of His discourses and parables, which everywhere refer to the antecedents and relations of the ordinary workmans life, and betray a knowledge of it which no one could have gained merely by observation, He was at home in those poor, windowless, Syrian hovels in which the housewife had to light a candle in the daytime to seek for her lost piece of silver. He was acquainted with the secrets of the bake house, of the gardener, and the builder, and with things which the upper classes never see-as the good measure pressed down and shaken together running over of the corn chandler; the rotten, leaking wine skin of the wine dealer; the patchwork of the peasant woman; the brutal manners of the upper servants to the lower,-these and a hundred other features of a similar kind are interwoven by Him into His parables. Reminiscences even of His more special handicraft have been found, it is believed, in His sayings. The parable of the splinter and the beam is said to recall the carpenters shop, the uneven foundations of the houses, the building yard, the cubit which is added, the workshop, and the distinction in the appearance of the green and dry wood, the drying shed. (Hausrath.)
Self-respect vital to religion
They could not believe in any Divine inspiration reaching such as themselves, and therefore resented it in Christ as an unjustifiable pretension of superiority. They had no proper faith in themselves, so had no proper faith in God. Self-respect is vital to religion. They believed in a God in a kind of way, but not in a God who touched their neighbourhood or entered into close dealings with Nazarenes. They were not on the outlook for the beautiful and the divine in the lives of men. No Nazarene Wordsworth had shown them the glory of common life, the beauty and divinity that exist wherever human life will welcome it. (R. Glover.)
The model artisan
These words reveal to us-
I. Christs social position.
1. That he sympathised with the humblest sons of men.
2. That social rank is no criterion of personal worth.
3. That moral and spiritual excellence should be honoured in whomsoever found.
II. Christs manual labour.
1. That honourable industry and holy living may co-exist.
2. That mental development and physical toil may be associated.
Conclusion: Observe-
(a) That labour is essential, not only to existence, but to happiness.
(b) That the greater our industry the fewer our temptations.
(c) That Christ waits to sanctify the duties of life to our spiritual interest. (A. G. Churchill.)
The Divine Carpenter
The Divine Carpenter applies the language of His earthly trade to the spiritual things He has created.
1. He has built a Church.
2. He has founded the resurrection-Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
3. He has established His divinity-The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.
4. He has prepared our eternal home-In My Fathers house, etc.
5. He has urged earnest heed to our building. (C. M. Jones.)
Jesus in the workshop
I. We see Him here bearing the curse of the fall.-In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, etc.
II. We see Him here bringing Himself near to all men.
III. He enters the workshop that He may unite men as brethren. IV He enters the workshop that He may sanctify all secular life. (J. Johnston.)
Work the law of life
From that tiny fly thus at work all day over your head, to the huge hippopotamus of the Nile, that seems to spend its lifetime half asleep, all have to work. But emphatically is this true of man. The wild Indian huntsman, as he plunges over the prairie armed with tomahawk or rifle, in pursuit of the thundering buffalo; the Bosjesman, in the impenetrable thickets of Africa, as he digs with hardened, horny fingers for the roots on which he lives; the amphibious South Sea Islander, as he wages perilous warfare with the monsters of the ocean; the fur-clad Esquimaux, as he tracks the bear or seal of the icy north; as well as the semi-civilized myriads of Asia, or the more advanced peoples of Europe-all find this world is a workshop, and they must toil to live. And the exceptions to this rule are fewer than at first sight we are apt to suppose. It is not only the artisan who has to work, but also the merchant amongst his wares, the author amongst his books, the statesman with the affairs of the nation, and the sovereign upon his throne. Whether impelled by the necessities of mere existence, or by the necessities of position and spirit, it may be said of all-Men must work. Our Lord, therefore, came near unto us when He entered the workshop. But as the great majority must gain their daily bread by manual labour, He entered even into that condition as the village carpenter of Nazareth. Had He been born in a palace and to a throne, or even into the estate of a wealthy merchant, He would have been separated, not in His feeling, but in theirs, by a great gulf from the great majority of men. (J. Johnston.)
Manual work redeemed
See how our whole life is redeemed, so that it may all be lived unto God and for eternity, and none of it be lost. He entered the kingdom of toil and subdued it to Himself for our salvation, so that toil is no more a curse to the Christian workman. The builder, as he lays brick on brick, may be building a heavenly temple; the carpenter, as he planes the wood, may thereby be refining his own character and that of others around him; the merchant, as he buys and sells, may be buying the pearl of great price; the statesman may be directing the affairs of an eternal kingdom; the householder may be setting her house in order for the coming of her Lord. As the blood of the sacrifice was put not only upon the ear, but upon the toe, of Aaron and his sons, so our Lord when, by entering it, He sanctified human life, sanctified its meanest and most secular things, spending His holy and Divine life mostly in the workshop. Brethren, whatever our station, we may live a holy, god-like, useful life. (J. Johnston.)
The royal shipwright
A strange workman took his place one day amongst the shipwrights in a building yard in Amsterdam. Fit only for the rudest work, he was content at first to occupy himself with the caulking mallet, hewing of wood, or the twisting of ropes, yet displayed the keenest desire to understand and master every part of the handicraft. But what was the astonishment of his fellow workmen to see persons of the highest rank come to pay their respects to him, approaching him with every mark of regard, amid the dust and confusion of the workshop, or clambering up the rigging to have an audience with him on the maintop. For he was no less a personage than Peter the Great, founder of the Russian Empire. He came afterwards to England, and lodged amongst the workshops in Deptford. Bishop Burnet, when he visited him, said he had gone to see a mighty prince, but found a common shipwright. But the king who had invited him to visit this country understood him better. He was the ruler of an empire vaster in extent than any other in Europe, but as far behind the poorest financially as it was before it territorially. It was, in fact, in a state of absolute barbarism. Its largest ship was a fishing boat, and it was as yet destitute of almost all, even the rudest arts of civilization. The Czar, determined to elevate his people, ordered the youth of the nobility to travel in lands distinguished by wealth and power, and become qualified to take part in the regeneration of their own country, he himself showing them the example. It was thus that wonderful spectacle was seen by the astonished workmen, ambassadors waiting in state on a man in the dress and at the work of a common shipwright. (J. Johnston.)
Useful reflections on Christs working as a carpenter
I. To illustrate this observable circumstance of our Lords life. It was a maxim among the Jews, that every man should bring up his son to some mechanic trade.
II. To suggest some useful remarks from this observable circumstance of our Lords life.
1. A persons original, his business and circumstances in life, often occasion prejudices against him: against his most wise, useful, and instructive observations.
2. Such prejudices are very absurd, unreasonable, and mischievous.
3. The condescension of the Son of God in submitting to such humiliation, demands our admiration and praise.
4. The conduct of our Lord reflects an honour upon trade, and upon those who are employed in useful arts.
5. This circumstance in Christs life furnisheth all, especially young persons, with an example of diligence and activity.
6. Persons may serve God and follow their trades at the same time. (J. Orton.)
Jesus an offence
The word rendered offended is scandalized in the original. It is a very graphic word, but incapable of adequate translation. It presents to view a complex picture. Christ was to His kinsmen and townsmen like a scandal, or catch stick, in a trap. They did not see what He was. They hence heedlessly ran up against Him and struck on Him, to their own utter ensnarement; they were spiritually caught; they became fixed in a position in which it was most undesirable to be fixed; they were spiritually hurt, and in great danger of being spiritually destroyed. Such are the chief elements of the picture. The actual outcome of the whole complex representation may be given thus: They spiritually stumbled on Jesus. To their loss they did not accept Him for what He really was: They rejected Him as the Lord High Commissioner of heaven. They came into collision with Him, and were ensnared, by suspecting that His indisputable superiority to ordinary men in word and work was owing to some other kind of influence than what was right and from above. (J. Morison, D. D.)
Offended at the carpenters son
People in high station or of high birth are very often displeased if one of humbler position excels them in anything. The nobles of Scotland did not work hand in hand with Wallace, because he had not such good blood as they gloried in.
Jealousy of greatness in neighbours
Our Lord specifies three concentric circles of persons to whom every prophet is nearly related. There is
(1) the circle of his little fatherland, or district of country, or township;
(2) the circle of his relatives or kin;
(3) the circle of his nearest relatives, the family to which he belongs.
In each of these circles there is in general but little readiness to recognize native or nascent superiority. The principles of self-satisfaction, self-confidence, self-complacency, come in to lay a presumptive interdict upon any adjoining self rising up in eminence above the myself. The temporary advantage of age, and thus of more protracted experience, asserts to itself for a season a sort of counter-superiority; and the mere fact of proximity makes it easy to open the door for the influence of envy, an ignoble vice that takes effect chiefly in reference to those on whom one can actually look (invidia, invides). In the long run, indeed, real superiority, if time be granted it, will vindicate for itself its own proper place in the midst of all its concentric circles. But, in general, this will be only after victories achieved abroad have made it impossible for the people at home to remain in doubt. (J. Morison, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. 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.
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 , Joset, and one, with several versions, reads Joseph.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Is not this the carpenter?…. Some copies read, “the carpenter’s son”, as in Mt 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, , “that the workman, or carpenter, be a right priest”.”
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 comments on Mt 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 prince, in great grandeur and splendour;
[See comments on Mt 13:55],
[See comments on Mt 13:56],
[See comments on Mt 13:57].
z Pirke Abot, c. 4. sect. 11. T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 104. 2. Cetubot, fol. 34. 1. & 58. 2. Bava Kama, fol. 71. 1. a T. Bab. Avoda Zara, fol. 24. 1. Sanhedrin, fol. 96. 1. Bava Bathra, fol. 170. 1. b T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 164. 2. c T. Bab. Nidda, fol. 24. 2. d T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 28. 2. Megilla, fol. 17. 1. & 18. 2. e Caphtor, fol. 75. 2. f Ganz Tzemach David, par. 1. fol. 30. 1. g Maimon. in Pirke Abot, c. 4. sect. 5. h Ib. Hilch. Talmud Tora, c. 1. sect. 9. i Misn. Kiddush. c. 4. sect. 14. T. Bab. Kiddush. fol. 82. 1. & Beracot, fol. 63. 1. k T. Kiddush. ib. l Ib. fol. 30. 2. m Pirke Abot, c. 2. sect. 9. n In Misn. Middot, c. 4. sect. 5. o T. Bab. Succa. p Shirhashirim Rabba, fol. 11. 4. q R. David Kimchi in Zech. i. 20. r R. Sol. Jarchi in ib. s Maimon. Hilch. Melachim, c. 1, sect. 6. t T. Bab. Kiddushin, fol. 82. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Is not this the carpenter? ( ;). Mt 13:55 calls him “the carpenter’s son” ( ). He was both. Evidently since Joseph’s death he had carried on the business and was “the carpenter” of Nazareth. The word comes from , , to beget, create, like (craft, art). It is a very old word, from Homer down. It was originally applied to the worker in wood or builder with wood like our carpenter. Then it was used of any artisan or craftsman in metal, or in stone as well as in wood and even of sculpture. It is certain that Jesus worked in wood. Justin Martyr speaks of ploughs, yokes, et cetera, made by Jesus. He may also have worked in stone and may even have helped build some of the stone synagogues in Galilee like that in Capernaum. But in Nazareth the people knew him, his family (no mention of Joseph), and his trade and discounted all that they now saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears. This word carpenter “throws the only flash which falls on the continuous tenor of the first thirty years from infancy to manhood, of the life of Christ” (Farrar). That is an exaggeration for we have Lu 2:41-50 and “as his custom was” (Lu 4:16), to go no further. But we are grateful for Mark’s realistic use of here.
And they were offended in him ( ). So exactly Mt 13:56,
were made to stumble in him , trapped like game by the because they could not explain him, having been so recently one of them. “The Nazarenes found their stumbling block in the person or circumstances of Jesus. He became– (1Pet 2:7; 1Pet 2:8; Rom 9:33) to those who disbelieved” (Swete). Both Mark and Mt 13:57, which see, preserve the retort of Jesus with the quotation of the current proverb about a prophet’s lack of honour in his own country. Joh 4:44 quoted it from Jesus on his return to Galilee long before this. It is to be noted that Jesus here makes a definite claim to being a prophet (, forspeaker for God), a seer. He was much more than this as he had already claimed to be Messiah (John 4:26; Luke 4:21), the Son of man with power of God (Mark 1:10; Matt 9:6; Luke 5:24), the Son of God (Joh 5:22). They stumble at Jesus today as the townspeople of Nazareth did.
In his own house ( ). Also in Mt 13:57. This was the saddest part of it all, that his own brothers in his own home disbelieved his Messianic claims (Joh 7:5). This puzzle was the greatest of all.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
The carpenter. This word “throws the only flash which falls on the continuous tenor of the first thirty years, from infancy to manhood, of the life of Christ” (Farrar, ” Messages of the Books “).
They were offended. See On Mt 5:29. Tynd., hurt.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Is not this the carpenter,” (ouch houtos estin to tekton) “Isn’t this man the carpenter, the building technician?” In no other place is Jesus called “the carpenter;- yet is believed that He learned this, as a craft, as Paul did tent-making, Act 18:3.
2) “The son of Mary,” (ho huios tes marias) “The son or heir of Mary,” Luk 2:51-52; Gal 4:4-5.
3) “The brother of,” (kai adelphos) “And a brother,”
“James,” (lakabou) “Of James,” and Joses” (kai lesetos) “And of Joses,” and of Juda,” (kai louda) “And of Judas,” and Simon;- (kai Simonos) “and of Simon?” They affirmed that they knew the family of Jesus, Mat 13:55-56.
4) “And are not His sisters with us?” (kai ouk eisin hai adelphai autou hode pros hemas) “And are not His sisters here (in this community) with us?” Mat 13:56.
5) “And they were offended at Him.” (kai eukandalizonto en auto) “And they were offended at Him,” simply and apparently, because He was not a specifically authorized Jewish teacher, with Synagogue ordination, by an order of the Pharisees or Sadducees, Mat 11:16; Mat 13:57-58; 1Pe 2:7-8.
He should have been received with an ovation, for the good that He was doing, but the formal, religious, pious masses of the Jews rejected Him in life and put Him to death in the end, Joh 1:11-12; 1Th 2:14-15.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(3) Is not this the carpenter?St. Marks is the only Gospel which gives this name as applied to our Lord Himself. (See Note on Mat. 13:55.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3 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.
Ver. 3. Is not this the carpenter? ] . Not the smith, as Hilary and Ambrose render it. Christ made yokes and ploughs, saith Justin Martyr. And hence in his preaching he drew similitudes from the yoke,Mat 11:29Mat 11:29 ; Luk 9:62 , saith a Lapide. See Trapp on “ Mat 13:55 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
3. ] This expression does not seem to be used at random, but to signify that the Lord had actually worked at the trade of his reputed father. Justin Martyr, Dial. 88, p. 186, says , . Cf. the conflicting but apparently careless assertion of Orig [19] in the var. readd. See also the anecdote told by Theodoret, H. E. iii. c. 18, p. 940.
[19] Origen, b. 185, d. 254
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mar 6:3 . : avoided by Mt., who says the carpenter’s son : one of Mk.’s realisms. The ploughs and yokes of Justin M. (c. Trypho., 88) and the apocryphal Gospels pass beyond realism into vulgarity. : what they had heard awakened admiration, but the external facts of the speaker’s connections and early history stifled incipient faith; vide notes on Mt.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
not. Greek. ou. App-105. Not the same word as in verses: Mar 6:9, Mar 6:11, Mar 6:34.
the carpenter = the workman. Such terms used only by His rejecters. Occurs only here and Mat 13:35.
with. Greek. pros. App-104.
were offended = stumbled. Greek. scandalizo.
at = in. Greek en. App-104.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
3. ] This expression does not seem to be used at random, but to signify that the Lord had actually worked at the trade of his reputed father. Justin Martyr, Dial. 88, p. 186, says , . Cf. the conflicting but apparently careless assertion of Orig[19] in the var. readd. See also the anecdote told by Theodoret, H. E. iii. c. 18, p. 940.
[19] Origen, b. 185, d. 254
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mar 6:3. ) Son of the carpenter, or even Himself a carpenter; for they add, the Son of Mary, in antithesis to the Son of the carpenter. [He Himself therefore toiled at that kind of labour, which was corresponding to His spiritual work; Zec 6:12.-V. g.]
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
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?
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 Christs 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 importanceHe 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 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 founda 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 mans 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 morrows 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 himstrong 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 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 carpenters 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 evila kind of degradation to themat least a burden and a hindrancesomething 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, someespecially fresh convertswould fain abandon their secular engagements altogether, and give themselves wholly to what they call a religious lifeto 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 workto make it no more worldlybut Christian, Heavenly, Godlike. Was not His whole life like His seamless robeof one perfect pieceall of it religiousall of it devoted to Godall 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, 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 predecessorsPeter 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 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 worldone whose products are better known in London and Paris than even in Japanyou 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 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 Fathers business? And from that hour assuredly He ever did His Fathers 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 makesthings 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 thisthat the only religion a man has, is what he has always, not sometimeswhat he is in everything, not just now and then.
In this connection another thought occurs. As stepping into Josephs 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 heavenhe is the man who stands nearest to Christ. Others might call James the Lords 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 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.]
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 veild 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,
Theres 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 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 mans 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 childrens 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 wouldnt 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.]
The Carpenter
Literature
Campbell (J. M.), Bible Questions, 77.
Clifford (J.), The Dawn of Manhood, 34.
Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women, and Children, 4th Ser. 437.
Davies (J. P.), The Same Things, 168.
Farquhar (J.), The Schools and Schoolmasters of Christ, 61.
Halsey (J.), The Beauty of the Lord, 213.
Jackson (G.), The Table-Talk of Jesus, 19, 37.
Jefferson (C. E.), My Fathers Business, 147.
Jerdan (C.), Pastures of Tender Grass, 44.
Laurie (E.), in Christ and His People, 121.
Manning (H. E.), Sermons, ii. 220.
Matheson (G.), Thoughts for Lifes Journey, 143.
Morgan (G. C.), The Hidden Years at Nazareth.
New (C.), The Baptism of the Spirit, 231.
Pearse (M. G.), The Gentleness of Jesus, 29.
Purves (P. C.), The Divine Cure for Heart Trouble, 89.
Selby (T. G.), The Divine Craftsman, 1.
Stubbs (C. W.), in Lombard Street in Lent, 164.
Tymms (T. V.), The Private Relationships of Christ, 73.
Christian World Pulpit, v. 232 (Dorling); x. 85 (Johnston); xii. 124 (Palmer); xlv. 129 (Stubbs); li. 118 (Pearse); lxvii. 264 (Tymms); lxxi. 17 (Holland); lxxvi. 40 (Steele).
Church of England Pulpit, xxxvii. 241 (Stubbs); lxii. 90 (Holland).
Expositor, 5th Ser., iii. 95 (Bruce).
Homiletic Review, v. 220 (Jones).
Preachers Magazine, [1897] 60 (Pearse).
20th Century Pastor, xxvi. 65 (Kelly).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
this: Mat 13:55, Mat 13:56, Luk 4:22, Joh 6:42
carpenter: Isa 49:7, Isa 53:2, Isa 53:3, 1Pe 2:4
James: Mar 15:40, Mat 12:46, 1Co 9:4, Gal 1:19
Juda: Joh 14:22, Jud 1:1
Simon: Mar 3:18, Act 1:13
offended: Mat 11:6, Mat 13:57, Luk 2:34, Luk 4:23-29, Luk 7:23, Joh 6:60, Joh 6:61, 1Co 1:23
Reciprocal: Ecc 9:16 – the poor Mat 1:16 – of whom Mar 3:33 – or Luk 1:52 – put Luk 2:51 – and was Luk 3:23 – being Luk 8:20 – thy brethren Joh 1:45 – the son Joh 2:12 – and his brethren Joh 7:15 – How Joh 7:27 – we know 1Co 9:5 – the brethren 2Co 8:9 – he became
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Chapter 36.
The Nazarenes and Their Error
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. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in His own country, and among His own kin, and in His own house. And He could there do no mighty work, save that he laid His hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And He marvelled because of their unbelief. And He went round about the villages, teaching.-Mar 6:3-6.
The Life of Christ at Nazareth.
We have now to consider the conduct of Christ’s townsfolk, as the remainder of this paragraph reveals it to us. Now shall I very much startle any if I say that there was some slight excuse for the incredulity the Nazarenes displayed on the occasion of the first visit? There was no excuse, of course, for the murderous fury, but there was some slight excuse for their incredulity. For consider the circumstances, Jesus had lived in Nazareth as boy and man. We must dismiss from our minds all thought of the marvels with which the Apocryphal Gospels have embellished the story of those early years. Jesus lived an absolutely normal and healthy boy’s life. The other boys who played with Him and went to school with Him were conscious of no difference between themselves and Him, except that there was an uprightness, a purity, a grace about Him they did not possess. They felt He was a better boy, but still a boy. And when He grew up, His experience was again the normal experience of a Jewish lad. He was apprenticed to a trade-His father’s trade, and, as this paragraph plainly shows, carried that trade on until that memorable day when the Father’s voice summoned Him to His mission. Then He left Nazareth for John’s baptism, and His own inner conviction of a Divine call was confirmed by John’s solemn announcement He knew the hour had come, and to prepare for His great work He sought the solitude of the wilderness, calmly to face the Father’s plan for Him, and to battle down all temptations to take any easier way to win the world. After the temptation, He entered on His work as a Preacher of the Kingdom, and practically made straight for Nazareth, to declare His Gospel there.
The Sudden Claim.
Now, try to realise the circumstances. Only some six or seven weeks had elapsed since Jesus had been, in the eyes of the people of Nazareth, one of themselves-a village carpenter. And now He was back again, making the most extraordinary claims for Himself! Transfer the circumstances to our own times and suppose that a working-man-known, it is true, for his piety, but still an everyday working-man-should one day appear in our midst declaring himself to be the founder of a new kingdom. Do you not think there would be some shakings of the head and some contemptuous epithets flying round? Well, that is exactly how it was with the Nazarenes on Christ’s first visit. Familiarity does undoubtedly make it difficult for men to do homage to another’s greatness. And I think there is some excuse for the incredulity the Nazarenes displayed on the occasion of our Lord’s first visit.
The Second Appeal.
But I confess I can find no excuse for their incredulity on this second visit. I am dumbfounded as I think of it. For, by this, Jesus Christ’s name and fame were spread throughout the land. These Nazarenes had heard and seen that very day for themselves evidences of our Lord’s greatness and supremacy. They had heard His words; they had listened to His wisdom; they had seen apparently some of His mighty works. They could not help but acknowledge His uniqueness. Carpenter or no carpenter, this was no ordinary man. “Whence,” they asked in wondering amazement, “hath this Man these things? and, What is the wisdom that is given unto this Man? and What mean such mighty works wrought by His hands?” (Mar 6:2, R.V.). And having read these expressions of awestruck wonder, I expect to read next that these Nazarenes, with their prejudices clean swept away by what they heard and saw, made confession like Nathanael, “Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel” (Joh 1:49); or that they fell at His feet, like Thomas did, and cried, “My Lord and my God” (Joh 20:28).
Its Rejection.
But what I read is something very different. “And they were offended in Him”-“they were caused to stumble,” as the margin puts it; or, to translate the Greek verb quite literally, “They were scandalised in Him.” This is a staggering thing-that people should recognise Jesus Christ’s uniqueness and yet be scandalised in Him. What was the reason for it? It was in a word, prejudice. You remember how in his Holy War, John Bunyan stations one old Mr. Prejudice, with fifty deaf men under him at Ear-gate, to defend that particular gate into the citadel of Mansoul against the assaults of Prince Emmanuel. Well, it was Mr. Prejudice who stopped the ears and hardened the hearts of these Nazarenes against the appeals of Jesus that day. The second rejection was all Mr. Prejudice’s work.
-The Cause: Prejudice.
“They were scandalised in Him”-and prejudice was at the bottom of it; prejudice born of nearness and familiarity. “A prophet,” was the comment of Jesus Himself, “is not without honour, save in His own country and among His own kin, and in His own house” (Mar 6:4, R.V.). We know the truth of this proverb in the common affairs of daily life. We are often blind to the worth of the familiar and the near. We find it difficult to admit the greatness of any one whom circumstances seemed to mark as our equal, and who started side by side with us. Jeremy Bentham, Hazlitt says, was an illustration of this very proverb, for he was better known and more highly esteemed on the other side of the globe than he was in his own land. I remember hearing a true incident about one of the great cotton lords of Manchester. He was supposed to be suffering from some particular complaint, and he travelled all the way to Vienna, to consult a doctor supposed to be a great specialist on this particular disease. “You are an Englishman?” the doctor said. “Yes,” the patient replied. “May I ask from what part of England you come?” “Manchester,” was the answer. “But why did you come from Manchester all the way to me? The greatest authority in the world lives in your own city”; and he named one of the medical professors of my old university. “The eyes of a fool,” says the Wise Man, “are in the ends of the earth” (Pro 17:24). It is a widespread folly. We see more worth and value in the things that are far off than in the things that are near. Distance with many of us magnifies importance. It is so in the case of the “prophet” still. There are many people who seem to measure a preacher’s worth by the mileage he travels. They find all sorts of virtues and qualities in the stranger they fail to see in the man who is in their own midst.
-A Modern Error.
It is so even in the case of Jesus Christ still. This sin of the Nazarenes is being-in a slightly different form-repeated by multitudes in our midst to-day. Do you not wonder how it is men are not won by the beauty of Christ, touched by the appeal of the Christian Gospel? Do you not wonder how it is that the story of the Cross leaves an English audience unmoved, while it melts the poor pagan Greenlander to tears? Do you not wonder how it is men are so indifferent to this old Book, while a Japanese reading it for the first time thrills with joy, and greets it as a veritable word of God? What is the reason for it all? Just this-familiarity has bred contempt. We are familiar with Jesus and with His words. We are so accustomed to His words, His wisdom, His mighty works, that we have ceased to wonder at them. Let us ask God to preserve us from the deadening effects of familiarity and routine. Let us ask Him to keep our hearts ever sensitive to the grace of Jesus and the wonder of the Gospel. When we lose our wonder we may commit again the sin of these Nazarenes, and count the blood of the covenant… an unholy thing (Heb 10:29).
Its Results.
The Nazarenes were offended in Jesus, and as a result Jesus could there do no mighty work. He Who away down in Capernaum had healed the woman by mere touch of His garment, Who had raised the young daughter of Jairus from the dead, Who in Gerasa had restored the man possessed of the legion to sanity and health, Who at a word has stilled the whistling wind and raging sea, in Nazareth could do no mighty work. “He could there do no mighty work” (Mar 6:5). That is rather a startling sentence. “Cannot” is an ugly word to apply to Him into Whose hands the Father had committed all things. What are we to understand by it? Are we to understand that power for the moment had deserted Jesus? No, this “cannot” of which we read here was not the result of any physical arrest put upon Christ’s powers. The “cannot,” as Dr. Salmond says, is due to the fact that “the moral conditions were wanting.” For I must remind you that every “mighty work” of which we read in the Gospels was the result of the fulfilment of two conditions.
The Power and the Conditions of its Exercise.
There was, first of all, the Divine power of Christ, and there was, in the second place, faith on the part of the receiver of the blessing. Take the two last miracles of which we have been reading. Hundreds of people touched Christ’s garments, and received no benefit. How came it, then, that this woman, from her mere touch, received the healing of the plague with which she had been afflicted for twelve years? Jesus Himself supplies the answer, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole” (Mar 6:34). It was the humble faith and expectancy of the woman that liberated-shall I say?-the Divine power, and allowed it to do its beneficial work. Take the case of Jairus’ daughter. At a certain stage in the journey certain of Jairus’ friends or servants met them, and brought word that the little child was dead, and that therefore there was no need to trouble the Master any further. “Fear not,” said Jesus, “only believe” (Mar 6:36). And so they went on their way. To those people, who, as they would say, knew the facts, the continuance of this journey seemed absurd. But Jairus cherished a belief that it would not prove in vain. “Only believe,” said Jesus. He could have worked no miracle without faith in the recipient. But because Jairus believed, it was possible for Him to summon the “little lamb” back again from the sleep of death. This demand for a certain moral condition before exercising His healing power is still more vividly seen in the case of the healing of the demoniac lad at the foot of the Holy Mount “If Thou canst do anything,” cried the agonised father, “have compassion on us, and help us” (ix. 22). He talked as if it were solely and simply a question of Christ’s power. But it was much more than that. “If Thou canst?” replied Jesus, as if to say, “It is not simply a case of My power; it is just as much a case of your faith. All things are possible to him that believeth.” “Lord,” sobbed the man, “I believe; help Thou mine unbelief” (ix. 24). This condition of faith must always be fulfilled before Christ’s power can be exercised. For, if Christ performed His mighty works upon people irrespective of their moral condition, His miracles would cease to be moral acts at all. They would become mere acts of wonder. Divine blessing is always conditioned by the moral state of the recipient; the exercise of Christ’s power depends upon the state of our own hearts. Whatsoever we ask believing we shall receive. But unbelief puts an effectual arrest on the output of Christ’s power.
Is the Condition met by us?
“He could there do no mighty work” (Mar 6:5). Is that the condition with us? We complain often of the dearth of conversions. We pray constantly for a revival. We cry out to our Lord and say, “It is high time for Thee to work.” But let us lay this truth to heart-if there is an arrest of our Lord’s power, it is not because His arm is shortened, that it cannot save. It is because the requisite moral conditions in us are lacking. When faith and expectancy are present, Christ never fails. When the Church fulfils the conditions on her side, Christ is never wanting. Every revival proves the truth of this statement. So I suggest a variation in our prayers. Instead of crying, “Awake, arm of the Lord, as in the ancient days,” let us cry earnestly, unceasingly, “Lord, increase our faith.”
The Saying Exception at Nazareth.
“He could there do no mighty work, save that He laid His hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them” (Mar 6:5). “Save that”-there is always the saving exception. The story of Christ’s visit to Nazareth was not a story of complete and abject failure. Even in Nazareth there were a few hidden ones, as Dr. Salmond says, with a claim upon His compassion, and with the inward preparation for the healing gift; some open and guileless souls who amid the general prejudice and incredulity believed in Jesus, and so made it possible for Him to work.
Failures-and Failures.
“He could there do no mighty work, save that”-that is typical of work for God. There is often much to depress; but it is never abject and complete failure. Elijah thought he had laboured for nought and in vain; but there were 7000 in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal. Jesus died on the Cross of Shame-and the Cross was just the Symbol of the way in which the nation as a whole had rejected Him. He failed amongst His countrymen; but it was not total failure. “He could there do no mighty work”-save that He won some hundred and twenty souls, who loved Him, and lived for Him, and built their whole hopes for time and eternity upon Him. They laughed at Paul in Athens; his Athenian mission was to a large extent a failure-the most disappointing failure of any mission Paul undertook. And yet it was not a total failure. He could there do no mighty work,-save that he won Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris to the faith. The converts at Sardis well nigh all turned apostate, and it seemed as if the preaching of the Gospel was to end in ghastly and tragic failure. And yet it was not total failure. There was no great and mighty work done in Sardis-save that there were a few who from the day of their conversion never afterwards defiled their garments. “Save that”-there is always this saving clause, to keep alive our faith in men, in the Gospel, in our Lord. We preach and preach, and we seem to accomplish nothing-save that, as we learn in unexpected ways sometimes, God used our poor and halting words to comfort some breaking heart, to strengthen some struggling soul. And sometimes we almost lose faith in the Gospel. We hear of it being preached far and wide, and it seems to accomplish so little. It does no mighty work, save that-yes, there is always a save that-we hear of souls being bora again or of a whole nation revived.
The Wonder of Christ.
“And He marvelled because of their unbelief” (Mar 6:6). Commentators tell us that there were only two things Christ wondered at, and they were faith and unfaith. The faith of the Roman centurion was a wonder to Jesus: “He marvelled, and said, Verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel” (Mat 8:10). It was a mighty faith, discovered in an unexpected quarter. And He marvelled at the unbelief of Nazareth. It was unintelligible to Him. For it was unbelief in spite of knowledge. It was unbelief in spite of the recognition of His greatness. It was unbelief in spite of the evidence of His wonderful works. Unbelief is irrational. English people recognise Christ’s wisdom. They admit His supremacy. They see His mighty deeds. And yet multitudes do not believe. He wondered at their unbelief! Does He wonder at us? “The Son of Man, when He cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” “Oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe!” “Lord, help mine unbelief.”
Fuente: The Gospel According to St. Mark: A Devotional Commentary
3
The remarks in this verse were said by way of assuring themselves of the identity of Jesus. A peculiar trait of the human mind has produced a well-known saying, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” The citizens seemed to think that one with whom they were so intimately acquainted would be unable to accomplish such a great work. (For comments on brethren see Mat 12:46.)
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
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.
[Is not this the carpenter?] Among other things to be performed by the father for his son this was one, to bring him up in some art or trade. “It is incumbent on the father to circumcise his son, to redeem him, to teach him the law, and to teach him some occupation. R. Judah saith, ‘Whosoever teacheth not his son to do some work, is as if he taught him robbery.’ ” “R. Meir saith, ‘Let a man always endeavour to teach his son an honest art;’ ” etc. Joseph instructs and brings up Christ in his carpenter’s trade.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mar 6:3. The carpenter. Matthew: the carpenters son. Our Lord had probably wrought at the trade of Joseph; though the Nazarenes would in any case naturally identify Him with the occupation of His reported father. All Jewish young men learned a trade. The legends and fancies about the infancy of Christ are very foolish; but the Son of man would doubtless share in the primal curse (Gen 3:19).On the brethren of our Lord, see Matthew, pp. 127, 128.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 3
The carpenter. Matthew (Matthew 13:55) says the carpenter’s son. It would seem, from Mark’s expression, that Jesus had been accustomed to labor with his father.–Brother,–sisters. These words are often used in the Scriptures to express any near relative, as in Genesis 13:8, where Abraham and Lot are said to be brethren. It would seem from Mark 15:40, that the mother of James and Joses was a Mary; and from John 19:25, that she was a near relative of the virgin Mary, but not the same. She is called in several places the wife Cleopas. The words sister and son are used with the same latitude. Thus Christ is called the son of David.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
6:3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his {b} sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.
(b) This word is used after the manner of the Hebrews, who by brethren and sisters understand all relatives.