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"The Carpenter's Son"
(Matthew 13:53-58)
“The Fifth Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus,” of the Apocrypha, records several fanciful stories of the boyhood of Jesus. Supposedly, the boy Jesus would often perform miracles to help His father, Joseph, in carpentry. One story proposes that Jesus and Joseph miraculously enlarged a throne, inadequately constructed by Joseph, by pulling it in each direction. However interesting these stories might be, they are not inspired. But there is one truth to this story: Jesus was known as “the carpenter’s son” in His home province of Galilee, though in reality He is the Son of God.
When Jesus revealed His divinity to Nazareth, they questioned His authority. This was not unexpected, considering that they only knew Him as “the carpenter’s son.” After all, Jesus’ teaching was quite different from that of the Jews’ religious teachers’ (Mark 2:5-7; Matthew 7:28-29). Christ’s genuineness should be seriously considered by all before accepting Him. Still, it seemed to the Galileans that “the carpenter’s son” could not be the Son of God.
Because they had known him from boyhood, they became offended (Greek, “skandalon,” a “stumbling-block” – Romans 9:33; 1 Corinthians 1:23) when He claimed to be the Messiah. They could not accept Jesus, their social equal, as their king. They had a false perception of Jesus despite the prophecy of Jesus’ lowly nature (Isaiah 53:2).
The Jews desired a king to rise up and make them a mighty nation again and Jesus was a local boy from the insignificant town of Nazareth without their kingly credentials. Prejudice hindered proper evaluation. “Prejudice is a terrible malady. It blinds us, makes us insensible to the most obvious truths. Perhaps none of us are entirely free from its blight, but if we are aware of its dangers we should calculate its influence before drawing hasty conclusions,"”(Robert Turner, Plain Talk, Vol. 3, No. 9, p.8)
Jesus recognized their bigotry with the proverbial statement, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house,” (v. 57). Because they were unable to see Jesus as more than a common man, Matthew says, “Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief,” (v. 58). Their prejudice did not restrict Jesus’ powers – Jesus simply knew their hearts He knew that they would not receive him regardless of what they saw (note Luke 16:27-31).
How often fancy takes precedence over truth in the religious world (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Removing bias is a never ending struggle but men must see Jesus as more than “the carpenter’s son” in order to be saved (John 8:24). – James Pittman.
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