God’s Word for You

Mark 6:1-2 Where did this man learn?

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, December 3, 2022

Three years ago when my wife’s illness was growing worse, I tried to please her with some devotions on her favorite stories and passages, including Mark 7. Since those days I have returned to the Second Gospel many times, and now I find that aside from the Passion account, we only have chapter 6 left to meditate upon. I will leave the Passion until about this time next year, but for a little while we will turn to Mark 6 and the account of the Lord Jesus Christ’s most famous miracle.

6 Jesus left there and went to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2 When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue. Many people who heard him were amazed at what he said. “Where did this man learn these things?” they asked. “What is this wisdom that has been given him? And such miracles are done by his hands!

Mark takes a moment to let us know that all of them followed him now as he left the lake and traveled to his patris, his home town. This was not his adopted home on the seashore (Capernaum), but the city where he had been raised as a boy: Nazareth. When Jesus had healed the daughter of Jairus, only three disciples had been with him. Why let only three of them see the glory of raising a person from the dead, but bring them all to the rejection that lay ahead here in Nazareth? This is God’s manner of showing the great things in the small; of displaying wisdom in foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:27). These same disciples would work miracles in his name, but they would also be rejected, punished, beaten, and even killed because of him. He needed to show them that this would happen to him, too, and that he was always with them.

As soon as the next Sabbath day came, he began teaching in the synagogue there. He was eager to preach. He was glad to be among them, not only because they were old friends, but because they were souls he needed to touch. This is truly the lesson for every preacher: These are souls that need to be touched, lives that need healing; hearts broken for any and every reason that need mending.

The reaction of these people, his own friends and relatives, is spread out over verses 2 and 3. Here we have the first three reactions:

    1, Where did this man learn these things?
    2, What is this wisdom he has been given?
    3, What about the miracles he does?

Notice that the crowd doesn’t use his name. They are distancing themselves from a young man (he is about 32) that they grew up with. Some of them are his relatives. But they wonder where he got his education, meaning his religious instruction. Jesus said profound things, more deeply moving and convincing than anything that the rabbis usually produced. The typical rabbinic sermon began with a premise followed by support from a more well-known rabbi, countered perhaps by something equally convincing from yet another man in the past, and then maybe a quotation from the Scriptures (that is, the Old Testament) that may or may not have had anything to do with his premise. After this, he might even end his sermon with a question, leaving the answer to the wondering minds of his listeners. Jesus did nothing of the kind. He would usually ask a question or call out a hypocritical act that everybody knew about, and then while he debunked this by quickly running to Moses or the prophets or even to common sense, he would then teach a lesson about God’s great plan of salvation. It was an engaging way of preaching. It made people discuss what he said. He was a man people wanted to hear. This was how he introduced the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:5-14), the wisdom of giving in secret (Matthew 6:2-4), fasting in secret (Matthew 6:16-21), how he exposed the abuse of the corban offerings (Matthew 15:3-11), and how he exposed at least one trap of the Pharisees (Matthew 22:18-22).

In the second reaction, they acknowledge that the wisdom Jesus has could only have been a gift, and they wonder openly who it was who gave him that gift. It’s a strange statement, and it exposes the foolishness of unbelief. Sometimes when someone has rejected God, they betray themselves by assuming that everybody else in the world must have rejected God, too. So at least some of the Nazarenes couldn’t believe that a man, a modern man (to their era) could be as deeply religious as a Moses or an Isaiah. Those are old guys from long ago! How could anyone from today be as religious and as deeply familiar with the word of the Scriptures as those guys? Not being in the Scriptures at all themselves, they refused to believe that anybody else would want to be. The Psalm might say, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and light for my path” (Psalm 119:105), but the Nazarenes didn’t believe it. Not at all. They might have wanted to sneak off to see the new Greek plays and listen to bawdy Roman tunes. But a life of faith? Who wants to be Elijah and be fed by ravens when you can publicly criticize Herod and then go home and think, talk, live and behave in exactly the same way that Herod did?

In the third reaction, there were some who wondered about his miracles, done with his own hands. It was possible that they had not yet heard about the raising of Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:41) but weeks or months may have passed. But there were many other miracles that were becoming known, and whether people believed in him or not, they wanted to see miracles. Even the Pharisees asked to see a miraculous sign (Matthew 16:1; Mark 8:11).

A believer asks Jesus to bless him (Mark 10:13), to have mercy on him (Mark 10:7), to teach him (Psalm 143:10), and to forgive him (Job 7:21). This is our reaction to Jesus our Savior. Surely we are in awe of his teaching, his wisdom, and his miracles, but we don’t doubt him. We acknowledge him, accept him, love him, and praise him. Never doubt that he will save us from sin, death and the power of hell. He is our Savior. He gives eternal life.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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