At the opening of chapter 6 Jesus enters “His own country,” the area where He grew up, around Nazareth. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph and Mary resettled in Nazareth after returning from the flight from Bethlehem to Egypt. This is where Jesus grew up as a child. This is where He played and was taught. He had a history with the people who lived there.
On the Sabbath came Jesus went to the local synagogue, the same synagogue He would have attended as a child to be taught the Scriptures. Now He is the one who has come to teach.
V.2-3 Those who were listening to Him were “astonished.” The Greek word ekplesso means to drive out of one's senses by a sudden shock or strong feeling, or "to be exceedingly struck in mind". It means to cause to be filled with amazement to the point of being overwhelmed (struck out of one's senses). But here the word takes on a negative tone. While recognizing Jesus’ wisdom and the mighty works He had performed, but they are incredulous and callous to His message. You can sense their spiritual insensitivity in verse 3. They only see the Jesus who grew up among them and were not willing to recognize Him for who He really was.
The result is that “they were offended by Him.” The Greek word for offended (offense) skandalon has two meanings. (a) It originally meant the bait-stick in a trap. (b) It then came to mean any stumbling-block placed in a man’s way to trip him up. What is described here is nothing less than tragic. Jesus and His message became a stumbling block to the people of His own hometown.
The fundamental irony of this passage is that the kingdom of God was tangibly present in His hometown, but the people who knew Him best could not see it.
Paul describes this in 1 Corinthians 1:22-23, “For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.”
V.4 You can almost feel a sense of genuine sadness in Jesus’ reply, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.”
Some of us may have experienced something similar. Have you experienced being ostracized by relatives, even some of your own household, for being a Christian?
V.5 Jesus did heal “a few sick people and healed them,” despite His lack of acceptance. What we are told is that he could do no mighty work there. The Greek word speaks of a work of power. In other words, the power that Jesus had to do greater miracles was hindered in some way. We learn what is the cause of the hindrance in verse 6, “And He marveled because of their unbelief.” The reason that there were not more miracles and thus more converts lay in the entrenched unbelief of the people.
We like to believe that when it comes to sharing the good news with others that everyone will be receptive, but such is not the case.
V.7-13 Sending out the twelve
Up to this point Jesus has done all of the preaching and healing, with the disciples being active observers. Now Jesus sends His disciples out to do what He had done in their sight, and He gave them the power to do it.
The following is an excerpt from Mark: The IVP New Testament Commentary Series, p.120 (Kernaghan, ed.).
Jesus charged them to preach repentance. Repentance is not a popular subject on just about any conceivable occasion. Even in societies with ancient traditions of hospitality like these Galilean villages, calling people to repent could be an unpopular thing to do. It is all the more risky if the preachers have to rely for their food and shelter on the people who are supposed to repent. This was a venture of faith for the Twelve. Although they had been little more than witnesses, sometimes mere spectators, the Jesus’ ministry. Here they moved into the spotlight and began to do the things that Jesus had been doing. In this transition from witness to preacher, their faith would be put to the test.
This test of faith is further expressed within Jesus’ instructions to the Twelve. When Jesus sent His disciples out to the villages of Galilee, He did not allow them to take bread, bag, money or extra clothes—only a pair of sandals, the tunics they were wearing and a staff. They were to find one home in each village to put them up and stay there until they were to move on. If they encountered people who would not extend them hospitality or listen to them, they were to leave that town with a gesture of judgment, shaking the dust off their feet as a testimony against them.
These rules obviously made the travel easier and pressed the disciples to trust God for their food and shelter. They would need to learn to depend on the power of God working through them and providing for them.
What might we learn from this?
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