Bible Study series: Mark 6:1-6. Jesus went there to teach and preach. But they rejected him. He simply moved on.
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Let’s begin.
Scripture: Mark 6:1-9
1 Now he left from there and went to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2 While it was the Sabbath, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who listened were amazed, saying, “Where does he get these things? And what is this wisdom that is given to him? And what are these miracles done through his hands? 3 Isn’t this one the builder, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here among us?” So they were offended at him. 4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown and among his relatives and in his household.” 5 He was unable to work any miracles there except, laying his hands on a few sick people, he healed them. 6 He was amazed at their unbelief.
He went around, circulating through the villages, teaching. (Mark 6:1-9)
Comments
Recall that Mark 3:20-21 says his family was going to take custody of him, for they believed (wrongly) that he was out of his mind. And 3:31-35 says that stood outside a meeting and called to him or summoned him to go outside. However, he replied that his true mother and brothers were those who do the will of God as he gestured to his listeners, implying that his mother and brothers were not doing the will of God at this stage in their (mis)understanding of their brother and son.
1:
It is best to move on, even after many victories. No one should rest on his laurels. Move forward to the next challenge. And the next challenge for him was going to be tough. Rejection hurts, but in this case, he was amazed (v. 6).
“hometown”: it can be translated just as easily as home region, but hometown is meant because Jesus says his household or house (v. 57). Matthew informs us of where he settled: Nazareth (Matt. 2:23; 4:13). At most 1600-2000 inhabitants in the surrounding area, and 500 lived in the town.
“disciples”: BDAG (a thick Greek lexicon) says of the noun (1) “one who engages in learning through instruction from another, pupil, apprentice”; (2) “one who is rather constantly associated with someone who has a pedagogical reputation or a particular set of views, disciple, adherent.”
Commentators Wessel and Strauss says that Jesus was not stopping over to visit his family, because he had his disciples with him. Instead, this was a ministry stopover, one among many in many other places. Perhaps. Or perhaps both a ministry stop and a family visit. Maybe he wanted to give his family and small-town friends another chance to accept him. As we shall see in this passage, they did not.
2:
He was well known to the townspeople, but only he was simply an ex-carpenter or an ex-builder, and his brothers and sisters were well known to them. His sisters probably married local men and were still in the village of Nazareth. (Is it too much to speculate that it was one of his sister’s or brother’s wedding in nearby Cana [John 2:1-12]? Is that why his mother was so involved in getting the wedding banquet right? We shall never know for sure.)
He often taught in synagogues. He could reach interested people there.
“What is the source?”: that’s a more or less literal translation.
“wisdom”: BDAG translates the noun sophia (pronounced soh-fee-ah and used 51 times) as “the capacity to understand and function accordingly—wisdom.”
So biblical wisdom is very practical. It is not like the wisdom of the Greek philosophers, which was very abstract. But let’s not make too much of the differences. In the classical Greek lexicon, sophia can also mean: “skill in handcraft and art … knowledge of, acquaintance with a thing … sound judgment, intelligence, practical wisdom.” In a bad sense it can mean “cunning, shrewdness, craft” (Liddell and Scott).
“miracles”: it is the plural of the noun dunamis (or dynamis) (pronounced doo-na-mees or dee-na-mis, but most teachers prefer the first one). It is often translated as “power,” but also “miracle” or “miraculous power.” It means power in action, not static, but kinetic. It moves. Yes, we get our word dynamite from it, but God is never out of control, like dynamite is. Its purpose is to usher in the kingdom of God and repair and restore broken humanity, both in body and soul.
What Are Signs and Wonders and Miracles?
A miracle happens only when God intervenes and patches up deficiencies in our soul and defects in our body. Fiery evangelists will not like the words “patches up” because it sounds weak, and maybe they are right. So we can say “restore” our souls and heals our bodies. Something was wounded or missing in our souls, and he fills in our needs. Something is wrong with our bodies, but he straightens it out or heals it, so now our bodies are renewed. However, miracles can only last until we die. Then some part of our body will wear out. Further, miracles are not for show or to raise money. People are hurting, and miracles can help them and restore them. Jesus even downplayed his miracles. I don’t believe he would have filmed them and then pitched the videos to enrich himself, if he were ministering today.
Ten Biblical Truths about Your New Body
3:
“this one”: it could be considered condescending or derogatory: “this guy.”
“builder”: the term in Greek is broader than carpenter and can include builder of any kind. But the term primarily describes a woodworker, hence “carpenter” in many translations. They were probably subcontractors in the building industry, which was going on nearby in the towns of Sepphoris and Tiberias, where there were building programs. It can also mean that they build furniture and put up beams, for example.
“son of Mary”: this is about as clear a proof that one can have that Joseph had died. He is also marked as Mary’s son, the closest Mark will get to the virgin birth. Wessel and Strauss say that this is an insulting way of referring to a son, in Jewish culture. Normally one refers to the father: “son of Joseph.” Recall that rumors circulated that Jesus was illegitimate (cf. John 4:41; 9:29). But I prefer the insight that this is a comment on Jesus’s virgin birth, better than the insult term.
Though the context is unhappy and antagonistic, I really like the names of his family, and I love how one of his brothers was named after their father Joseph (Matt. 13:55 calls him Joseph, so Joses is a variation on this name). But I wish Mark had mentioned his sisters’ names.
No offense to Roman Catholics, but these two verses read naturally as describing the sons and daughters of Mary and Joseph; they are not stepbrothers or stepsisters or Jesus’s cousins. According to the Gospel of John they apparently did not believe in their brother’s full ministry, but they knew that he was special and had a call of God. They wanted him to show himself to the world. He declined. Then the text says, “For neither did his brothers believe in him” (John 7:7). So his brothers were promoting him, but they did not know what they were talking about. There is a lot of information in his family dynamics, and it is not always functional.
But eventually his brothers came around (or two did). Jesus’s brother James was a pillar in the church in Jerusalem until his martyrdom in A.D. 62 (James who was martyred in Acts 12:1, was one of the twelve apostles, brother of John, both sons of Zebedee). Later church history records that Simon led the church in Jerusalem. James wrote the Epistle of James, and his brother Judas wrote the tiny Epistle of Jude (the Greek says Judas). By reading them, you can get a feel for how committed they were to their resurrected brother, who was King of kings and Lord of lords. Sibling rivalry over!
“offended”: it does come from the Greek verb skandalizō (pronounced skan-dah-lee-zoh), and in this context it means “take offense” “get angry” “shock.” (We get our word scandal from it.) The townspeople were offended and in disbelief. They saw him grow up. He was not as thoroughly educated as the Pharisees and teachers of the law. His hometown people folded their arms and harrumphed. Between the lines and behind the scenes, the people of Nazareth, except a few, had contempt for him.
4:
This saying sums things up nicely, but it has a lot of negatives in it (“not without”). Maybe we should translate it as positives: He has much honor except in his hometown. He got much honor outside of his home area, but not here. Familiarity bred contempt. First-century Israel was an honor and shame society, meaning that people were in competition to acquire honor, sometimes to the detriment of another person. To shame Jesus meant they had the honor. They were above him, looking down on him. So their questions in v. 2 has an unpleasant, skeptical air about it.
“relatives … household”: once again, his family did not honor him as God would have it. Jesus didn’t seek it; he simply taught and did a few miracles.
5:
Jesus was unable to do many miracles except heal a few sick people (it’s the standard Greek verb for “could” or “can” with the negation “not,” which I translate as “unable”). Commentator France writes: “Mark often highlights the importance of [faith] in healing and other miraculous contexts (2:5; 4:40; 5:34, 36; 9:23–24; 10:52; 11:22–24), so there is no surprise in seeing the opposite effect attributed to [unbelief], but the description of Jesus as unable to work miracles is christologically striking ….” What follows is an explanation for why Jesus was “unable” to do mighty miracles, except heal a few sick people. And by the way, healing a few sick people would be considered remarkable for anyone else other than Jesus, but for him, he marveled at their unbelief.
People need to seek him and have faith in him, and apparently a few did, but most did not. Miracles that directly touch people’s minds and bodies need people to approach Jesus directly. Every healing he did in the four Gospels needed a response from people—even the man lying by the pool of Bethesda (John 5:2-8). People have to have faith. True, he was about to feed the five thousand (14:13-21), but he did not require faith from them because he was not healing their body, as he did the lepers and paralytics and the minds of the demonized. In other words, God is still sovereign over nature—multiplying bread and fish and his Son walking on water—without faith from the bystanders. But God requires faith from us when it involves the healing of our persons and bodies, but he does not need our faith when he acts sovereignly. His Son had the faith to walk on water and feed the five thousand.
Further, people must not have contempt for the Lord or for his ministers. Too many times I have observed that people walk into healing meeting with contemptuous attitudes towards the minister. Contempt and skepticism does not bring healing. Snark ≠ simple faith.
For your healing, press in to God’s power and love with faith. For a sovereign miracle, press in to God’s power and love with faith. From our limited point of view, we need faith. From God’s unlimited point of view, he acts as he wills. So we have a person’s faith and God’s sovereignty interacting in this one verse. It is difficult to sort out (for me at least).
But down here on earth, God requires us to have faith in him, and we get faith by hearing the word about Christ (Rom. 10:17). Get Scripture in you, and it will build your faith. Ask the Lord for faith. “I do believe! Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). That’s our part in the human-God interaction. Leave the results up to your loving and powerful Father.
Why Doesn’t Divine Healing Happen One Hundred Percent of the Time?
One other main point of this verse is that despite his people’s condescending rejection of him, the kingdom of God was able to get through the narrow gaps or cracks. He healed a few people. The kingdom of God, as small as a mustard seed (4:30-31), will grow in the soil of faith and watered by the Spirit.
One last point about this verse. Usually people are amazed at Jesus (1:22, 27; 5:15, 20, 42). Amazement is a theme. Here, however, Jesus is amazed at their unbelief.
6:
This response means that he was willing to heal as many as wanted to be healed, but most took a standoffish outlook towards him. The context teaches us that their unbelief was about not receiving Jesus as their Messiah. Their unbelief was not about having a 100% mental certitude that God would heal. Imagine someone offering you a million dollars, but because he is from your hometown, you don’t take it. You are above it all. Jesus was offering them himself as Messiah, and from his calling and anointing, he was then offering them healing and other miracles, like the ones he performed in Mark 5 and before. They said no thanks. We know you and we don’t need them.
Foolish.
His response was to move on to other villages. Maybe they would be more open to his teaching and wisdom and miracles.
GrowApp for Mark 6:1-6
1. In Mark 3:2-21 and 31-35, Jesus was rejected by his family. Here he is mostly treated casually and even contemptuously by his hometown. How about you? How much rejection have you experienced in following Jesus?
2.. How did you respond?
RELATED
10. Eyewitness Testimony in Mark’s Gospel
2. Church Fathers and Mark’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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