July 31, 2025 • 18 mins
To support the ministry and access exclusive content, go to: http://patreon.com/logicalbiblestudy
For complete verse-by-verse audio commentaries from Logical Bible Study, go to: https://mysoundwise.com/publishers/1677296682850p
Matthew 13: 54-58 - 'A prophet is only despised in his own country.'
Catechism of the Catholic Church Paragraphs:
- 495 (in 'Mary's divine Motherhood') - Called in the Gospels "the mother of Jesus", Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as "the mother of my Lord" (abbreviated).
- 500 (in Mary 'Ever-Virgin') - Against this doctrine the objection is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus. The Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary. In fact James and Joseph, “brothers of Jesus,” are the sons of another Mary, a disciple of Christ, whom St. Matthew significantly calls “the other Mary.” They are close relations of Jesus, according to an Old Testament expression.
Got a Bible question? Send an email to logicalbiblestudy@gmail.com, and it will be answered in an upcoming episode!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Hi everyone, welcome back to Logical Bible Study, the
Catholic Podcast where we take alook at the scriptures from
today's Mass and we try and havea look at the literal sense of
the text. What's going on?
On the most fundamental textual level, What is the author trying
to convey to their audience? That's what we're all about in
this podcast, helping you understand what the word of God
(00:32):
really means. And today we're looking at the
last part of Matthew, chapter 13.
So Matthew chapter 13 verses 54 to 58, coming to his hometown.
Jesus taught the people in theirsynagogue in such a way that
they were astonished and said, Where did the man get this
(00:52):
wisdom and these miraculous power?
This is the carpenter's son. Surely?
Is not his mother the woman called Mary, and his brothers
James and Joseph, and Simon and Jude, His sisters too, Are they
not all here with us. So where did the man get it all?
(01:12):
And they would not accept him. But Jesus said to them, a
prophet is only despised in his own country and in his own
house, and he did not work many miracles there because of their
lack of faith. So having finished the previous
parable section in Matthew, chapter 13, Matthew now begins a
(01:35):
new section of the narrative. So we're going to have a few
chapters here of Jesus doing things of narratives, verse 54
coming to his own country. So Jesus is coming from Capernum
and he's going to Nazareth, his own country where he grew up.
Everyone knows him in Nazareth. This is the first time he's been
to Nazareth since the arrest of John the Baptist, which was
(01:56):
really early on in chapter 4. Verse 13 was the last time he
was there to get from Capernaum to Nazareth.
It's about a 10 hour walk, so heprobably just did it in one day.
It's possible that Jesus stayed here for a few days.
Mark's account tells us that hispreaching happened mostly in the
synagogue, and so he might have stayed there for a few days
(02:19):
before the Sabbath, which is when most of the synagogue
preaching would have happened. So he probably spent a bit of
time here with his family. It says Jesus taught the people
in their synagogue, so teaching in the synagogue the synagogue
was like the local parish hall where they had religious
instruction. In the Old Testament it could be
(02:39):
done by a local regular teacher or a traveling preacher.
Usually on the Sabbath is when most of the town would gather to
hear that Jesus had been preaching in other synagogues in
Galilee by now. But he has apparently not
preached in his own town in Nazareth yet, which is what is
striking about this scene. He's come home and he's now
preaching, and it says he preached in such a way that they
(03:02):
were astonished. This is not an expression of
amazement. It's not a good astonished.
It actually seems to be that they're suspicious of him.
They're suspicious of his preaching.
We don't know entirely everything that he preached, but
we know that one of the things that he does on this occasion is
he reads from the scroll of Isaiah.
(03:22):
So if you look at Luke chapter 4, which this is apparently the
same scene where Luke reads fromthe Scroll of Isaiah, and he
says this day the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing, you
probably know that scene. So that all apparently happened
at the same time. And so they say to themselves,
this is the crowd in Nazareth. Where did the man get this
(03:44):
wisdom? So they're impressed by his
teaching. They see that there's wisdom in
what he's saying, and they recognize possibly that it comes
from God maybe. But the astonishment they have,
it's not a positive reaction like in other places.
This is a negative reaction. They seem to see Jesus, wisdom
and power as inappropriate. They think it doesn't make
sense. So you could say that they're
(04:06):
asking the right questions. Where did this man get the
wisdom, But with a skeptical attitude.
So they're asking the right questions of Jesus with the
wrong attitude. And where did he get these
miraculous powers? So they apparently acknowledge
that Jesus can do miracles, but they just can't comprehend how
he can be doing it. They're not willing to accept
(04:27):
that this Jesus who they grew upwith, is indeed empowered by
God. So it's kind of like an
indignant skepticism. Verse 55, they say amongst
themselves. This is the carpenter's son,
surely so. Jesus lived in Nazareth for
approximately 30 years, and he learned to be a Carpenter from
(04:48):
his father Joseph. So they know him as the
carpenter's son. That's what he's been doing most
of the time when he lived in Nazareth.
Now, interestingly, the word here for Tecton, which is
translated Carpenter, it can be translated builder or Craftsman.
So we're not 100% sure that he was a Carpenter.
He might have just been a general builder.
(05:09):
So what's the issue here? Why can't Jesus be both a
carpenter's son and a preacher empowered by God?
Well, in that culture they had this radical separation between
the religious elite and the common man.
They said you're either one or the other, but you're not both.
So the Jewish people trusted their religious leaders, like
the Pharisees, and they couldn'tcomprehend how a simple
(05:29):
Carpenter could suddenly become a religious messenger.
That's not how their society works.
That didn't make sense in their view.
Now they call him here, the Son of Mary.
It's an interesting title because in that culture you
would usually be called Son of and then the Father's name.
So it would have been more natural to call Jesus the Son of
(05:50):
Joseph, because they certainly knew who Joseph was.
Why do they call him the son of Mary?
There's three possible explanations here.
It might be that a lot of Nazareth knew that Joseph was
not the father of Jesus. Maybe Joseph told them that
while he was alive he said this man, this boys from God.
So that's one explanation. It could also be that it's maybe
(06:14):
like an insult, a slanderous slur which focuses on the fact
that Mary was not married when Jesus was conceived.
So it's the Son of Mary, but he's kind of like a bastard
child. Maybe that's sort of what's
behind it. But the most likely option here
for why they just call him the Son of Mary is because Joseph
has died and he's been dead for quite a while.
(06:35):
So that's why they call him the son of Mary, because Mary is
alive, but Joseph is not alive anymore.
And then there's this fascinating phrase which is
often used to argue against Catholic teaching.
They say are his brothers, not James and Joseph and Simon and
Jude. So they'll list the names of
four men who are apparently known as Jesus brothers.
(06:57):
Of course, the Catholic teachingis that Jesus did not actually
have any biological brothers, sowe need to unpack this a bit.
So the word brother that's used here in Greek is adelphos.
And the first thing to say aboutthat is adelphos was used quite
loosely in that culture, as it is in many places today.
So if you go to places like Fiji, for example, they'll call
(07:19):
someone brother or cousin who isnot literally their biological
brother or cousin. And in the Middle East, in the
ancient Middle East where Jesus lived, that was very common to
call someone brother who is not actually your brother, but
probably some sort of close relative.
We also see that he has sisters here.
So who are the brothers and sisters of Jesus?
(07:41):
They mentioned several times in the New Testament when never
given a full answer of who theirparents are.
So we don't know entirely their identity, but we'd have a few
clues that point us in the rightdirection.
So obviously the Church teaches that Mary remained a virgin her
entire life, so they can't be children of Mary.
If the Catholic tradition is correct, and as evidence for
(08:04):
that Catholic tradition on the cross Jesus gave Mary to the
Apostle John, it would have beenmore natural to give his mother
Mary to brothers and sisters. If he had brothers and sisters,
they would be the natural peopleto look after Mary after Jesus
is gone. But apparently he doesn't have
any and that's why he gives his mother to John's care.
(08:27):
So Joseph has apparently died bythe time Jesus is saying this.
So Mary must be living with someother relatives.
If you look at Mark's Gospel closely, it's pretty clear that
Mary lives in Nazareth and she lives with relatives who also
live in Nazareth. So Mary has relatives in
Nazareth. Who are these relatives,
possibly blood relatives, of Mary?
(08:50):
Now we know that these four people, these four brothers
James and Joseph and Simon and Jude, are not full siblings of
Jesus. We know that for sure because
later in the Gospel of Mark, andthis is also in later in the
Gospel of Matthew, we learned that two of them, James and
Joseph, actually have a different mother.
Their mother's name is Mary, butit's not Mary the mother of
(09:11):
Jesus, so they have a different mother.
The Gospels tell us that many inthe early church believe that
this other mother might be the wife of Cleopus, and she also
might be a relative of Mary. So Mary, Jesus, Mother, all of
these facts fit together nicely.It could well be that this other
Mary is a close relative of Marythe mother of Jesus, and they
(09:34):
all live together in Nazareth. Mary the mother of Jesus lives
with her close relative Mary andMary's children, James and
Joseph. So if that's correct, the
brothers and sisters mentioned here are roughly Jesus cousins.
That's actually what the gospel seemed to point towards.
These are something like Jesus cousins.
(09:54):
There's other views about this as well.
Some have thought that maybe they're Joseph's children from a
previous marriage. There is a church tradition that
says that, and that probably works as well because we don't
know who the father of these twoboys are.
We just know that their mother'sname was a Mary who is not Mary
the mother of Jesus, verse 56. His sisters too, are they not
(10:17):
here at all with us? So we don't often think about
this, but Jesus has sisters thathe apparently grew up with, so
apparently his family is here inthe synagogue on this day, it
says, Are they not all here withus?
So they're in the room. They're in the synagogue
watching Jesus. Jesus has already encountered
his family earlier in chapter 13, they tried to speak to him
(10:38):
while he was in the house in Capernaum, and now they're here
in the synagogue in Nazareth. Which makes sense because
Nazareth only had a population of around 300.
So if the whole town is there, which they probably would have
been on the Sabbath, then his family is probably there as
well. So they ask themselves, so where
did this man get it all? So this town thinks they already
(10:59):
know everything about Jesus because they know who his
parents are and his brothers andthey know what his occupation
is. They think they know everything
about Jesus, so they can't explain where he got the wisdom
and power from. This might be a fulfillment of
Isaiah 53 verse two that just that's a messianic part of
Isaiah. And in verse two of Isaiah 53,
(11:21):
it says the Messiah will grow upunnoticed by those around him.
He will grow up and there's nothing particularly desirable
about him, is what Isaiah 53 verse two says.
It's an interesting connection. Verse 57, they would not accept
him or what it actually says there is.
They took offense at him. So here's the issue.
(11:42):
They're preconceived ideas aboutwho Jesus is.
That becomes an obstacle to their faith.
So it's a willful refusal to accept that God is truly working
through Jesus. That's dangerous because it
closes off these towns folk to God's grace.
Quite interesting, isn't it? Even the place Jesus grew up,
they on the whole rejected that Jesus was the Messiah.
(12:05):
And these are kind of like the outsiders described earlier in
the gospel. Remember when Jesus is talking
about the parables, Jesus says that people who don't understand
the parables basically look and see but do not perceive and hear
and listen, but they do not understand.
That's inappropriate descriptionof the townspeople in
Nazarethia. They're looking at Jesus but
(12:26):
they just don't understand it. They can't perceive who he truly
is. So Jesus says a prophet is only
despised in his own country and in his own house.
Some translations say a prophet is without honor in his own
country. So in Jewish culture, family
relationships are super important and they think they
(12:46):
know their family very well. So as a result, it was quite
common in even in the Old Testament for prophets of God to
be less likely to be accepted byfamily members even if the rest
of Israel accepted the prophet. Often the prophets own family
would struggle to accept them because of the way that those
tight family structures worked and also because it could be a
(13:08):
mark of shame. If your son is going around
saying God's judgment is coming,you need to turn back to God.
That could be considered a mark of shame for the family,
depending on what the preacher is saying.
So Jesus says here a prophet is only despised in his own
country. And he sort of says this as
though this is a principle they should understand because if
(13:29):
they knew their Old Testament well, they would know that many
of the Old Testament prophets were rejected.
Even though they were revered bythe Jews, they were rejected in
their own hometown. So Jesus, by saying this,
indicates that he himself is a prophet.
He's claiming to be a prophet. Verse 58.
He did not work many miracles there because of their lack of
(13:51):
faith. Interesting verse here.
So the word here for lack of faith is actually unbelief.
So it's like an active unbelief.Matthew uses this this word to
describe those who reject and oppose Jesus, not just those who
struggle to believe. Jesus calls them those of little
faith. In chapter 6, verse 30, he calls
the disciples those of little faith.
(14:15):
But here we're talking about a different group, those who
actively unbelieve. So it's outright unbelievers.
Now some translations will say rather than he He did not work
many miracles. Some translations say he could
not work many miracles, which isactually a stronger claim.
So this is an interesting aspectof Jesus ministry.
(14:35):
Something about people's lack offaith in an area means that
Jesus cannot do amazing miraclesin their town.
Whether that's because he chooses not to, or whether
that's because his power is actually suppressed in some way
because of the lack of belief, that's not clear.
But that is a genuine part of Jesus ministry that we shouldn't
forget. Jesus doesn't just do big
(14:56):
miracles everywhere indiscriminately.
It does depend on the level of faith in the people's town.
So Mark's version here adds, though he cured a few sick
people by laying his hands on them.
So Jesus does do some small miracles here, like basic
healings. But it seems that Jesus could
not do anything extraordinary like exorcisms and calming
(15:18):
storms that he'd been doing in other places.
In Luke's version, if you look at Luke chapter 4, Jesus has
more to say here in the synagogue.
He goes on to preach in the synagogue about Nazareth's lack
of faith, and you probably know the story.
The people get mad at him and they try to throw him off a
Cliff, So it actually escalates even further here.
But this is where Matthew ends the account.
(15:42):
So if we turn to the Catechism, what is the Catechism of the
Catholic Church say? We can learn from this passage.
There's two references here, which are both about Mary, that
we can learn from this passage. So firstly, paragraph 495.
This is about Mary's divine motherhood, called in the
Gospels, the mother of Jesus. Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth
(16:02):
at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her
son as the mother of my Lord. So here at lists various titles
of Mary. One of them is the mother of
Jesus, and we learn that from this passage here in Matthew
chapter 13 and then in paragraph500.
This is about how can Mary be ever virgin?
And here the Catechism actually answers the question about what
(16:25):
are we to do with these passageswhere it talks about Jesus
brothers. So the Catechism actually
answers this question, which is commonly described as though
it's like a complete destroyer of the Catholic faith.
But the Church has actually addressed this numerous times.
So paragraph 500, here's what itsays against this doctrine.
The objection is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions
(16:48):
brothers and sisters of Jesus. The Church has always understood
these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin
Mary. In fact, James and Joseph are
called brothers of Jesus, and they are the sons of another
Mary, a disciple of Christ whom Saint Matthew significantly
calls the other Mary. They are close relations of
(17:10):
Jesus according to an Old Testament expression.
So here you should have heard the Catechism there, reiterating
exactly what we said in our ex of Jesus.
These were always known in Church tradition as close
relations of Jesus, but childrenof another Mary, because that's
what the gospel will say. So we'll leave it there for
(17:30):
today. And thank you once again for
listening. We've finished Matthew Chapter
13. So in the coming weekdays we'll
start to look at Matthew Chapter14.
Thanks. We'll see you then.
Hi everyone, welcome back to Logical Bible Study, the
Catholic Podcast where we take alook at the scriptures from
today's Mass and we try and havea look at the literal sense of
the text. What's going on?
On the most fundamental textual level, What is the author trying
to convey to their audience? That's what we're all about in
this podcast, helping you understand what the word of God
(00:32):
really means. And today we're looking at the
last part of Matthew, chapter 13.
So Matthew chapter 13 verses 54 to 58, coming to his hometown.
Jesus taught the people in theirsynagogue in such a way that
they were astonished and said, Where did the man get this
(00:52):
wisdom and these miraculous power?
This is the carpenter's son. Surely?
Is not his mother the woman called Mary, and his brothers
James and Joseph, and Simon and Jude, His sisters too, Are they
not all here with us. So where did the man get it all?
(01:12):
And they would not accept him. But Jesus said to them, a
prophet is only despised in his own country and in his own
house, and he did not work many miracles there because of their
lack of faith. So having finished the previous
parable section in Matthew, chapter 13, Matthew now begins a
(01:35):
new section of the narrative. So we're going to have a few
chapters here of Jesus doing things of narratives, verse 54
coming to his own country. So Jesus is coming from Capernum
and he's going to Nazareth, his own country where he grew up.
Everyone knows him in Nazareth. This is the first time he's been
to Nazareth since the arrest of John the Baptist, which was
(01:56):
really early on in chapter 4. Verse 13 was the last time he
was there to get from Capernaum to Nazareth.
It's about a 10 hour walk, so heprobably just did it in one day.
It's possible that Jesus stayed here for a few days.
Mark's account tells us that hispreaching happened mostly in the
synagogue, and so he might have stayed there for a few days
(02:19):
before the Sabbath, which is when most of the synagogue
preaching would have happened. So he probably spent a bit of
time here with his family. It says Jesus taught the people
in their synagogue, so teaching in the synagogue the synagogue
was like the local parish hall where they had religious
instruction. In the Old Testament it could be
(02:39):
done by a local regular teacher or a traveling preacher.
Usually on the Sabbath is when most of the town would gather to
hear that Jesus had been preaching in other synagogues in
Galilee by now. But he has apparently not
preached in his own town in Nazareth yet, which is what is
striking about this scene. He's come home and he's now
preaching, and it says he preached in such a way that they
(03:02):
were astonished. This is not an expression of
amazement. It's not a good astonished.
It actually seems to be that they're suspicious of him.
They're suspicious of his preaching.
We don't know entirely everything that he preached, but
we know that one of the things that he does on this occasion is
he reads from the scroll of Isaiah.
(03:22):
So if you look at Luke chapter 4, which this is apparently the
same scene where Luke reads fromthe Scroll of Isaiah, and he
says this day the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing, you
probably know that scene. So that all apparently happened
at the same time. And so they say to themselves,
this is the crowd in Nazareth. Where did the man get this
(03:44):
wisdom? So they're impressed by his
teaching. They see that there's wisdom in
what he's saying, and they recognize possibly that it comes
from God maybe. But the astonishment they have,
it's not a positive reaction like in other places.
This is a negative reaction. They seem to see Jesus, wisdom
and power as inappropriate. They think it doesn't make
sense. So you could say that they're
(04:06):
asking the right questions. Where did this man get the
wisdom, But with a skeptical attitude.
So they're asking the right questions of Jesus with the
wrong attitude. And where did he get these
miraculous powers? So they apparently acknowledge
that Jesus can do miracles, but they just can't comprehend how
he can be doing it. They're not willing to accept
(04:27):
that this Jesus who they grew upwith, is indeed empowered by
God. So it's kind of like an
indignant skepticism. Verse 55, they say amongst
themselves. This is the carpenter's son,
surely so. Jesus lived in Nazareth for
approximately 30 years, and he learned to be a Carpenter from
(04:48):
his father Joseph. So they know him as the
carpenter's son. That's what he's been doing most
of the time when he lived in Nazareth.
Now, interestingly, the word here for Tecton, which is
translated Carpenter, it can be translated builder or Craftsman.
So we're not 100% sure that he was a Carpenter.
He might have just been a general builder.
(05:09):
So what's the issue here? Why can't Jesus be both a
carpenter's son and a preacher empowered by God?
Well, in that culture they had this radical separation between
the religious elite and the common man.
They said you're either one or the other, but you're not both.
So the Jewish people trusted their religious leaders, like
the Pharisees, and they couldn'tcomprehend how a simple
(05:29):
Carpenter could suddenly become a religious messenger.
That's not how their society works.
That didn't make sense in their view.
Now they call him here, the Son of Mary.
It's an interesting title because in that culture you
would usually be called Son of and then the Father's name.
So it would have been more natural to call Jesus the Son of
(05:50):
Joseph, because they certainly knew who Joseph was.
Why do they call him the son of Mary?
There's three possible explanations here.
It might be that a lot of Nazareth knew that Joseph was
not the father of Jesus. Maybe Joseph told them that
while he was alive he said this man, this boys from God.
So that's one explanation. It could also be that it's maybe
(06:14):
like an insult, a slanderous slur which focuses on the fact
that Mary was not married when Jesus was conceived.
So it's the Son of Mary, but he's kind of like a bastard
child. Maybe that's sort of what's
behind it. But the most likely option here
for why they just call him the Son of Mary is because Joseph
has died and he's been dead for quite a while.
(06:35):
So that's why they call him the son of Mary, because Mary is
alive, but Joseph is not alive anymore.
And then there's this fascinating phrase which is
often used to argue against Catholic teaching.
They say are his brothers, not James and Joseph and Simon and
Jude. So they'll list the names of
four men who are apparently known as Jesus brothers.
(06:57):
Of course, the Catholic teachingis that Jesus did not actually
have any biological brothers, sowe need to unpack this a bit.
So the word brother that's used here in Greek is adelphos.
And the first thing to say aboutthat is adelphos was used quite
loosely in that culture, as it is in many places today.
So if you go to places like Fiji, for example, they'll call
(07:19):
someone brother or cousin who isnot literally their biological
brother or cousin. And in the Middle East, in the
ancient Middle East where Jesus lived, that was very common to
call someone brother who is not actually your brother, but
probably some sort of close relative.
We also see that he has sisters here.
So who are the brothers and sisters of Jesus?
(07:41):
They mentioned several times in the New Testament when never
given a full answer of who theirparents are.
So we don't know entirely their identity, but we'd have a few
clues that point us in the rightdirection.
So obviously the Church teaches that Mary remained a virgin her
entire life, so they can't be children of Mary.
If the Catholic tradition is correct, and as evidence for
(08:04):
that Catholic tradition on the cross Jesus gave Mary to the
Apostle John, it would have beenmore natural to give his mother
Mary to brothers and sisters. If he had brothers and sisters,
they would be the natural peopleto look after Mary after Jesus
is gone. But apparently he doesn't have
any and that's why he gives his mother to John's care.
(08:27):
So Joseph has apparently died bythe time Jesus is saying this.
So Mary must be living with someother relatives.
If you look at Mark's Gospel closely, it's pretty clear that
Mary lives in Nazareth and she lives with relatives who also
live in Nazareth. So Mary has relatives in
Nazareth. Who are these relatives,
possibly blood relatives, of Mary?
(08:50):
Now we know that these four people, these four brothers
James and Joseph and Simon and Jude, are not full siblings of
Jesus. We know that for sure because
later in the Gospel of Mark, andthis is also in later in the
Gospel of Matthew, we learned that two of them, James and
Joseph, actually have a different mother.
Their mother's name is Mary, butit's not Mary the mother of
(09:11):
Jesus, so they have a different mother.
The Gospels tell us that many inthe early church believe that
this other mother might be the wife of Cleopus, and she also
might be a relative of Mary. So Mary, Jesus, Mother, all of
these facts fit together nicely.It could well be that this other
Mary is a close relative of Marythe mother of Jesus, and they
(09:34):
all live together in Nazareth. Mary the mother of Jesus lives
with her close relative Mary andMary's children, James and
Joseph. So if that's correct, the
brothers and sisters mentioned here are roughly Jesus cousins.
That's actually what the gospel seemed to point towards.
These are something like Jesus cousins.
(09:54):
There's other views about this as well.
Some have thought that maybe they're Joseph's children from a
previous marriage. There is a church tradition that
says that, and that probably works as well because we don't
know who the father of these twoboys are.
We just know that their mother'sname was a Mary who is not Mary
the mother of Jesus, verse 56. His sisters too, are they not
(10:17):
here at all with us? So we don't often think about
this, but Jesus has sisters thathe apparently grew up with, so
apparently his family is here inthe synagogue on this day, it
says, Are they not all here withus?
So they're in the room. They're in the synagogue
watching Jesus. Jesus has already encountered
his family earlier in chapter 13, they tried to speak to him
(10:38):
while he was in the house in Capernaum, and now they're here
in the synagogue in Nazareth. Which makes sense because
Nazareth only had a population of around 300.
So if the whole town is there, which they probably would have
been on the Sabbath, then his family is probably there as
well. So they ask themselves, so where
did this man get it all? So this town thinks they already
(10:59):
know everything about Jesus because they know who his
parents are and his brothers andthey know what his occupation
is. They think they know everything
about Jesus, so they can't explain where he got the wisdom
and power from. This might be a fulfillment of
Isaiah 53 verse two that just that's a messianic part of
Isaiah. And in verse two of Isaiah 53,
(11:21):
it says the Messiah will grow upunnoticed by those around him.
He will grow up and there's nothing particularly desirable
about him, is what Isaiah 53 verse two says.
It's an interesting connection. Verse 57, they would not accept
him or what it actually says there is.
They took offense at him. So here's the issue.
(11:42):
They're preconceived ideas aboutwho Jesus is.
That becomes an obstacle to their faith.
So it's a willful refusal to accept that God is truly working
through Jesus. That's dangerous because it
closes off these towns folk to God's grace.
Quite interesting, isn't it? Even the place Jesus grew up,
they on the whole rejected that Jesus was the Messiah.
(12:05):
And these are kind of like the outsiders described earlier in
the gospel. Remember when Jesus is talking
about the parables, Jesus says that people who don't understand
the parables basically look and see but do not perceive and hear
and listen, but they do not understand.
That's inappropriate descriptionof the townspeople in
Nazarethia. They're looking at Jesus but
(12:26):
they just don't understand it. They can't perceive who he truly
is. So Jesus says a prophet is only
despised in his own country and in his own house.
Some translations say a prophet is without honor in his own
country. So in Jewish culture, family
relationships are super important and they think they
(12:46):
know their family very well. So as a result, it was quite
common in even in the Old Testament for prophets of God to
be less likely to be accepted byfamily members even if the rest
of Israel accepted the prophet. Often the prophets own family
would struggle to accept them because of the way that those
tight family structures worked and also because it could be a
(13:08):
mark of shame. If your son is going around
saying God's judgment is coming,you need to turn back to God.
That could be considered a mark of shame for the family,
depending on what the preacher is saying.
So Jesus says here a prophet is only despised in his own
country. And he sort of says this as
though this is a principle they should understand because if
(13:29):
they knew their Old Testament well, they would know that many
of the Old Testament prophets were rejected.
Even though they were revered bythe Jews, they were rejected in
their own hometown. So Jesus, by saying this,
indicates that he himself is a prophet.
He's claiming to be a prophet. Verse 58.
He did not work many miracles there because of their lack of
(13:51):
faith. Interesting verse here.
So the word here for lack of faith is actually unbelief.
So it's like an active unbelief.Matthew uses this this word to
describe those who reject and oppose Jesus, not just those who
struggle to believe. Jesus calls them those of little
faith. In chapter 6, verse 30, he calls
the disciples those of little faith.
(14:15):
But here we're talking about a different group, those who
actively unbelieve. So it's outright unbelievers.
Now some translations will say rather than he He did not work
many miracles. Some translations say he could
not work many miracles, which isactually a stronger claim.
So this is an interesting aspectof Jesus ministry.
(14:35):
Something about people's lack offaith in an area means that
Jesus cannot do amazing miraclesin their town.
Whether that's because he chooses not to, or whether
that's because his power is actually suppressed in some way
because of the lack of belief, that's not clear.
But that is a genuine part of Jesus ministry that we shouldn't
forget. Jesus doesn't just do big
(14:56):
miracles everywhere indiscriminately.
It does depend on the level of faith in the people's town.
So Mark's version here adds, though he cured a few sick
people by laying his hands on them.
So Jesus does do some small miracles here, like basic
healings. But it seems that Jesus could
not do anything extraordinary like exorcisms and calming
(15:18):
storms that he'd been doing in other places.
In Luke's version, if you look at Luke chapter 4, Jesus has
more to say here in the synagogue.
He goes on to preach in the synagogue about Nazareth's lack
of faith, and you probably know the story.
The people get mad at him and they try to throw him off a
Cliff, So it actually escalates even further here.
But this is where Matthew ends the account.
(15:42):
So if we turn to the Catechism, what is the Catechism of the
Catholic Church say? We can learn from this passage.
There's two references here, which are both about Mary, that
we can learn from this passage. So firstly, paragraph 495.
This is about Mary's divine motherhood, called in the
Gospels, the mother of Jesus. Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth
(16:02):
at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her
son as the mother of my Lord. So here at lists various titles
of Mary. One of them is the mother of
Jesus, and we learn that from this passage here in Matthew
chapter 13 and then in paragraph500.
This is about how can Mary be ever virgin?
And here the Catechism actually answers the question about what
(16:25):
are we to do with these passageswhere it talks about Jesus
brothers. So the Catechism actually
answers this question, which is commonly described as though
it's like a complete destroyer of the Catholic faith.
But the Church has actually addressed this numerous times.
So paragraph 500, here's what itsays against this doctrine.
The objection is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions
(16:48):
brothers and sisters of Jesus. The Church has always understood
these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin
Mary. In fact, James and Joseph are
called brothers of Jesus, and they are the sons of another
Mary, a disciple of Christ whom Saint Matthew significantly
calls the other Mary. They are close relations of
(17:10):
Jesus according to an Old Testament expression.
So here you should have heard the Catechism there, reiterating
exactly what we said in our ex of Jesus.
These were always known in Church tradition as close
relations of Jesus, but childrenof another Mary, because that's
what the gospel will say. So we'll leave it there for
(17:30):
today. And thank you once again for
listening. We've finished Matthew Chapter
13. So in the coming weekdays we'll
start to look at Matthew Chapter14.
Thanks. We'll see you then.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.