Transcription

Connor
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris
Welcome back everybody. I’m Chris and this is Jeff. And we’re the Bible guys. And we are glad that you joined us here today. We have a great segment for you talking about how Jesus is rejected.

Jeff
Uh oh. And you think that’s good?

Chris
Uh, well, it’s good teaching.

Jeff
Oh, it’s going to be a good segment. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Chris
But before we get into that, we have.

Jeff
The most important segment of the week.

Chris
Oh yeah. It’s the dad joke competition.

Jeff
Yes. It’s been a while, Chris.

Chris
It has been a while.

Jeff
It’s been a.

Chris
While. Yeah. I told you, my daughter Tori loves these. Yes. So every time that I do them, I take them home to her and I read them to her.

Jeff
Yeah. So you want to go first? Sure.

Chris
Okay. Here you go.

Jeff
Ready? Are yours.

Chris
Good? They’re okay.

Jeff
Mine are great.

Chris
Okay. Did you hear about the boy who was impaled by a trampoline spring?

Jeff
No.

Chris
He’s hurt, but he’ll bounce back.

Jeff
No. Okay. My phone accidentally took a ten minute video of my shoes yesterday. It was some pretty good footage.

Chris
Oh, I like that one. That’s pretty good. Okay, here you go. Here’s a good one. I actually like this. Out of all the ones I think I like this the most. You ready? Okay, okay. Dad is down at the auto dealership looking at new cars, cargo space? He asks, the salesman says, Cardinal, do that cargo road.

Jeff
No. I made a playlist for hiking with music from The Peanuts, The Cranberries, and Eminem. I call it my trail mix. Ooh. Well.

Chris
This one’s pretty good. I got my daughter a refrigerator for her birthday. I can’t wait to see her face. I can’t wait to see her face light up when she opens it.

Jeff
Because when you open her refrigerator.

Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff
I get it. Give a man a fish he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll waste hundreds of dollars on equipment he’ll only use a few times a year.

Chris
That’s really good, actually. I tried to have a conversation with my wife when she was applying a mud mask. You should have seen the filthy look she gave me.

Jeff
Hey, so you like movies and celebrities? Sure. Okay. Which celebrity is always ready for cereal? Reese Witherspoon.

Chris
Oh, wow. Reese witherspoon. Wow.

Jeff
That’s so dumb.

Chris
Okay, and then the last one. At least it’s my last one. Why did the gargoyle quit his job guarding the castle? Oh, no. He was tired for being taken for granite.

Jeff
Oh, no. Do people do that? Does that drive you nuts when people say granite instead of granite?

Chris
I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed that. Really?

Jeff
Yeah. Wow. It drives me nuts when people use the wrong. They put the. Yeah. They say Chipotle wrong. Yes. They say AKS instead of ask. Yeah right. Yeah. Granite. Take it for.

Chris
Granted. I had one college professor that used to say frustrated.

Jeff
Frustrated.

Chris
Like he just pretended he never existed. Never existed at all. Yeah, it never was.

Jeff
Okay, so get it right, people. So then here’s my last one. My wife has been putting glue all over my rifle collection. She’s denying it, but I’m sticking to my guns. That’s so dumb.

Chris
Yeah, it’s pretty dumb.

Jeff
It’s good. Funny ones. I love dad jokes.

Chris
Okay, you know, Brian Regan has a whole thing about saying words wrong, and he has a whole series. He’s my favorite comedian. He’s so funny. And one of his, one of his acts is called the epitome of hyperbole. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Epitome of hyperbowl. That’s a really funny. That’s a whole episode. The whole show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was really good. Hey guys, if you’re listening on any of the audio platforms that the podcast goes out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or through the Spreaker podcast platform, would you please subscribe and then share it? There’s always a link. Just share that link with your friends and family. There’s somebody who needs to hear what Chris is mad about this week. So we are in Matthew chapter 13, Mark chapter six and Luke chapter for today. And these all reference the same events just in different ways. Luke in particular gets into a bunch of stuff here, but let’s start in Matthew chapter 13 verse 53. It says, when Jesus had finished telling these stories and illustrations, he left that part of the country. He returned to Nazareth, his hometown, and when he taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, where does he get this wisdom and the power to do miracles? Then they scoffed. He’s just the carpenter’s son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas. All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things? And they were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. Then Jesus told them, A prophet is honored everywhere except in his hometown and among his own family. And so he did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief. Isn’t that something?

Chris
Yeah, and it’s true too. Yeah. The prophet has no honor in his hometown. Yeah.

Jeff
And then in Mark chapter six, Mark says it this way Jesus left that part of the country and returned with his disciples to Nazareth, his hometown. The next Sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. They asked, where did he get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles? Then they scoffed. He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon and his sisters live right here among us. They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. And then Jesus told them, A prophet is honored everywhere except in his hometown and among his relatives and his own family. And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. Mm hmm. And then Luke says it this way. He uses a lot more words. But he says, when he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the scriptures. The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him, and he unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written. And then he quotes, The spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he is anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come. He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently, and then he began to speak to them. Jeff
The scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day. Everyone spoke well of him, and was amazed by the gracious words that came from his lips. How can this be? They asked, isn’t this Joseph’s son? Then he said, you will undoubtedly quote me this proverb physician, heal yourself. Meaning do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum. But I tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his own hometown. Certainly, there were many needy widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the heavens were closed for three and a half years and a severe famine devastated the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them. He was sent instead to a foreigner, a widow of Zarephath, in the land of Sidon. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elijah. But the only one healed was Naaman the Syrian. When they heard this, the people in the synagogue were furious. Jumping up, they mobbed him and forced him to the edge of the hill on which the town was built. They intended to push him over the cliff, but he passed right through the crowd and went on his way.

Chris
You know, I just saw this episode, this exact episode on the chosen. The chosen. Yeah. And it was actually done so very well. It was pretty much following Luke’s account up until the point to where he went up to the cliff and everything else, and, and it was really awesome the way that they portrayed. Of course, you know, we don’t know how it went down. Sure. But it was awesome the way that he portrayed. He walked over to the cliff and they had sort of mobbed. And then he’d sort of turned around and then looked at all the people that he knew and spoke with wisdom and challenged them. And then he just said, not on this day. And he just sort of walked right through them with boldness. And they just parted because, because, because he had turned and challenged them. And they just they just sort of stopped, you know, so maybe that’s how it went. But I love how these three accounts are the same event now. Hey, a couple of things. Number one, I was just going to say I love how Luke includes so much more detail. Yeah, but but I also am curious about Mark chapter six, where he actually says something about Jesus’s brothers and sisters. Yeah. So it says he’s just the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joseph, Judas. Simon and his sisters live here, right among us. So my question is, and I’m asking in humility, do we know how many sisters he had? No. Okay. So there’s nowhere.

Jeff
Doesn’t mention sisters would be more than one.

Chris
Yes, more than one. So there’s no. That’s true.

Jeff
Seven kids in Jesus family.

Chris
Yeah. Isn’t that amazing? Yeah. Yeah. At least.

Jeff
Seven. Yeah. But, you know, it could have been four sisters. It could have been three. We don’t know, but is. There’s more than one.

Chris
Yeah. I think the idea that some people believe that Mary was perpetually a virgin. Right. And had. Can you imagine. Seven Virgin births and then the other six not being mentioned. Right, right. And then in. People in this town would surely know by now. Right, right. Like so. So yeah, that’s just crazy, that whole belief. But yeah, that’s just crazy how Jesus had so many.

Jeff
Yeah. When you were in Israel, did you go to Nazareth?

Chris
We. Yeah, we were. In fact, we stayed in a hotel in Nazareth. Okay.

Jeff
Did you go to the area where they believe the village of Nazareth was the the kind of on the side of that hill. And there was the wine press. That’s from the first century. That was.

Chris
Still there? Yeah, it was still there. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff
There’s a there’s a synagogue. It’s new. I mean, they’ve built it for this purpose, but sits up towards the top of the hill and to sit in there, it was just a really interesting experience to kind of walk up and down that hill and realize the village itself wasn’t very big. No, there weren’t very many people. Everybody knew everybody’s business. And then, you know, the center of Jewish communities often was the synagogue. It was always the biggest or almost always the biggest building in town, especially in these small villages like this and usually in a prominent place. And the intellectuals and the leaders would meet there for things besides just spiritual things. But it would be expected that that prophets and teachers and respected people, when they came through town on a on a Sabbath, that they would stay and teach. And so here’s Jesus. He was famous. He was a son of the of of this town. And people seem genuinely happy, right? Verse 22, in Luke chapter four, it says, everyone spoke well of him and was amazed by the gracious word that came from. It came from his lips. They were like, this guy’s great. Remember Jesus, remember Jesus on the football team. Remember Jesus when he was a boy in third grade, right? They had all these fond memories of him being a being a person from that town. And then they’re really amazed at how gracious his speaking is and just how skilled he was. Until he starts making claims that you know, that he’s God, or making claims that, you know, in the same way here in Luke, Luke chapter four, he’s saying, you know, you guys don’t have very much faith. I wish I could do more miracles, I can’t. Jeff
And hey, by the way, that shouldn’t be a surprise. Elisha only healed one leper, right? And it wasn’t even a Jew. And then he says Elijah only only took care of one widow and she wasn’t even a Jew. And all of a sudden they’re like, hey, wait a minute, you’re comparing yourself to Elijah and Elisha, and they get really ticked at him, right?

Chris
And not only that, but he sort of in one, one swoop, he not only claims to be, you know, the fulfillment of the scriptures he read. Right, which, by the way, that’s what they did every time they met in the temple, there was a daily reading of the scriptures. Right? Right. So in the synagogue. In the synagogue. Yeah, in the synagogue. And it was reserved usually with for people with title. Yeah. Right. So Jesus had already become this really widespread, respected teacher, a rabbi. And so I imagine that they probably asked him to, to read the scriptures. You know, you’re only allowed to speak in the synagogue if you were invited to do so. And so they probably it was probably a great honor, you know, and it’s like, hey, wow, young Jesus, Joseph’s son, he’s been asked to read the scriptures. He’s going to read the scroll today. So they pull out the scroll and it’s the same scroll that all the other priests read other times in parts of the year. And he opens it up and reads it and goes, oh yeah, that’s about me. Yeah, yeah, that’s about me. And they’re like, what? What? And at the same time he says, I’m not going to do miracles to prove it to you because I’m insulting you by telling you the truth. You don’t believe enough, right? Right. So it’s like the double whammy, right? And listen, truth is truth. Yeah, right. So that’s why they were upset. That’s why they were angry.

Jeff
And then you’ve got this kind of the element of the fact that they all knew. They felt like they knew too much about him. So remember the two blind guys we were talking about yesterday? They come and they call him the Son of David. That’s a messianic title. They’re they’re recognizing that he’s the promised one from God. They haven’t even seen him with their own eyes yet. They were blind, but they recognized him as being the Messiah. And the people in his town only recognized him as being Joseph’s son. Right? The brothers, the brother of these four guys and you know, the son of Mary. And they they they thought they knew him and they kind of put him in a they they kind of put him in a peg hole and said, you can’t be anything more than that. And because of that, that’s why Jesus said, yeah, I’m not going to be able. He healed some people. But let’s be honest, that’s not the that’s not the solution they needed. Those were only temporary solutions. When when you when you’re sick and you need to be healed and he heals you, that’s kind of nice. But it didn’t make an eternal impact. Nothing of eternal impact happened in Nazareth because of their lack of faith.

Chris
Right. So you see the office.

Jeff
I’ve seen it many times.

Chris
Yeah. So do you remember when Ryan, the temp. That becomes corporate. And then the very, very first time he comes back with his little shaded beard, they walk up to him and even though now he’s the boss, but because he’s back in the office, they run up to him. They give him a noogie. Yeah. They call him the temp and everything else. And he’s like, hey! He’s like, don’t you realize who I am now? You know, and it was just sort of that, sort of that same deal. Right? Whereas like, I bet you that there are people who they gave Jesus noogies, right? I mean, those are the people that you grew up with. You know, they punched them in the arm, right? Like they played hacky sack with them with a version of hacky sack. Right. Like they played games with this guy growing up.

Jeff
They just didn’t recognize who he was as he came back. So it wasn’t inappropriate that, you know, he just lived a regular life and was just a Bible says he was a carpenter and he grew up in a carpenter’s home. And of course, he would have had friends there and all those kinds of things, but they couldn’t get past it. They couldn’t hear what he said because they thought they knew everything about him. And so it shouldn’t be surprising to us sometimes that we have family members or friends or co-workers, that when God begins transforming our life, they can’t see past, past our past. Right? Thank God God does, but these people couldn’t. And so it kind of stopped him from being able to do very much. He couldn’t do very many miracles. And as a matter of fact, they go from in verse 22, in Luke chapter four, everyone speaking well of him too. By the time they get to verse 28, they’re furious with him, right? The same group of people, same group of people. How fickle are we and how fickle are the people around us, you know, when it comes to ministry. And I mentioned this recently to our elders. We had an elders meeting at the church. We cannot get our satisfaction from people’s opinions. Yeah. How people view us.

Chris
We because they love you until they don’t.

Jeff
Yeah, exactly. And so here in verse 20, I mean we’re talking dude, it’s six verses, six verses, it’s a few sentences, right, of Jesus talking to them. And they go from, wow, this guy speaks with gracious words and he’s so smart. We’re so proud of him because he’s from our hometown. To what? And they’re furious with him and they want to.

Chris
Kill him because of what he said. Right? So and so, you know, when the word of God offends people, you know? You know, number one, we as Christians need to learn how to say the word of God in love. We know that Jesus taught us that. We know that we’re supposed to do it in context of relationship. But then there’s some times where we, you know, say the word of God just out of either defense or out of bold proclamation or standing up against things that are not true or whatever it is. Right? Well, think about it. Jesus delivered his truth in the purest context. He’s he’s he’s asked to read a scroll. He delivers it and he delivers the truth. This this is about me from Isaiah. Right? And and they get offended. And it just reminds me of all the times where have you ever done this? Where you preach a message and people get radically offended and you’re like, well, then don’t get offended by me. Get offended by God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because all I did was teach with the Bible. The Bible says, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff
So so his his remarks anger the people in Nazareth.

Chris
And by the way, that’s usually when you say God, God says to give back financially, right. Yeah.

Jeff
Oh yeah. You’re talking about money or something like that.

Chris
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which by the way is in the Bible people. Yeah.

Jeff
Where your treasure is, that’s where your heart is. That’s right after your heart. Right. And why does. And if you don’t believe that, then why do you get so mad when God when somebody talks about money from a biblical perspective. Right, right. So that’s why because it’s a heart issue. It’s attached to a heart. But so Jesus remarks, here’s a note in the Life Application Bible says, Jesus remarks angered the people of Nazareth because he was saying that God sometimes chose to reach Gentiles rather than Jews, and Jesus implied that this, that his hearers were as unbelieving as the citizens of the northern kingdom of Israel in the days of Elijah and Elisha, a time that was notorious for its great wickedness. So these people, the reason why they wanted to kill Jesus, is they didn’t like who Jesus liked. They didn’t like who Jesus was willing to serve. Right. And that was a big part of it. The the claim was, hey, God took care of Naaman. He was a Syrian god took care of this, this widow woman from Zarephath, right from Sidon. Neither one of them are Jews. And by the way, I’m aware that that’s a lot of my ministry. Remember, just just a day or two before Jesus healed these guys over on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, where all the pigs were? Yeah, right. Jesus was starting to do ministry serving people that weren’t Jewish. And it’s amazing to me how quickly we can be so fond of a religious person or a religious teacher, as long as he says what we want to hear, and he says it the way we want to hear it, and he uses the political jargon that we want, and he uses the social words that we want to hear. Jeff
And then all of a sudden, when he opens the door, that maybe God likes other people too. Well then, oh my goodness, right. We’re going to burn the place down. We’re going to throw him off a cliff. That’s what’s going to happen. And I just think it kind of shows we’re to.

Chris
Throw him off a cliff.

Jeff
That’s what they’re going to do. They’re going to throw him off the hill right there. And they intended to push him over the cliff, but he passed right through the crowd. And I love the fact that Jesus was untouchable. He was untouchable until it was his turn. You know, later on, Jesus says, listen, nobody’s going to take. From me. I’m going to lay it down freely. And so it wasn’t his time. He was invincible until the time it was. And by the by the way, I believe we are too, right? When we’re declaring God’s word, we’re preaching. We won’t die a minute early. Right. We’re not going to get to heaven and God go, oh my goodness, you’re here a little early, right? I think that while you’re serving the Lord and you’re doing it, you’re supposed to do. God protects you. And then when it’s your turn, if he decides he wants you to be a martyr. Okay, then that’ll be your turn. But I don’t think you have anything to fear. Jesus didn’t have anything to fear here. He could declare clearly the truth of God, and then know that he could just turn and walk right through the crowd, and nothing was going to happen to him.

Chris
You know, the overall message and application, I think, for this, this passage about no prophet having any honor in their hometown is, you know, sometimes it’s harder to stand, and especially if people know you. So it’s like, it’s like, can you imagine becoming a Christian and then saying, hey, as a man, I’m going to pray before the meal for the very first time, and everybody in your family looks at you like, who? What are you doing? Because they know you. Right? And excuse me, I was thinking, wow, good for you. I was thinking, good for you. I was thinking about. I was thinking about the first time that I was going to Bible college because I became a Christian only a couple of years, and I went straight to Bible college, and. And I remember, you know, on my way to study to become a pastor. And my whole family knew this. And then I remember coming home and just being in casual conversation with my brother, who was also in the same Bible college. And he said, we studied the King James Version at the time. And he said, hey, he goes, what’s the first Corinthians 1013 again? And I said, oh, blessed is the man that endureth temptation. For when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, to which the Lord has promised to them that love him. But God is faithful who not suffered you to be tempted above, that you are able but will with the temptation, also provide a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it. Make a way, make a way, yeah, make a way of escape. And. And my brother Chuck goes and looks at me and he goes. I can’t believe you just quoted that. Chris
And I was like, why? What do you mean? Because everybody that I know would expect that from me, right? I didn’t say that, but I’m thinking it right, right, right. And he’s like, I just wow. He goes, I just wow. I can’t believe he just knew that right off the top of your head. And and it was one of those examples right where it was like, oh yeah, my brother, like he thinks I’m a pastor, but he doesn’t think of me as a pastor. Right? Sure. Right. Yeah. And it was just just a small glimpse. Right. And by the way, it probably took 30 years. I remember, I think the day that it shifted was my grandfather’s funeral, and they asked me to do the funeral. And I stood up there and I led a very in fact, to be honest with you, it was the most difficult funeral I’ve ever led. And I’ve done and I’ve done over 100 funerals. Wow. But it was the by far the most difficult funeral. Not because it was family, but because it was the worst situation I’ve been in. Like like it was it was really bad. In other words, let me qualify that for those family members who may be listening. When I went to all the family members and said, hey, tell me something good about him, all three sons had nothing. One sentence good to say, yeah.

Jeff
I’ve done those kind of funerals.

Chris
Yeah. And so that’s all I have to say about that. Yeah, it’s hard, but but it was just really difficult. So I got there and I navigated it well. And that I think, was the day a turning point for my hometown people to go, wow. Yeah. Like I guess he is a pastor.

Jeff
Yeah. And God will do that oftentimes. But regardless, regardless of whether or not you’re accepted at home, it didn’t stop Jesus ministry. How frustrating was it for him? But I think for a lot of Christians, when they have family or friends or co-workers who start mocking them, they give up instead of just going on and doing more ministry.

Chris
Yeah, well, hey, that is a great place to end and we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.