Wednesday, May 2, 2012

May 3rd 2012

This week we are going to take a little time and get to know Jesus, who he was in their culture, where he lived, and why these things are important.

Read Mark 2:1-2

So often when we think about Jesus’ home we think of Nazareth, and thanks to the disciple Nathaniel (John 1:46) we think of Nazareth being a sort of backwoods place. Seriously, how often when we think of Jesus’ home do we get this sort of backwoods farm town image? But what we know from the Scriptures is that Jesus tends to base a large part of his ministry around Capernaum. In fact in today’s Scripture there is even a reference to it being a home.

This raises the question, what do we know about Capernaum? Contrary to the view of a backwoods farm town, Capernaum was considered to be the religious educational center during that time. Archeologists have found the remains of a massive synagogue school which would have been dated at the time of Jesus. In fact no other synagogue school from that time would have come close to its size.

So what does this mean for our understanding about Jesus? This means that Jesus is not some backwoods farm boy who comes out of nowhere to show all of these religious leaders what God is really doing. Instead Jesus was considered to be one of the best at what he did. That massive synagogue school would have been a place where Jesus would have taught. This would be like teaching at any Ivy League school today. This means the movement Jesus began wasn’t just with everyday people (which it was), but it was also with the religious elite, the driving force of what it meant to follow God in their day.

Today meditate for a bit on what it means that Jesus was considered to be (during his time) the best at what he did.

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