CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 13:54. His own country.—The district of Nazareth.
Matthew 13:55. The carpenter’s son (see Mark 6:3).—Joseph was an artificer, for the word “carpenter” must not be interpreted in its narrowed modern import. The word “carpenter” originally meant “cart-maker.” But the term employed by the Evangelist rather corresponds to our more general word “wright,” which properly means just a workman, being etymologically connected with the word “work” or “wrought.” Like the Evangelist’s Greek term, it would originally designate an artificer, who worked, indeed, in wood, but not exclusively so. (Morison). His brethren.—An exceedingly difficult question here arises, What were these “brethren” and “sisters” (Matthew 13:56) to Jesus? Were they:
1. His full brothers and sisters? or:
2. His step-brothers and step-sisters, children of Joseph by a former marriage? or:
3. His cousins, according to a common way of speaking among the Jews respecting persons of collateral descent? On this subject an immense deal has been written; nor are opinions yet by any means agreed. For the second opinion there is no ground but a vague tradition, arising probably from the wish for some such explanation. The first opinion undoubtedly suits the text best in all the places where the parties are certainly referred to (Matthew 12:46 and its parallels, Mark 3:31 and Luke 8:19; our present passage and its parallel, Mark 6:3; John 2:12; John 7:3; John 7:5; John 7:10; Acts 1:14). But, in addition to other objections, many of the best interpreters, thinking it in the last degree improbable that our Lord, when hanging on the cross, would have committed His mother to John if He had had full brothers of His own then alive, prefer the third opinion; although, on the other hand, it is not to be doubted that our Lord might have good reasons for entrusting the guardianship of His doubly widowed mother to the beloved disciple in preference even to full brothers of His own. Thus dubiously we prefer to leave this vexed question, encompassed as it is with difficulties (Brown).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 13:53-58
Jesus in Nazareth.—The end of this chapter is, perhaps, connected with the end of the last. Some of the people of Nazareth, including at any rate those amongst them who were nearest of kin to the Saviour, are described there as coming to Him; though not (apparently) in the spirit of sympathy with His work (Matthew 12:46-50). Here we find Him, not impossibly on account of that visit, coming to them. The incidents related are such as to throw, first, some light upon them; secondly, more light upon Him.
I. Some light upon them.—Evidently, in the first place, they were not amongst the distinguished ones of the earth. Persons of culture, persons of learning, persons of influence were not common amongst them. When anyone came to “their synagogue” who could “teach” with effect it seems to have been a surprise. It was certainly so when they found the Speaker to be one of themselves—a man brought up amongst them—a man whose father, and whose father’s occupation as a “carpenter,” were known to them all—and whose other relations, also, of the nearest description, were all of them as well known to them, even by name (Matthew 13:55-56). Who would have thought of such an one appearing amongst us? Are those who belong to Him, and who are “with us,” anything of the kind? Are they not rather, all of them, just the same as ourselves? Persons who make no pretension, and have no right to do so, to anything more? Evidently also, in the next place, like most common-place folk, they were a very prejudiced set. It was not only an “astonishment”—it was an “offence” to them—that there should be such a man in their midst (Matthew 13:57). Far from glorying in the fact that He was “one of them,” they objected to Him the more on that ground. What right had He to be a man of such a different stamp? That He was so, and that both in word and deed, it was impossible to deny. The “wisdom” He spoke with, the “mighty works” which accompanied it, were as manifest as Himself (Matthew 13:54). What exasperated them was that they could not make out how it was they were there. “Whence hath this man all these things?” The very language of prejudice ever since it was born. It will not accept what yet it cannot deny. It will not trace facts to their source. It will not submit to learn from them what they are intended to teach. It quarrels with them simply for being facts. It only wishes them out of their way.
II. More light upon Him.—Light, for example, on what He had been in the days of the past. Why were they so exceedingly astonished to see so much in Him now? Because they had seen so little in Him up to that time. It is evident that when He left Nazareth to be baptised of the Baptist, and to open His chief ministry, after a short probable stay in Judæa, in Capernaum and its neighbourhood (Matthew 4:12, etc.), there was no one amongst them—with one possible exception (Luke 2:19), who knew the kind of man that He was. It is evident also (Luke 4:23) that they heard of His doings at Capernaum on this account, with no little surprise. And just as evident (as we have noticed) that, when He now brings His greatness amongst them, they are “astonished” still more. Evidently, once more therefore, there had been no preliminary scintillations of all this during those many years that He had been dwelling amongst them before the baptism of John. Whatever His thoughts, whatever His hopes, whatever His plans, whatever His powers had been during those thirty long years of dwelling amongst them up to that date—those years, on His part, had been years of long silence and self-restraint in more directions than one. It is a picture to mark! How singularly unobtrusive, how retiring, how meek His life then must have been! How much must have been repressed that they should now look on the opposite with such unmeasured surprise. What was Jesus of Nazareth to all outward appearance during all those years? Just a “Nazarene”—and no more. Light, in the next place, as to what He is to them now. How desirous to teach! Going into “their synagogue” where He would have the readiest opportunity for so doing; and availing Himself of it when He was there to offer them instruction. Little as they either expected or wished it, they should have the offer of light from His hands. How ready, again, to make allowance for such unpreparedness to hear on their part! He well knew that it was but with them as with all men in this world. No man likes to find one of his apparent equals claiming, for all that, to be one endowed with such gifts as to make him his superior in any important respect; least of all to make him so in such a capacity as that of a prophet” (Matthew 13:57). If these His townsfolk, therefore, had such a feeling now with regard to Himself, He was the more disposed by it to feel sorrow than either disappointment or wrath. At any rate, it should not induce Him to withhold from them entirely that which He knew He was able to give. He would do some works among them, if not “many,” whatever their prejudices. They should have some witness among them, if not so much as some others, notwithstanding “their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58). A most gracious answer indeed—as gracious an answer as the case admitted of—to such behaviour as theirs.
Let us learn from all this, for our own use and instruction:—
1. To beware of limiting God.—It is not for us to say where He is to look for the instruments of His work. No place, certainly, seemed less likely for such a purpose than Nazareth did at that time (John 1:46). Those who knew it best, its own inhabitants, thought so the most. Also, amongst its inhabitants no one appeared less likely for such a calling and that for the years of a “generation” than Jesus Himself. Yet never has there been called, from anywhere else, such a Teacher and Light—even the Light of the world.
2. To beware of despising any.—Probably greater prejudice, and less excuse for it, there never was in the world than amongst these townsfolk of Jesus. Yet, with all the scorn that they showed to Him, and all the multitudes waiting to hear Him elsewhere, there is no contempt in His treatment of them. If He does not give to them what is due rather to others, He still has something for them. He has something for them, though they, on their part, have only prejudice and anger for Him.
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 13:55. The carpenter’s son.—Consider how the fact that Jesus was a carpenter should be a help to our faith.
I. This fact is a sign of the humility of Christ.—It is true that when He came down the tremendous way, from heaven’s glory to man’s humiliation, it did not signify so very much to Him whether He alighted at a king’s palace or a peasant’s cottage. The condescension would not be appreciably different in the two cases. Yet to us the humility of Christ is more apparent in His lowly earthly lot.
II. This fact is a proof that Jesus Christ went through the experience of practical life.—Work takes up a large part of life. It has its difficulties, its disappointments, its weariness. We all know them, whether we work with the hand or with the brain. Christ knew them too. Work has also its special requirements, its duties, its obligations. The apprentice must learn the various branches of his trade, if only that he may afterwards understand how to direct and judge of the work of the mechanics who will be under his control. Christ knows good work. When we serve Him let it be with the thoroughness He so well understands and has a right to expect.
III. This fact shows that Christ found the school for His spiritual training in His practical work.—As He bent over His task with care and diligence to do it well, His soul was growing silently in those excellencies which were ultimately revealed when His disciples “saw His glory full of grace and truth.”
IV. This fact sheds a glory over the life of manual industry.—Everything that Christ handles becomes beautiful beneath His touch. His presence in the workshop throws a holy light over its commonest contents. As the carpenter handles his tools, shall he not remember that he is doing the very work his Master did before him, and so exalted and consecrated work?
V. This fact should attract working men to Christ.—How strange that it should be said that working men are not so interested in Christianity as other classes. It must be because they are repelled by the artificial respectability of the church. It cannot be that they see anything in Christ Himself that is less attractive to them than to others. For He was a working man Himself.—W. F. Adeney, M.A.
Matthew 13:56. The originality of Jesus.—When Jesus began to be a force in human life, there were four existent types on which men formed themselves, and which are still in evidence. One is the moral, and has the Jew for its supreme illustration, with his faith in the eternal, and his devotion to the law of righteousness. The next is the intellectual, and was seen to perfection in the Greek, whose restless curiosity searched out the reason of things, and whose æsthetic taste identified beauty and divinity. The third is the political, and stood enthroned at Rome, where a nation was born in the purple and dictated order to the world. And the last is the commercial, and had its forerunner in the Phoenician, who was the first to teach the power of enterprise and the fascination of wealth. Any other man born at the beginning of the first century could be dropped into his class, but Jesus defied classification. As He moved among the synagogues of Galilee He was an endless perplexity. One could never anticipate Him. One was in despair to explain Him. Whence is He? the people whispered with a vague sense of the problem, for He marked the introduction of a new form of life. He was not referable to type; He was the beginning of a time.—John Watson, M.A.
Matthew 13:57. The world’s offence in Christ.—What is there offensive in Christianity to-day—why do so many people now find in Christian teaching a cause of vexation, an incitement to opposition, or, at least, an excuse for indifference?
I. One chief cause of the opposition is the very widespread misunderstanding about this religion of Christ as to its aims and spirit.—This misunderstanding may be traced to some extent to the imperfect teaching of the church in the past. But the chief cause is want of attention, the absence of any serious desire to understand which marks the attitude of so many people. In a certain tropical country, where rains were rare and streams were small, a period of drought had brought great distress upon the people. The ground was baked hard by the burning sun, the grass withered and died, the rivulets failed, the cattle began to suffer. Water even failed for the supply of the households. Things got worse and worse. Many lost their all; some even perished in the bush from thirst; when one man, more keen-witted than the rest, and having a little more knowledge of things, managed to sink a well on his farm. He soon tapped a spring, and, by a rude arrangement of buckets and ropes he was able to draw sufficient water for all his needs. He filled the great trough which ran along the front of his house, and sent to all his neighbours to tell them the good news, and to invite them to share his good fortune. But the story had gone about among the people that the man was a wizard, and that he had obtained the water by magic, and, moreover, that what was life to him would be death to everyone else. So they refused to come, and hundreds suffered and even perished in the very presence of the saving fountain. This is an allegory.
II. There is a certain unworldliness about Christ.—The kingdom He founds is a spiritual one, and such teaching is not appreciated by the greater number of people. Robert Buchanan describes a meeting on London Bridge between himself and a weak and miserable old man, with bare and bleeding feet—this is Jesus, the Jew. And presently he pictures Him arraigned before “the spirit of humanity,” as His judge—
“Humanity itself shall testify
Thy kingdom is a dream, Thy word a lie,
Thyself a living canker and a curse
Upon the body of the universe.”
Many there are who could echo such words if they dared. But there is one fact which stands in the way and confronts them. Christ’s kingdom lives! It lives and has greater vitality to-day than it ever had.
III. Men stumble at this teaching because of the slow progress and imperfect results of the preaching of Christianity.—I grant that it is a natural cause of hesitation, and at first sight a difficulty. The condition of society in Christian countries—in England and America to-day—is not creditable to our professions, and must be an “offence.” While Christianity has power to uplift all who submit to it, it has not the power to compel men to submit. And I shrewdly suspect that if it attempted to usurp such a power, those who now complain of it as imbecile would be the first to attack it as tyrannical. But the very argument seems to allow the fact on which I lay stress. It seems to acknowledge that Christ intended to make a complete reform of society, that at least this was the ideal He set before Himself and His followers. And this is admitting a great deal. If, however, people would use their reason a little more carefully they would surely see that no religion can, by its very nature, have a power of compulsion. Christianity aims at what is radical; it touches the springs of life; and, while people are debating, fault-finding, arguing, this kingdom of Christ is quietly going on its way. It is working out its destined ends; it is renewing hearts and ennobling lives.—P. W. Darnton, B.A.
Prejudice against Jesus.—It was once said to a sceptic: “Sir, I think you would be about the last man that would willingly do injustice to any one.” He smiled and gracefully bowing said, “Certainly.” “Well, then, sir,” was the reply, “I hope you will not do injustice to Jesus Christ.” “Pooh!” said he, and turned away.—C. Clemance, D.D.
Prejudice.—Richard Cecil illustrates the obvious tendency of man’s predilections to bias the judgment, by a watch which a gentleman put into a watchmaker’s hands, as it went irregularly. “It was as perfect a piece of work as ever was made. He took it to pieces and put it together again twenty times. No manner of defect was to be discovered, and yet the watch went intolerably. At last, it struck him that possibly the balance might have been near a magnet. On applying a needle to it, he found his suspicions true. Here was all the mischief. The steel work in the other parts of the watch had a perpetual influence on its motions, and the watch went as well as possible with a new wheel. If the soundest mind be magnetised by any predilection, it must act irregularly.”
Prejudice unreasonable.—A gentleman was one day stoutly asserting that there were no gold fields, except in Mexico and Peru. A nugget, dug up in California, was presented to him as evidence against his positive assertion. He was not in the least disconcerted. “This metal, sir, is, I own, extremely like gold; and you tell me that it passes as such in the market, having been declared by the assayers to be indistinguishable from the precious metal. All this I will not dispute. Nevertheless, the metal is not gold but auruminium; it cannot be gold, because gold comes only from Mexico and Peru.” In vain was he informed that the geological formation was similar in California and Peru, and the metals similar; he had fixed in his mind the conclusion that gold existed only in Mexico and Peru; this was a law of nature—he had no reasons to give why it should be so; but such had been the admitted fact for many years, and from it he could not swerve.—Lewes.
Matthew 13:58. Unbelief a hindrance to miracle.—
I. Our Lord’s conduct in Nazareth.—He did not perform many miracles in Nazareth because of the unbelief of the Nazarenes. This is the very opposite of what we might have been disposed to anticipate. Surely we should have thought beforehand that where there was most of unbelief there would have been the largest employment of miracle in order to overcome it. Miracles were for the production or the confirmation of faith. Moreover, our Lord had been brought up in Nazareth; all His earliest associates were there. His human breast was filled with patriotism, and therefore, doubtless, He yearned for the welfare of the Nazarenes. Yet it is of Nazareth, where there was so much unbelief, and so much prejudice to be overcome, that we are told, “He did not many mighty works there,” etc. What is the explanation of this? Observe:—
1. That although Christ did not work many miracles in Nazareth, He did work some.—“Not many” implies some (see Mark 6:5). He wrought sufficient to arouse attention and excite inquiry (Matthew 13:54).
2. The evidence afforded by a miracle is not enhanced by its frequent repetition.—The very opposite is really the case. The probability is that had our Lord multiplied miracles in Nazareth He would only thereby have enhanced the guilt and aggravated the final punishment of these Nazarenes, inasmuch as the greater the evidence which they resisted, the greater the guilt which would have attached to them, and the more severe the condemnation to which they would have been thereby exposed. And then there is another reason:—
3. In the dealings of grace God invariably treats men as morally accountable and responsible beings.—He does enough to enable those to whom the gospel is sent to believe, but no more. He does not compel the men to believe. But why was it, after all, that the unbelief of the Nazarenes restrained the wonder-working arm of the Redeemer? In St. Mark’s Gospel we are told, “He could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief,” as though to tell us that the arm of the Redeemer was paralysed by the unbelief of those amongst whom He sojourned. I think there is a deep reason to account for this; and in order to perceive that reason we should bear in mind the two-fold design with which all the miracles which Christ wrought upon earth were performed. The miracles were evidences of the Divine commission which Christ bore; but they were more than this. They were types of those wonders of grace which Christ is still able and willing to work in behalf of men’s souls. In almost every instance where Christ wrought a miracle, He required in the subject of the miracle faith, as a condition of its performance. Why? Because the miracle was intended to foreshadow His mode of acting in the economy of grace.
II. The lessons which our Lord’s conduct afford to ourselves.—
1. If not converted to God under the ordinary means of grace you have no right to expect that extraordinary means will be employed, or that, if employed, the result would be different from what it is.
2. That the great secret why we do not make greater progress in religion is unbelief.—Dr. Bickersteth, Bishop of Ripon.