By Claude Wilson, Freelance WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
THE BIBLE record of Jesus' early life is very brief. Matthew gospel devoted a single chapter, Mark didn't touch the subject, and Luke referred to the birth and early life of Jesus in less than two full chapters. Apart from the circumstances and proceedings surrounding the actual birth, Luke mentioned the Christ child's circumcision at eight days old and being taken to Jerusalem on his 40th day when he was taken to the Temple for Mary's purification offering. Of the first years of Jesus' life nothing is known except that Luke is paraphrased as saying that "The child became a strong, robust lad, and was known for wisdom beyond his years". The next reference to the boy Jesus was at age 12 when he accompanied his parents to Jerusalem for the annual Passover festival, which they attended each year. Mary first-born son did not grew up as an only child because in the course of time the family grew as four sons and some daughters were born to Joseph and Mary, according to the Bible. Jesus waited 18 more years to begin his earthly ministry and by all accounts he waited at his parents home in Nazareth, learning the basic knowledge and skill that would equip him for the rest of his earthly life (Luke 2:52).
According to notable Bible scholar William Barclay, during his childhood days "Jesus learn to read, for we know that the day was to come when he was to read the lesson from the prophets in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:16). Jesus learn to write, which in those days were a rarer accomplishment, because we were told that Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground in the John 8 story of the woman taken in adultery".
Jesus was learning the skills that every boy must learn. "There was a village school in Nazareth; to that village school Jesus must have gone, says gifted preacher and scholar William Barclay in his book The Mind of Jesus." In that village school there was a nameless schoolmaster, whose name no one will ever know, and yet that schoolmaster taught the Son of God.
Many a teacher is doing a work far greater than he/she knows". As a boy Jesus learned to do a good day's work, for it is as a carpenter of Nazareth that men knew him (Mark 6:3). Jesus was the good craftsman. Barclay quoted Justin Martyr as writing, 'he was in the habit of working as a carpenter when he was among men, making ploughs and yokes. There was a legend that Jesus of Nazareth made the best ox-yokes in all Galilee, and men came from far and near to buy the yokes that Jesus made'. Isn't it any wonder that he would latter say "My yoke is easy or well-fitting?" As a young man in Nazareth Jesus got himself the craftsman's strong and gentle hands winning the physical manhood that will enable him to undertake the task to come. According to Barclay, Jesus could never have lived the life he did had he not been physically equipped for it. In those days a carpenter had to swing his axe, cut down trees and haul it home on his shoulder. "Jesus was no weak and anaemic person; he must have been bronzed and weather-beaten, in the perfection of physical manhood". The work in the shop and the life in the family were both parts of the essential education and preparation of the young man for his task. As a teenager Jesus had to take upon his shoulders the responsibility of the family business and support his mothers and brothers and sisters (Mark 6:3). "The Son of God, when he came into this world, prepared himself to save the world by serving in a home", says Barclay. Jesus grew up just like the other normal boys in the Galilee village, in a land of loveliness as Nazareth was said to be. He learned to love the sight of the sower sowing his seed (Matt. 13. 1-8); of the cornfield ripening under God's sun (Mark 4.26-29); of the mustard bush with birds fluttering around to steal little black seeds (Mark 4.30-32); and of the beautiful flowers on the hillside in raiment such as Solomon in his glory never wore (Matt. 6,28,29).
From his youthful days Jesus would have remembered the frenzied search when a woman lost her silver coin (Luke 15.8), he saw what happened when new wine was poured in old wine skin (Matt. 9. 16). He knew the joy of a wedding feast (Matt 9.15), he watched the fishermen throwing their nets (Matt. 13. 47), and the shepherd tending their sheep (Luke 15. 4-6), and he saw the children playing at weddings and funerals in the village (Matt. 11.16).
These are the childhood and teenaged experiences that later became the practical lessons of his earthly ministry.
