Luke 2:39-52
I would encourage you to read my 2019 post at the link below (with pictures!) before you read today’s comments. My earlier comments offer some real insights that Carol and I gained from a visit to Turkey a few years back.
His parents did not know it, but supposing Him to be in the group… (vv. 43b-44a) Jesus was not with Mary and Joseph as they traveled back toward Nazareth, but his parents seemed mostly unconcerned. It would have been common for Mary and Joseph to be traveling in a larger caravan with other people headed north to Galilee. It used to be that I imagined Mary and Joseph traveling separately, Mary with other women and Joseph with the men, and each imagining that Jesus was with the other. But this morning I thought otherwise – if Jesus was a “typical” 12-year-old maybe he wanted to be with his friends (or maybe with a friend’s family). So Mary and Joseph expected that he was in the larger group, hanging out with a friend and they continued their northward journey until the caravan’s first-night’s stop.
So, was Jesus a ”typical” 12-year-old…?? Maybe. Maybe not, depending on your view of 12-year-olds back then. But Luke gives us one verse that tells of Jesus as a model 12-year-old: And He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. (v. 51a) Yes, a model 12-year-old…!!
See also January 15 / Luke 2:41-52 from 2019.
I found it interesting that Luke, getting his information here from Mary, skips the presumed early year living in Bethlehem, the visit of the magi, the flight to Egypt. Maybe Luke was aware that Matthew’s recording, at least of this part, was already out there and Luke didn’t need to repeat?
This time I really appreciated that Jesus was asking the teachers questions, possibly about the Messiah and ultimately the prophesies, etc. It was the quality or depth of those questions that astounded them. So he was already processing his uniqueness and wasn’t asking simple, surface questions. But still, he went back with his parents and was obedient to them for 18 years! My Bible study suggests that Joseph being older, may have died during that time, and as the oldest son, Jesus may have had family responsibilities to support and help raise his younger half-siblings until they were independent. When he began his public ministry, his half brothers appear to be out on their own and they were caring for Mary, until she began following him and being part of his entourage.
This passage firmly established him being both the Son of God, in his father’s house, and Son of Man, with family responsibilities. Don’t let us use God to shirk our family responsibilities!