Post edited 12:10 am – March 23, 2009 by SekihMentis
Post edited 12:10 am – March 23, 2009 by SekihMentis

What did Jesus do when he was younger? The Bible doesn't really say much about his childhood…

Luke 2:41-52

41 Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. 43 After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.  52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

those thoughts are funny!

i think Jesus got some time out. i saw on tv, history channel i think, that he was doing some tricks when he was little.

Post edited 4:16 am – March 23, 2009 by SekihMentis

yeah! i think Jesus had a sense of humor too and had an awesome charisma or else the children would never go near Him.

yeah, in the documentary they said that Jesus formed 12 birds from clay and made them into real birds and He did more miracles. i guess that's no surprise since Jesus was the Word, John 1:1-3, but the documentary is trying to say that there are books (infancy gospel of thomas, gospel of thomas) that talk about Jesus' childhood that weren't included in the Bible.

Post edited 7:23 pm – March 23, 2009 by SekihMentis
Post edited 7:24 pm – March 23, 2009 by SekihMentis

thank you pastor!

yeah, how could be Jesus performing miracles when he was younger when John 2:7-11 states that His first miracle was the turning the water into wine in cana?

7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so,  9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside  10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” 11 This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.

How interesting!  Yes, I agree with the first miracle in Cana as the first of all miracles.

As far as the part when he was younger, maybe the reason why it's not stated is because it probably wouldn't matter anyway to our salvation.  It would just be something really cool and interesting to know what He did.  However, if there are people who ask regarding this, it's one of those things where we have to “suspend” and ask when we see Jesus? HAHAH, just thinking.

Post edited 7:15 pm – March 23, 2009 by SekihMentis
Post edited 7:17 pm – March 23, 2009 by SekihMentis

bummer! jk.

so He grew as a carpenter and Luke 2:52 says, “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”

i guess the Gospel writers were focused on writing a “Gospel” and not a “biography” or else their writings would be called “the biography of Jesus Christ according to (the Gospel writer)…” 

edit/addition:

excerpt from chapter 2 of Prove It! Jesus:

Remember what a Gospel is. It’s not a modern biography, reflecting modern interests in the everyday details of a person’s life. If it were a biography, that’s exactly what we’d call it.

But we don’t. We call it a Gospel – a written account of the Good News of God become human in Jesus of Nazareth. The evangelists were interested in conveying the information that was most pertinent to that cause, not just heaping all kinds of detail that really didn’t relate. Not that they didn’t know more about Jesus than they wrote, mind you. Listen to what John says at the end of his gospel:

There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written. (John 21: 25)

So this is what it all comes down to: the evangelists were doing some very focused work as they listened to the stories about Jesus that had been passed down by reliable sources. They were focused because, from a very practical standpoint, their physical resources were limited: they couldn't just run down to the office supply store to pick up another ream of paper to accommodate all that they knew about Jesus. For that very practical reason, they had to make choices about what was most important to communicate.

But there was also a theological reason for the evangelists’ selectivity.

Think about the times you’ve had to relate a story – perhaps you had to tell your parents about a rather unpleasant occurrence at school, one that you wished had never occurred, but did nonetheless, right in the middle of English class, right in front of the very surprised teacher who had no idea you felt so strongly about Geoffrey Chaucer, one way or the other.

How do you tell the story of what happened? Even if you’re committed to an absolutely honest retelling, you know that you wouldn’t have the time to go over every little detail of the scene, nor would you be able to go into an extensive account of even your own, admittedly murky motivation for saying what you said.

Just like the Gospel writers, you’re limited. They didn’t have a lot of papyrus to spare, and your Mom’s face tells you don’t have much time to waste in explaining this mess. The Gospel writers had a very specific purpose – to give the world the evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, and your purpose, while much different, is very focused and precise, too – to tell the truth about your actions, with a minimum of fallout.

That’s all just a very long way of saying this: the Gospel writers, as much as we might wish they were, simply weren’t interested in what they saw as marginally important details about Jesus’ childhood and appearance. In other words, they didn’t care. They cared about the essence of what Jesus was all about: the loving, forgiving, saving Presence of God among us who’d preached, healed, died, and risen. So perhaps we should take it as a hint: if that’s what they were interested in, that’s what we should be up to exploring as well!

Welborn, Amy. Prove It! Jesus. Our Sunday Visitor; illustrated edition edition. November 2002.

Post edited 4:40 pm – March 31, 2009 by SekihMentis

cool. thanks pastor and jellybean!

so when He was younger, probably, He surprised a lot of people with His knowledge of the Father and with His wisdom. so couldn't be performing any miracles prior to the miracle in Cana, Galilee [ John 2:1-7 ]; not that he couldn't but it wasn't His time yet.

the apocryphal books [check out what they are according to wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha are not reliable because the miracle accounts in those books contradict Jesus' miracles [especially His ministry] in the Gospel accounts of matthew, mark, luke, and john.