Howdy.

As a classroom teacher, it was an exhilarating feeling to recognize when I had a brilliant student sitting under my tutelage.  Even as I type, various young faces come to mind with their inquisitive minds, probing questions and keen insights.  These were the students who really kept me on my toes, endeavoring to answer their questions, and keep a challenge ever before them.  Can you imagine being the teacher or rabbi teaching Jesus in the little village school?  As evidenced by his staying in the Temple in Jerusalem overlong at 12 years old, asking questions and talking to the teachers, Jesus was no doubt an extraordinary boy!   I can only imagine his childhood teacher or rabbi, speaking to his wife over their simple meal in the evening, stroking his long beard, saying, ‘I have this one boy—such questions he asks . . . oy!’

Since the Bible does not describe the training Jesus had as an adolescent, consultation of Jewish sources give us a pretty good idea of how Jesus was reared.  Jewish training and tradition has always held at its core the value of diligent study of Torah.¹  As for first century teaching of young men, the Mishna, which is the oral law interpreting the Torah², makes it clear that education was as much a part of a young Jewish boy’s life as home life and learning his father’s trade.  At five years of age, the study of the Written Torah began, at ten years of age the study of the Oral Torah, and at thirteen specific learning for the religious coming-of-age ceremony.³

We know that Jesus had been trained up learning, indeed memorizing many scriptures from the sacred Torah because from the inception of Jesus’ ministry, he quoted the scriptures, and not because he had a divine memory card.

A synagogue in the first century usually had its own bet SE·fer (elementary school) and bet mid·RASH (secondary school) in which children and adults studied Torah and the oral traditions. Formal education ended at the age of twelve or thirteen when most children went to work. The more gifted students who so desired could continue their studies at the bet mid·RASH together with adults who studied in their spare time.⁴ 

Oh, to be a fly on the wall near the evening meal in Jesus’ simple home!  All of the family meals would have been of simple means, except for the Sabbath and for festival meals when there would have been a more lavish spread.  The Bible mentions the names of four younger brothers and sisters too—though their names were not given.  There is a sense that his earthly father Joseph, died some time after the return from Jerusalem, (where Jesus stayed behind in the Temple), and therefore Jesus, as the oldest son, had a great deal of responsibility in providing for Mary and his younger siblings, through the trade his father had taught him—carpentry, and that of the finest.  We see no sign of Joseph in the faces of the crowds of his miracles, or trials or crucifixion.  And we know how he adored Mary, and thought of her in his last dying thoughts from the cross, when he commended her care to John.^{5 & 6}

Luke closes out his account of Jesus’ adolescent days with these thoughts: Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.⁷

I find myself quite smitten with these last two verses actually.  Coming off the Temple experience, and the realization that he had reached the age of maturity, yet Jesus made himself subject to his earthly parents; he obeyed Mary and Joseph.  Mary was quite aware of this unique juxtaposition . . . the Son of God obedient to her and sweet Joseph?  Hmmmh!  Surely something she thought about over and over again, wondering what the coming years were to hold.  All the while, Jesus grew in wisdom and in the respect of those around him, as well as the favor of God the Father. 

To which I say, may it be so of you and me as well—may we grow in wisdom, respect of others, and most especially in the favor of the Lord our God.  

^Christine

1 – Torah, simply the law of God, as revealed to Moses and recorded in the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures; also called the Pentateuch

^{2 – Judaism: The Oral Law, Talmud and Mishnah, Jewish Virtual Library.  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org}

^{3 – Avot 5.21, the Mishnah}

^{4 – Come to Zion Ministries}

^{5 – John 19.26}

^{6 –} What do you make of John 19.27 – where were Jesus’ siblings, that they would not care for their mother?