Does God understand family life?
It蘑菇视频 reality that Jesus had Joseph and Mary as his earthly mother and father. We can realistically say, 鈥淕od knows what it is to have parents.鈥� How well Jesus knew his grandparents on either side is conjecture, but it seems reasonable that he would have been familiar with them along with whatever aunts, uncles, and cousins he might have had.
In growing up, he would have been nursed, potty trained, taught to walk, communicate, read, write, dress, and bathe himself, like any other child. How do you get to be 12? You get to 10 first. And before 10 you are 8; before you鈥檙e 8, you are 5; before you are 5, you are 2, and so on. And at 12, many know the story of Jesus鈥� temporary separation from his parents (Luke 2:41-46), but V44 states that they were traveling with relatives and friends. The key point here is that Jesus had relatives of some nature.
In a visit to his hometown, the people observed in response to his ministry, 鈥淚sn鈥檛 this the carpenter蘑菇视频 son?鈥� (Matthew 13: 54-57), and in Mark 6:1-3 they remarked that Jesus himself was the carpenter. But the family issue in those passages is sibling recognition. His brothers James, Joseph, Simon, Judas (four), and his sisters. Matthew says all his sisters, implying more than two. At this point he had four brothers and what appear to be at least three sisters, a rational calculation. Seven siblings, plus he the oldest brings the total to eight. Here蘑菇视频 a practical calculation: If Mary and Joseph had a child born every two-and-one-half years on average, then Jesus would have been almost 18 years old when the possible last child was born. Jesus as a 12-year-old would have had siblings ages 9陆, 7, 4陆, 2, and one in the oven. For many years, Jesus was in a house full of little kids: diapers, nursing, crying, runny noses, playing, fighting, and screaming. Being the oldest meant assignments of responsibility for the brood. As Jesus grew in age, his voice deepened, muscles developed, and facial hair appears; yes, God understands puberty and what it is to be a teenager and sibling. The sibling group grew in age along with their numbers. With a steady supply of teenagers, Jesus witnessed sibling rivalry, jealousy, boyfriends, girlfriends, teen angst 鈥� the list goes on. Luke 3:23 says that Jesus was about 30 when he started his ministry. Using my math calculations, that would put his siblings鈥� ages at approximately 27陆, 25, 22陆, 20, 17陆, 15, and 12陆. His siblings would have been young adults and teenagers. It蘑菇视频 extremely plausible that some were married, and he had in-law siblings of some nature, perhaps with nephews and nieces.
At 30 Jesus started his wildly successful ministry. Yet in Mark 6:1-4 we see problems surface with family life. Jesus makes the claim in V4: 鈥淥nly in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house, is a prophet without honor.鈥� You can reach the mountaintop in your profession, and those closest to you either can鈥檛 accept it, or don鈥檛 recognize it the same way as everyone else does. In Mark 3:21, his family went to take charge of him because they thought he had gone out of his mind. His family came to shut him down. They came to talk sense into him and to deprogram him. At that point in time, his brothers didn鈥檛 believe in him. This wasn鈥檛 sibling rivalry; it was their part in an intervention. Practically no one he grew up with 鈥� neighbors, community associates, siblings, or childhood friends 鈥� gave him their backing. The family thought he had gone dysfunctional and was dragging others down with him. God understands family drama.
Who wrote the books of James and Jude? It was his half-brothers who came to believe in him. God was born a human baby, weaned as a child, grew as a teenager in small-town life, developed into a man, had relatives, parents, siblings, and family issues.
Living as a human, God got to experience what we go through and family life was at the top of the list. Does God really understand family life? No one does so more!