Day 17: Jesus is rejected by His hometown and sends the apostles
Jesus didn’t come from an impressive place. He came from a small town—more a village, really—called Nazareth, in the northern region of Galilee. It was many miles from Jerusalem, which was the center of Jewish life and worship. When one of Jesus’ disciples told his friend Nathanael that he thought he’d found God’s promised king and said that it was “Jesus of Nazareth,” Nathanael replied, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46). Today, we’re going to read about Jesus going back to His hometown and how the people there reacted to Him.
In verse 2, where is Jesus, what day is it, and what is He doing?
In verse 2, how did the people of Jesus’ hometown seem to react at first?
What question do they ask at the beginning of verse 3?
In Jesus’ day, most boys would have been trained to do the same job as their father. Jesus’ adoptive father, Joseph, was a carpenter (Matthew 13:55), so Jesus had worked as a carpenter too before He started His public ministry.
What other questions do people ask in verse 3?
How do they react at the end of verse 3?
How does Jesus explain their response (v. 4)?
A prophet in the Old Testament was someone who spoke God’s words to people about the past, present, and future.
From what you’ve seen of Jesus so far in Mark’s gospel, why do you think Jesus refers to Himself as a prophet in verse 4?
In verse 5, Mark says that Jesus could not do any miracles in Nazareth, except for a few healing miracles, and that Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith. We’ve seen already in Mark’s gospel that Jesus has power to do whatever He wants, so what was stopping Him from doing more miracles in Nazareth?
In verses 6–7, Jesus continues teaching from village to village and sends His twelve disciples out in pairs. What authority does He give them (v. 7)?
What instructions does Jesus give His disciples in verses 8–11?
How would you feel if you were going on a long journey by foot and you weren’t allowed to take a change of clothes or any food or money? How do you think this might have helped the disciples to trust God?
What two potential reactions to the disciples’ arrival do we see in verses 10–11?
When Jewish rabbis came home after traveling to foreign lands, they would shake the dust off their clothes.
According to verse 12, what message did the apostles preach when they went from town to town?
Why do you think Jesus’ call for people to repent—which means to say you’re sorry to God for your sins and to turn from them—is hard for people to accept today?
If you have not yet repented and turned to Jesus, ask God to help you do that now. If you have, ask Jesus to help you when you feel rejected by people around you because of your faith.