Reading… and Thinking

“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

– Mark 6:3 (NASB)

Jesus’ entire ministry lasted only a little over three years. Prior to that, he lived for 30 years in a small town that even his contemporaries thought of as “Hicksville”. Because we have no record of Jesus’ adult life in this town, we tend not to think much about it.

Joseph raised Jesus as his own son. Joseph was a carpenter, and he undoubtedly taught that trade to his boys. Probably they all continued in the same trade. We don't really know about the others, but we know from this verse that Jesus did.

The occupation of “carpenter” these days might mean several different things. Joseph and Jesus were not cabinet makers, or even exclusively woodworkers. In our culture, we would call them “builders”. The word translated “carpenter” is related linguistically to our word “technician”, and it means a craftsman, not particularly a woodworker. However, a lot of their work would have been with wood, and the translation “carpenter” isn't way off the mark.

Jesus would have grown up doing all the things that a builder does. He would have shaped logs into beams. He would have done masonry, since the walls of most buildings in the area were stone. He would have fashioned doors, and shutters to cover windows. His trade was to build houses and barns and outhouses, perhaps animal enclosures. Besides new construction, he would build additions to existing homes – adding a room on the side or an upper room on the roof. And there are always repairs to be made.

About the age of 9 or 10, a boy becomes genuinely useful as a helper. Probably starting earlier, but certainly by then, he would have been working with his step-dad. So, he was a builder for 20 years, prior to being a preacher for 3. No doubt he did work on the houses of many of those people in the synagogue that day, who found it so hard to believe that he was anything more than a construction worker in a small town.

Many of Jesus’ parables include agricultural figures. Nazareth was a rural community, and no doubt he would have seen the sowing and reaping and sheep-tending that he used as figures. But he also used a number of figures drawn from his own occupation:

• The wise builder who built on rock, and the foolish one who built on sand.
• “On this rock I will build my church.”
• The householder who planted a vineyard and built a tower in it.
• Quoting from the Psalms, “The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.”
• The parable of the rich fool who decided to pull down his barns and build bigger ones.
• “Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost?”
• The hypocrite who can't see the beam in his own eye, but wants to help another remove a speck of sawdust.

The writer to the Hebrews finds the role of Jesus as builder to be instructive. He calls Jesus “the builder of the house” (Heb 3:3). In this, Jesus was following in the trade of his heavenly Father. The writer goes on to say, “For every house is built by some one, but the builder of all things is God.” (Heb 3:4) And in the famous 11th chapter, he says of Abraham, “He looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” (Heb 11:10)

God, the great Builder, chose a builder to raise His Son. To learn that good foundations have to be laid. That houses are built one stone at a time, and every stone is different & has its own unique place in the structure. That if you want a building, there will be a cost.

“Isn’t this Jesus, the builder?” Yes, it is.