What Do You Do When You Know It Was God but Don't Understand? (Luke 2:41-52) | Daily Devotional & Bible Study

Mary knew exactly who her son was. She had the angel, the virgin conception, the shepherds, and Simeon's prophecy. And when her twelve-year-old said he had to be in his Father's house, Scripture tells us plainly that she did not understand what he said to her.

Today we're finishing Luke 2 with Jesus at twelve in the temple. This passage gets taught incorrectly a lot, so we're going to slow down and ask some questions of the text. We'll look at what Passover actually meant to this family, what Jesus was really doing among the teachers, and the difference between knowing something and understanding it.

Links

In this episode I share the moment God first showed me Bible Study Live, standing at a villa in Italy. I knew it was Him, and it still took six years to understand what He meant. Today that picture is small-group Bible study trips in Rome and Maui.

Bible Study Live is a small-group Bible study trip with Rachael Groll. Study Scripture where it happened in Rome, or slow down for a contemplative Bible study retreat in Maui. Dates and details at BibleStudyLive.org

Listen ad-free, plus the full library of past series, on Patreon: patreon.com/HearingJesus

Questions or prayer requests? Leave me a voicemail: SpeakPipe

What was the Feast of Passover?

It goes back to Exodus 12, the night God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt. Each family killed a lamb without defect and put its blood on the doorposts, and when God's judgment moved through Egypt that night, He passed over the homes marked with the blood. That same night Pharaoh finally let God's people go.

God told them to keep that meal every year forever. Roasted lamb, bread without yeast because there hadn't been time to let it rise, and bitter herbs to remember the bitterness of slavery. The feast ran eight days, one for Passover itself and seven for the Feast of Unleavened Bread right after, which is why Luke says they stayed until the days were over. It fell in late March or April, right around when we observe Easter.

Deuteronomy 16 required all the men to appear before the Lord three times a year, at Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Technically only Joseph had to go. Mary went anyway, which was common for devoted families but not universal. We see the same thing with Hannah going up year after year in 1 Samuel. Luke is telling us this was a faithful household. There was a lot of hard in their lives, and they kept showing up.

Why did it take a day to notice Jesus was missing?

Because nobody traveled alone. Nazareth was about eighty to ninety miles from Jerusalem by road, which was a three to five day walk, and families traveled together in large groups with relatives and neighbors for safety. Luke tells us exactly that in verse 44.

So when Mary and Joseph couldn't find Jesus, it was because they assumed he was with the caravan, somewhere among thirty cousins. A whole day could pass before anyone noticed a twelve-year-old was gone.

What was Jerusalem like during Passover?

Packed. Scholars think Jerusalem normally held somewhere in the tens of thousands, and during Passover it swelled well beyond that. Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, wrote about numbers in the millions. Many scholars think that's heavily exaggerated, or that he simply meant there were people everywhere. People camped on the hillsides and in surrounding villages because there was nowhere to stay in the city.

The temple courts would have been loud and crowded, with lambs being sacrificed and the Levitical priests singing psalms. For a boy from a small village, this would have been one of the biggest things he saw all year.

Why did Passover matter so much to them?

For us it reads like a history lesson. For them it was how Israel remembered who they were and where they came from. God built the teaching right into it. Exodus 12 says that when your children ask what this rite means, you tell them the story again.

So every year the children asked and the parents retold it. That's part of how the faith got handed down, because most people couldn't read. It was an oral history carried by ritual.

And remember where they were standing. Israel was under Roman occupation. A feast week about God breaking the power of an empire and setting His people free meant something. During Passover, they were reminded of hope. Rome knew it too, which is why the Roman governor came up from the coast with extra soldiers during the feast to prevent a riot.

What is being foreshadowed here?

Think about what's happening. A twelve-year-old boy travels to Jerusalem for a feast about a lamb whose blood saved people from death, and he sits in the temple courts asking questions. About twenty years later he comes back to that same city, at that same feast, at that same time of year, and becomes the Lamb himself. Paul says it in 1 Corinthians: Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.

There's one more thing I hadn't noticed until this time studying it. Mary and Joseph searched three days before they found him. Later, at Passover, three days would pass before Jesus was found again. That pricked my heart about how strategic God was in the timing.

Was Jesus teaching or learning in the temple?

This is where the passage often gets taught incorrectly. Verse 46 says he was sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Sitting, listening, asking. Those are the actions of a student.

Then verse 47 says all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. Here's what ties them together: Jewish teaching worked by question and answer. A student asked a question, the teacher often answered with a question back, and the way you answered was how they measured whether you really understood.

So we have a twelve-year-old sitting among the teachers, asking, listening, and answering. That's learning. But the depth of his answers was teaching them at the same time. He wasn't correcting them or taking over.

The Greek word for understanding is sunesis, the ability to put things together and see how the pieces connect. They weren't amazed that he had memorized a lot of Scripture. Plenty of Jewish boys had. They were amazed at how he understood what it meant.

This matters theologically. Jesus was fully God and fully human, and his human mind grew the way yours and mine does. He learned his Scripture. It wasn't just automatically installed. He sat under teachers.

I think we need to give ourselves some grace there. People sometimes assume I have the whole Bible memorized. I don't. I know how to read it and study it. I know a lot more than I did five years ago, and that came from studying, listening, and asking questions.

What's the difference between knowing and understanding?

Verse 50 says his parents did not understand the saying he spoke to them. He had said he must be in his Father's house.

Why didn't they understand? Mary knew he was God's Son. She knew she was a virgin when she conceived. She knew it. She didn't understand it yet. She had a twelve-year-old who had scraped his knees and run and played and laughed like any child. She knew, and she was still growing into understanding.

So when we don't understand something right away, we tend to look down on ourselves as though something is wrong with us. This is Mary. This is Jesus. There's a difference between knowing and understanding, and we grow into it. Scripture says she treasured these things in her heart.

Sometimes God reveals something and you know that you know it was Him, and you still have no idea what it means. Sometimes that clears up quickly. Sometimes you sit with it for years. When God first showed me Bible Study Live, I was standing at the villa in Italy and He showed me an image of myself teaching a Bible study. I knew it was revelation from the Lord. I had no idea what it meant. I was working at a church and leading mission trips at the time, so I assumed it was connected to that somehow. It took six years before I understood.

For some of us it takes a lifetime. For some of us, it may be on the other side of heaven.

What happened after they went home?

Verse 51 says he continued in subjection to them. The Son of God went home to Nazareth and spent the next eighteen years obeying a young mom and a carpenter. The next time we see him, he's about thirty.

Verse 52 says Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men. The Greek word for increasing is prokopto, and it carries the picture of cutting a path forward through brush. Slow, steady progress.

Notice there are four areas. Wisdom, stature, favor with God, favor with people. Mind, body, spirit, and relationships. He grew in all of them, which means he started in one place and moved to another. If that was true for Him, it's certainly true for you and me.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Finishing Luke 2 with a slow read
• 00:27 Reading Luke 2:41-52
• 01:25 Prayer
• 02:22 Why this passage gets taught incorrectly
• 03:16 Where Passover comes from
• 04:13 The eight days and the three pilgrim festivals
• 05:11 Mary didn't have to go, and she went anyway
• 05:37 The walk from Nazareth
• 06:8 Traveling in family groups
• 06:34 How a whole day passed unnoticed
• 07:2 How crowded Jerusalem was
• 07:58 Passover under Roman occupation
• 09:27 Why Rome sent extra soldiers
• 09:54 The Lamb who would become the Lamb
• 10:52 Three days, and then three days again
• 11:23 Was Jesus teaching or learning?
• 12:23 How question and answer teaching worked
• 13:20 What sunesis means
• 14:28 Jesus learned the way we learn
• 15:47 Knowing versus understanding
• 16:42 Mary knew, and she didn't understand yet
• 17:40 Six years before I understood
• 18:33 Eighteen quiet years in Nazareth
• 19:14 Prokopto, and the four areas of growth

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices