Growing In Godliness Blog
“Those 18 Years”
Categories: Author: Paul Earnhart, JesusThose 18 Years
By Paul Earnhart
Many people have more curiosity about what the Bible does not say than have about what it does say. If someone claims to have found a “Lost book of the Bible,” they will buy the book and read it carefully, even though they have never read the books that ARE in the Bible. And they will latch onto any new story about Jesus which is NOT in the Bible, even when they have not studied the stories about Him that ARE there.
Many stories have been fabricated about the places Jesus went and the things He did in the 18 years between the time when he was 12 and the time when he began his ministry at 30. Some of the stories simply have no basis whatever in fact, while others contradict what the Bible says. For example, John tells us in John 2:11 that turning water into wine was the beginning of His miracles. This means that all of the stories you may hear or read of Jesus working miracles when He was a child are false.
Other than those general statements in Luke about his being subject to his parents and about his maturing into manhood, the only clue we have to his activities during those years is found in Mark 6:3. After he had begun His ministry He returned to Nazareth and taught in the synagogue. His former neighbors were astonished at His teaching, and they asked, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?”
Notice two things in this reading. First, Jesus had brothers and sisters and, second, they called Him the carpenter, not the son of the carpenter. This means that during the years after he reached manhood, he actually worked as a carpenter in Nazareth. Joseph was likely dead by this time and this made Jesus as the eldest son the breadwinner for His family. Jesus was not too good to work with His hands to make a living. This is what He was doing between the age of 12 and the age of 30.
