Matt 13:53–58 — A Prophet Without Honor

We have been considering the seven parables in Matthew 13, which present various aspects of the kingdom of Christ. The chapter’s final saying, in verses 51–52, is not counted as one of the seven parables. Jesus asks the disciples, “Have you understood all these things?” They answer yes. Their confidence is somewhat greater than their understanding, for they still have much to learn, but they have begun to grasp what Jesus is teaching.

Jesus then looks ahead to the time after his resurrection, when the apostles will teach in God’s church: “Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” The word translated “trained” is the same word used for being made a disciple. The apostles are scribes discipled in the ways of the kingdom. This description also extends to those who follow the apostles as ministers and preachers of the gospel. They too must be discipled into the kingdom’s ways. Like householders providing food for their people, they bring forth treasures new and old. They explain the Old Testament in the light of the New and show how everything is fulfilled in Christ.

Jesus Returns to Nazareth

This concludes the third major block of teaching in Matthew’s Gospel. Verse 53 says, “When Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there.” The phrase “when Jesus had finished” is an important refrain that marks the conclusion of each of Matthew’s five major teaching sections.

The first section is the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7, which concludes, “When Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching” (Matt. 7:28). The second is Matthew 10, where Jesus sends the apostles on a mission to Israel, commanding them not to go to the Gentiles but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That section ends, “When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples” (Matt. 11:1). The parables of the kingdom in Matthew 13 form the third section. The fourth, in Matthew 18, concerns life in the community of disciples, and the fifth is the Olivet Discourse about the end of the age in Matthew 24–25. Each concludes with the same transitional refrain.

Having finished these parables, Jesus goes to his hometown and teaches in the synagogue. His hometown is Nazareth, where he was brought up. Matthew has already identified Nazareth as the place where Jesus was raised, and the parallel account in Luke 4:16 explicitly says, “He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.”

The people are astonished at his teaching, just as the crowds were astonished after the Sermon on the Mount. In Nazareth, however, astonishment does not lead to faith. Wonder alone is not saving faith. They recognize that Jesus is extraordinary, but their recognition becomes unbelief and offense. Matthew concludes, “He did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief” (Matt. 13:58).

Astonished Yet Offended

The unbelief of the townspeople is expressed in six rhetorical questions that together form a single argument:

Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?

The first and last questions repeat the same point: Where did this man get such wisdom and power? The four questions between them supply the argument. The people believe they know Jesus well. They know his family, his brothers and sisters, his parents, his social background, and his trade. His family is neither highly educated nor of noble birth. He is the carpenter’s son. Their very familiarity becomes an obstacle: because they know the ordinary circumstances of his life, they assume they know the limits of who he can be.

People naturally look to upbringing and family background to explain someone’s success. But the people of Nazareth cannot see how a teacher of such astonishing wisdom, accompanied by mighty works, could have arisen from such humble origins. Their question inadvertently acknowledges both his unique authority and the unparalleled character of his message. They have correctly perceived that no ordinary explanation is adequate. The absence of a natural explanation should have indicated that his gospel had a supernatural, divine, and heavenly source.

The evidence stands before them, but they respond with unbelief: “They took offense at him” (v. 57). Literally, they stumbled over him. The source of their offense was the contrast between his unique authority and his humble origins. He spoke boldly: “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you.” He claimed, “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” He called, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” A person’s eternal destiny hangs on the response to him.

One commentator observes that the townspeople found it intolerable that Jesus spoke with the undeniable implication of his own supreme importance. They knew his family and upbringing. How could someone so familiar speak as the way to the Father and demand a response of faith? They could not reconcile the man they remembered with the authority of his claims. Rather than revising their judgment of him, they rejected the claims.

The Carpenter’s Son

The townspeople emphasize Jesus’ trade: “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” Mark’s parallel account asks, “Is not this the carpenter?” (Mark 6:3), indicating that Jesus had followed Joseph’s trade, as sons commonly did. Matthew and Mark are not contradicting one another. Together they tell us that Joseph was a carpenter and that Jesus learned and practiced the same craft.

Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father, for Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. Yet within the ordinary social relationships of the time, he was known as Joseph’s son and learned his trade. A carpenter was a woodworker who made such things as plows, yokes, and beds and perhaps prepared beams for houses. He was a craftsman, not a member of the learned elite. Nothing in Jesus’ ordinary upbringing or occupation could account for his supernatural wisdom.

The people therefore perceive the contrast but refuse its obvious implication. They see an ordinary carpenter who speaks with astonishing wisdom and performs mighty works. The answer to their question should have been that his wisdom and power came from God. Instead, the mismatch between his humble background and his divine authority becomes a cause of offense.

Wisdom and Mighty Works

Even in unbelief, the townspeople recognize something true: Jesus’ teaching ministry and miracle-working ministry belong together. Matthew has emphasized this relationship before. Matthew 9:35 summarizes Jesus’ ministry: “Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.” His preaching and his mighty works are inseparable.

The healings and exorcisms are part of the gospel. They provide outward signs of the inward spiritual realities Jesus proclaims. If Jesus had performed miracles without teaching, they would have been displays of raw power without revealed meaning. People might have marveled at him as a prophet, God, an angel, or some other supernatural being, but they would not have understood what the signs proclaimed. The miracles would have become spectacle—astonishing displays like the feats of a stage illusionist, impressing a crowd and provoking applause but conveying no intelligible message of salvation.

Jesus performs miracles in conjunction with gospel preaching because he proclaims the kingdom of God. He is the Messiah who will die for his people and save them from their sins. His healings are therefore carefully related to the gospel message. Leprosy, for example, visibly represents the impurity of sin. The leper is unclean and excluded from the temple and the presence of God. When Jesus cleanses a leper, the miracle portrays his power to remove the impurity of sin and restore sinners to God’s presence. The physical sign directs us to the deeper saving reality.

The miracles are the gospel in visible form. Yet teaching without miracles would also have been incomplete. Jesus might then have appeared to be merely another rabbi offering further instruction about obeying God, improving one’s life, and keeping the law. But Jesus does not come merely to give additional moral teaching or to tell people to try harder. He comes as the Savior from sin and the King of God’s kingdom. He ransoms his people from Satan’s grip and transfers them from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of grace and salvation. His exorcisms demonstrate his authority to deliver from Satan, sin, death, and hell. The deeds show that his message is not advice about self-improvement but news of divine rescue.

The words and works of Jesus therefore interpret and reinforce one another. His teaching explains the purpose of the signs, while the signs display the saving power announced in his teaching. His message is one of gospel grace, and his healings visibly manifest salvation. Indeed, the Greek word used for healing is often the verb “save.” Jesus may say to a sick person, “Your faith has saved you,” meaning also, “Your faith has healed you.” Physical healing becomes an outward sign of salvation itself.

The people of Nazareth see this powerful message of salvation accompanied by miracles, but their hearts are hardened. If they understood what the miracles signified, they would see the truth. Instead, they find the contrast between Jesus’ ordinary trade and divine authority intolerable.

A Prophet Without Honor

Jesus responds, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household” (Matt. 13:57). Which Old Testament prophet particularly fits this description? The clearest parallel appears to be Jeremiah.

Jeremiah and Anathoth

Jeremiah came from Anathoth (Jer. 1:1), and the men of his hometown opposed his ministry. Jeremiah 11–12 even calls the men of Anathoth his “brothers,” recalling the mention of Jesus’ brothers in Matthew 13. They threatened to kill Jeremiah if he continued prophesying in the Lord’s name.

They hated his message that God would send Israel into captivity and destroy the temple. Such judgment seemed impossible to them: How could God permit the destruction of his holy temple? They rejected Jeremiah because they refused the word of judgment he proclaimed.

Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet. He wept over Jerusalem’s coming destruction and over his continual rejection by his own people and their leaders. He also had much to say about false prophets, who reassured corrupt leaders with messages they wanted to hear: Babylon would not prevail; the temple would remain secure; the army could resist, and everything would be well. Those were lying prophets. Their popularity did not validate their message; it exposed their willingness to tell the people what they desired to hear.

Jeremiah’s rejection was evidence that he was a true prophet rather than a flatterer serving the nation’s agenda. Jesus appears to identify himself with Jeremiah. His rejection in his hometown and household confirms that he too is a true prophet who speaks the word of God rather than what people wish to hear.

Elijah, Elisha, and the Gentiles

Luke’s parallel account develops the same event further. Jesus enters the synagogue at Nazareth and reads from Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

The passage unites proclamation with the works of deliverance and healing that accompany Jesus’ ministry. Giving sight to the blind and liberty to the oppressed are announced as good news. After reading it, Jesus declares, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” At first the people marvel at his gracious words, but they also ask, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Jesus anticipates their demand that he perform in Nazareth the works they heard he had done in Capernaum: “Physician, heal yourself.” He answers, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown” (Luke 4:24).

Jesus then compares his ministry to Elijah and Elisha. During the famine in Elijah’s day, there were many widows in Israel, but Elijah was sent to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon, a Gentile. There were likewise many lepers in Israel during Elisha’s ministry, but the one cleansed was Naaman the Syrian, another Gentile.

The synagogue is filled with wrath. The people drive Jesus from the town and take him to the brow of a hill to throw him down, but he passes through their midst. Like Jeremiah, Jesus delivers an unwelcome message rather than fitting the people’s agenda. Like Elijah and Elisha, he shows that God’s grace will extend beyond Israel to the Gentiles.

The people wanted a Messiah who would serve their interests and promote their agenda. They did not want a Messiah who came to save his people from their sins and to bring salvation to Gentiles. The thought that divine grace might pass over unbelieving Israel and reach outsiders enraged them. This rejection in Nazareth points toward two important truths.

The Humiliation of Christ

First, this passage highlights the humiliation of Christ. Christian theology speaks of Christ’s two states: humiliation and exaltation. His humiliation begins with his incarnation and virgin birth and continues through his ordinary earthly life, public ministry, suffering, and death. His exaltation reverses that low estate: he is raised from the dead, ascends into heaven, and is seated at God’s right hand. Matthew 13:53–58 gives us a window into the long, quiet portion of his humiliation before his public ministry.

Jesus evidently lived an unexceptional life within his family while growing up. Mary and Joseph remembered the miracles surrounding his birth, and Luke 2:41–52 records the occasion when the twelve-year-old Jesus discussed theology with teachers in the temple. For the most part, however, from infancy until his presentation to Israel at his baptism, when the Spirit descended upon him and commissioned his public ministry, he appeared ordinary. The townspeople do not recall a childhood filled with public wonders. They remember a family member, neighbor, and craftsman. He veiled his glory.

The False Legends of the Boy Jesus

The ordinary memory of Jesus held by his townspeople shows that later legends about miracles performed during his childhood are false. The apocryphal gospels contain stories of the boy Jesus making twelve sparrows from clay on the Sabbath and then commanding them to fly away as living birds. Another story imagines him controlling the water in a stream by his word, performing miniature Red Sea-like wonders. Still another says that when a boy collided with him and caused offense, Jesus struck the child dead.

These imagined wonders illustrate the problem of miracles detached from the gospel. They are mere spectacle, written to display a supernatural child who astonishes others with raw power. Matthew’s account points in the opposite direction. The people of Nazareth remember Jesus as an ordinary member of an ordinary family: Mary’s son, the brother of James, Joseph, Simon, Judas, and his sisters, and the carpenter’s son. Nothing like these apocryphal legends had happened in their presence.

He Emptied Himself

This ordinary life belongs to the humiliation of Christ. Philippians 2 says that although Christ existed in the form of God, he “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

To say that Christ did not count equality with God “a thing to be grasped” does not mean that he lacked equality with God and refused to seize it. He fully possessed the divine nature and was equal with God. Yet he did not treat that status as something to exploit for his own advantage. A victorious Roman general might parade through the city displaying the spoils of war and drawing attention to his glory. Christ did not parade his divine status in that fashion. He did not use his divine glory merely to impress and overwhelm others.

Nor does “emptied himself” mean that Christ ceased to be divine, surrendered divine attributes, or reduced the possession of his equality with God. The text explains his self-emptying through the phrases that follow: he emptied himself “by taking the form of a servant” and “being born in the likeness of men.” He emptied himself not by subtraction but by addition—not by ceasing to be God, but by assuming the form of a servant. He humbled himself through incarnation and servanthood, concealing his divine glory and declining to use his divine prerogatives for his own advantage.

One aspect of that humiliation was rejection and scorn by his own household and hometown. Jesus appeared ordinary, humble, and unimportant. He did not come as a military general or emperor but as the son of a carpenter, the despised and rejected Son of Man.

This accords with the earlier parable of the leaven and the hidden empire of the Son of Man. Christ accomplishes his reign precisely through his humiliation as the suffering servant. He is a Savior who came not to compel everyone immediately to bow before an outward display of glory. He came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. He came to seek and save the lost, redeeming his people through suffering and humiliation. What a beautiful Savior we have.

The triumphal entry presents the same paradox. At the climax of Matthew’s narrative, Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey. Matthew 21:4–5 says that this fulfills the prophecy, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” The great and glorious King comes as the humble servant of the Lord, approaching the cross to deliver his people from their sins.

Exaltation will come. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. But humiliation comes first, and our salvation depends upon it. Christ comes as the humble servant to atone for our sins by his death.

Rejection and the Worldwide Kingdom

Second, Jesus’ rejection by Nazareth foreshadows his rejection by the nation of Israel as a whole. His own townspeople should have received and welcomed him, but they took offense. In the same way, John writes, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:11).

This does not mean that every Jew rejected Jesus. The Twelve, the broader body of disciples, and many others received him as the Messiah. Nevertheless, the majority of the nation, and particularly its leaders, rejected him. Matthew records the Nazareth incident here to prepare us for that larger rejection later in the Gospel.

The movement from Israel toward the Gentiles is a significant theme in Matthew. In Matthew 21:43, Jesus tells Israel’s leaders, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” This transition is not absolute, as though every Jew rejected Christ and every Gentile believed. It describes the broad redemptive-historical movement of the kingdom.

The parallel in Luke 4 makes that movement explicit through the examples of Elijah and Elisha: Israel did not welcome the prophets, while a Gentile widow and a Gentile leper received mercy. The enraged synagogue crowd that tries to kill Jesus foreshadows the later crowd crying, “Crucify him!”

Although many among the Jews rejected Christ, many Gentiles would gladly believe. Acts repeatedly records Gentiles receiving the message that others rejected. In God’s mysterious purpose, Israel’s rejection of Jesus opened the way for the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him. What looks at first like a wholly negative episode therefore belongs to the unfolding of a much greater salvation.

The rejection at Nazareth therefore contains a hidden indication of something wonderful. It prepares for the end of the story, when Jesus is crucified, raised from the dead, and exalted to heaven. The apparent defeat of rejection and crucifixion becomes the way by which salvation is accomplished. The risen Christ then commissions his disciples to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, bringing the Gentiles into his glorious kingdom.

This does not mean that all Jews are lost. Many Jews believe, and Paul points to himself in Romans 11: “I too am an Israelite.” He belongs to the believing remnant of Israel. Nor does it mean that every Gentile believes. The distinction is ultimately between faith and unbelief, not between two ethnic groups as such. God is accomplishing a great salvation, forming a renewed people of God composed of all who believe in Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile. Though Christ was rejected by his townspeople, he is welcomed by all his elect. His kingdom advances to the ends of the earth as he gathers this people to himself.