Luke 4

Tonight I read in Luke 4 about Jesus going home to Nazareth. This part of scripture amazes me because of how much I can see it today and serves as a warning for me not to become familiar with people like my pastor.

Jesus came home and declared exactly what he was, the Son of God. Jesus does not declare this specifically at the time, but those who understood the scripture he read would have known. All who heard him speak spoke well of him. We see this in verse 22. Then we also see in this verse how everything got messed up because of familiarity.

"How can this be? Isn't this Joseph's son?" These are the two questions that were asked AFTER they spoke well of him. The next thing we know, Jesus parallels his own current situation with those of Elijah and Elisha. In other Gospel's, we read of how Jesus could do few miracles in Nazareth because of their unbelief. But Luke takes it a step further and describes more of what happened while Jesus was in Nazareth.

Not only could Jesus not do many miracles because of their unbelief, but the people of Nazareth tried to kill him in verse 29. There are two things that stand out to me here. One is that Jesus was given faith without measure. Even with this limitless faith, he could not do as many miracles as he otherwise would have because of the unbelief of those who could have received the miracles. The other thing that stands out is that a mob of the people that knew this man growing up could be so mad and offended at him that they tried to kill him.

I believe that they would not have tried to kill him if they had not known him so well as he grew up. If I were to say something highly offensive about a close friend or family member of yours, you would write it off because I am just some random member of the internet community. If, however, a close friend were to say the same offensive thing, most would actually react much more violently than if some random person like myself said the same thing.

There is a great deal of danger in offense. Offense only seems to come after there is first familiarity. We must be very careful not to become too familiar with those who spiritually feed us. I, for instance, have had opportunities to have my pastor's phone number. He has, in fact, had occasions where he called me from his cell phone. I immediately deleted his number from my caller id. This is one way to guard against familiarity, but it is also only one example.

I could give examples of the dangers of offense, but I don't think I could do a better job of this than my own savior did over 2000 years ago. Guard yourself from getting too familiar with people that you shouldn't and make the choice to simply not get offended, for it is a choice if you will take an offense or not.