Immediately after the Lord did the wonderful work of bringing in the blessings of the kingdom, He came to His own country. Mark 6:1 says, “And He went out from there and came into His own country, and His disciples followed Him.” Verses 2 and 3 indicate that He was despised and rejected by the Nazarenes: “And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue; and many hearing were astounded, saying, Where did this man get these things? And what wisdom is given to this man! And such works of power take place through His hands! 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 were stumbled in Him.” Here we see that the Nazarenes knew the Slave-Savior according to the flesh, not according to the Spirit (2 Cor. 5:16). They were blinded by their natural knowledge.
The Lord Jesus then said to them, “A prophet is not dishonored except in his own country and among his relatives and in his own house” (v. 4). This word indicates that probably even some of the Lord’s own household joined in with the others to despise and reject Him.
The word of the blind despisers here may be considered a fulfillment of the prophecy concerning the Slave-Savior in Isaiah 53:2 and 3: “As a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men.” This was to know Him according to the flesh in His humanity, not according to the Spirit in His deity (Rom. 1:4). In His humanity He was a root out of dry ground, a shoot out of the stump of Jesse, and a Branch out of his roots (Isa. 11:1), a Branch unto David (Jer. 23:5; 33:15), the Branch who was a Man and the Servant of Jehovah (Zech. 3:8; 6:12), out of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom. 1:3). In His deity He was the Branch of Jehovah for beauty and glory (Isa. 4:2), the Son of God marked out in power according to the Spirit (Rom. 1:4).
Only in the Gospel of Mark is the Lord Jesus called a carpenter. Those who rejected Him asked, “Is not this the carpenter?” They used the word “carpenter” in a despising manner. They were astounded by His teaching, by His wisdom, and by His works of power. But they regarded Him as a person of low status. In today’s terms, they might have wondered what qualifications He had, what kind of degree He had.
The word “stumbled” in 6:3 indicates that the Nazarenes rejected the Slave-Savior. Why were they stumbled in Him? They were stumbled in Him because, on the one hand, they heard wonderful words out of His mouth and saw some of His marvelous deeds, and yet, on the other hand, they considered that He did not have a high status or degree. They saw Him as one who was merely a carpenter. Therefore, they were stumbled in Him, and they despised Him.
The principle is the same today. Many Christians care about status or the degrees of others and are eager to look into such things. Some years ago I had a talk with a certain preacher who was promoting himself very much. He asked me how many among us have a doctoral degree. I did not say anything in answer to this question. My silence was an indication that we are not concerned about how many of the church members have a doctoral degree. This man went on to boast of the number of people in his group who had a Ph.D. This is an illustration of the concern of today’s Christians for status and degrees.
Many of those who have a doctoral degree in theology do not have much experience of the living Christ. Neither do they have much of the riches of Christ or the knowledge of the depths of the truths in the Word of God. Their understanding of the Bible, on the contrary, may be very superficial.